1969 Topps #216 Don Sutton
About Don Sutton
Card #216 sits in the second series of the 1969 set, a regular number. The season it was issued into became Sutton's heaviest: career highs of 41 starts and 293 and one-third innings, with 217 strikeouts, 11 complete games and four shutouts, all of it adding up to a 17-18 record and a third straight losing mark on a staff where Claude Osteen and Bill Singer each won 20. On May 1 at Candlestick Park he threw the first of his five career one-hitters, spoiled only by a one-out double in the eighth by Jim Davenport, inside a run of 27 and one-third scoreless innings.
Don Sutton pitched 23 major league seasons from 1966 through 1988 and spent 16 of them with the Los Angeles Dodgers, reaching the majors at 21 after a single season in the minors. Born in Clio, Alabama, to teenaged sharecropper parents who moved the family to the Florida panhandle, he signed with the Dodgers in September 1964 for an estimated $15,000 after a summer of amateur ball. He built the career on command and durability rather than power, logging at least 200 innings in 20 of his first 21 seasons and winning 324 games against 256 losses with a 3.26 ERA, 58 shutouts and 3,574 strikeouts, seventh on the all-time list. He was a four-time All-Star, in 1972, 1973, 1975 and 1977, and MVP of the 1977 All-Star Game, yet he won 20 games only once, going 21-10 in 1976. Opponents accused him for years of scuffing baseballs, and the umpires who searched him never found anything. After Los Angeles let him go as a free agent he pitched for Houston, Milwaukee, Oakland and California, winning his 300th game on June 18, 1986, then closed out with a last Dodgers season in 1988. The writers elected him to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1998 and the Dodgers retired his number that year.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 970 | 7 | 64 | 338 | 208 | 140 | 86 | 125 | 2 |
| SGC | 138 | 1 | 7 | 22 | 30 | 28 | 20 | 30 | 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 Los Angeles Dodgers cards:
- #12 National League 1968 Strikeout Leaders
- #24 Walt Alston
- #47 Paul Popovich
- #65 Willie Davis
- #94 Hank Aguirre
- #122 Ron Fairly
- #139 Andy Kosco
- #140 Jim Lefebvre
- #161 John Purdin
- #241 Jim Brewer
- #266 Dodgers 1969 Rookie Stars
- #289 Bart Shirley
- #310 Tom Haller
- #327 Willie Crawford
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1969 Topps #216 card?
It is card #216 of the 664-card 1969 Topps Baseball set, picturing Don Sutton of the Los Angeles Dodgers.
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.