1969 Topps #529 Ed Kirkpatrick
About Ed Kirkpatrick
Card #529 is a sixth-series issue and the first to show Kirkpatrick in a Kansas City uniform. The Angels sent him and Dennis Paepke to the expansion Royals on December 12, 1968, for Hoyt Wilhelm, a knuckleballer then in his forties and deep into a Hall of Fame career - a strange price for a 24-year-old left-handed hitter who could catch. The back gives his 1968 with California: 89 games, 161 at-bats, 37 hits, one home run, 15 runs batted in, .230. On April 8, 1969, he started in left field in the first game the Royals ever played, a 12-inning win over Minnesota, and went 0-for-6.
Edgar Leon 'Ed' Kirkpatrick was born October 8, 1944, in Spokane, Washington, and grew up in Glendora, California. The Angels signed him as an amateur free agent in 1962, and he debuted on September 13 that year, less than a month short of his eighteenth birthday. Over 16 seasons (1962-1977) he caught and played the outfield for the Los Angeles/California Angels (1962-1968), Kansas City Royals (1969-1973) and Pittsburgh Pirates (1974-1977), closing out 1977 with brief stops in Texas and Milwaukee. He spent five seasons in Kansas City after the Angels dealt him to the expansion club, then went to Pittsburgh in a December 1973 trade and was part of the Pirates teams that won the National League East in 1974 and 1975. He was called 'Spanky' for his resemblance to Little Rascals star Spanky McFarland. He finished with 1,311 games, 824 hits, 85 home runs, 424 RBI and a .238 average. In 1981 a seemingly minor car accident in La Habra, California, produced a blood clot that traveled to his brain; he lay in a coma for five and a half months and was left permanently paralyzed. He died of throat cancer on November 15, 2010, in Mission Viejo, California, at 66.
Sources: Wikipedia · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac (1) · Baseball Almanac (2) · Baseball Almanac (3) · Retrosheet · The Hardball Times
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 392 | 3 | 126 | 212 | 24 | 8 | 14 | 5 | 0 |
| SGC | 9 | 0 | 5 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 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 Kansas City Royals cards:
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- #49 Royals 1969 Rookie Stars
- #71 Steve Whitaker
- #93 Joe Foy
- #116 Chuck Harrison
- #137 Wally Bunker
- #159 Jerry Adair
- #211 Galen Cisco
- #239 Bob Taylor
- #258 Jackie Hernandez
- #279 Roger Nelson
- #298 Dave Nicholson
- #352 Paul Schaal
- #376 Royals 1969 Rookie Stars
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1969 Topps #529 card?
It is card #529 of the 664-card 1969 Topps Baseball set, picturing Ed Kirkpatrick of the Kansas City Royals.
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.