1969 Topps #540 Curt Flood
About Curt Flood
Two Flood cards appear in the 1969 set. #426 is a fifth-series card in the Sporting News All-Star subset - The Sporting News had named him its National League All-Star center fielder for 1968 - while #540 is his regular sixth-series card. The 1968 season behind both: a .301 average with 186 hits, a third All-Star Game selection, and fourth place in the NL MVP vote won by teammate Bob Gibson. St. Louis repeated as pennant winner, then lost Game Seven to Detroit after Flood lost his footing on Jim Northrup's drive to center.
Curtis Charles Flood grew up in Oakland, California, and signed with the Cincinnati Redlegs in 1956. Cincinnati traded him to the St. Louis Cardinals in December 1957, and he held center field there from 1958 through 1969. Flood won seven straight Gold Gloves (1963-1969), made three All-Star teams (1964, 1966, 1968), batted over .300 six times, and ran off 226 consecutive errorless games from September 1965 to June 1967, a National League record for an outfielder. He won World Series rings with St. Louis in 1964 and 1967 and finished fourth in the 1968 NL MVP vote. After the 1969 season the Cardinals traded him to the Philadelphia Phillies; Flood refused to report, told commissioner Bowie Kuhn he was not a piece of property to be bought and sold, and sued Major League Baseball over the reserve clause. He sat out 1970, played 13 games for the Washington Senators in 1971, and lost 5-3 in the Supreme Court in 1972. Free agency arrived anyway by 1976, and Congress named the 1998 Curt Flood Act for him; the Cardinals put him in their team Hall of Fame in 2015. He died in January 1997, two days after his 59th birthday and two years after a throat cancer diagnosis. He has never been elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac · Stats Crew
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 545 | 9 | 96 | 250 | 87 | 48 | 27 | 27 | 1 |
| SGC | 57 | 0 | 11 | 15 | 13 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 0 |
Graded population — a scarcity guide, not a price. Data as of 2026-09-04. Half grades fold down for both graders (8.5→8); PSA qualified slabs (OC, ST, PD, MC and the like) are not counted.
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Related cards
More Curt Flood in this set: #426 Sporting News All-Stars
More St. Louis Cardinals cards:
- #8 National League 1968 ERA Leaders
- #10 National League 1968 Pitching Leaders
- #12 National League 1968 Strikeout Leaders
- #18 Dick Schofield
- #39 Dick Hughes
- #60 Nelson Briles
- #85 Lou Brock
- #110 Mike Shannon
- #136 Cardinals 1969 Rookie Stars
- #160 Vada Pinson
- #162 World Series Game #1 - Gibson Fans 17; Sets New Record!
- #164 World Series Game #3 - McCarver's Homer Puts St. Louis Ahead
- #165 World Series Game #4 - Brock's Lead-Off HR Starts Cards' Romp
- #181 Mel Nelson
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1969 Topps #540 card?
It is card #540 of the 664-card 1969 Topps Baseball set, picturing Curt Flood of the St. Louis Cardinals.
How many cards are in the 1969 Topps Baseball set?
664 cards, tracked as 696 collectible states. Numbers run from 1 to 664 with none skipped and no printed number shared by two cards; 32 cards carry catalogued print variations that the master set counts separately, 23 of them the yellow- and white-letter name pairs of #440-511.
Sources: Trading Card Database, PSA CardFacts, Cardboard Connection, Baseball Almanac, Baseball-Reference, the SABR BioProject and the National Baseball Hall of Fame, PSA & SGC population reports. Card data compiled and maintained by T206Cards.com. Page last updated 2026-10-12.