1969 Topps #294 Jim Lemon
About this card
This is one of the 25 manager cards in the 1969 Topps set - one for each of the 24 clubs, with Washington twice (#294 Jim Lemon, the outgoing manager, and #650 Ted Williams, hired that February). Nine of the 25 are Hall of Famers.
About Jim Lemon
Card #294 is Lemon's second and last card as a manager, and Topps reused the photo from his 1968 issue to make it. By the time it reached packs he was not managing anyone. Bob Short bought the Senators on December 3, 1968, cleaned out the front office, and announced Ted Williams as the new manager on February 21, 1969. Topps ran the card regardless and used the back to tell buyers that Lemon was no longer the skipper, which makes this an unusual thing to own: a card that openly admits it is already out of date.
James Robert Lemon was born March 23, 1928 in Covington, Virginia, the third of six children raised by a paper-mill millwright and his wife. Everybody called him Bob until Cleveland signed him out of Covington High School in 1947, and he took the name Jim to avoid confusion with Indians ace Bob Lemon. Two Army years in 1951 and 1952, spent mostly at Fort Meade, Maryland, cost him his swing, and the Indians sold him to the Washington Senators for a reported $20,000 in May 1954. The 6-foot-4 slugger finally won a regular job in 1956 at age 28 and held it through 1960, hitting at least 26 home runs four times and driving in exactly 100 runs in both 1959 and 1960. On August 31, 1956 he hit three straight homers off Whitey Ford with President Eisenhower in the Griffith Stadium stands, joining Joe DiMaggio as the only men to homer three times in that cavernous park. He moved with the franchise to Minnesota in 1961, but a shoulder injury took his power, and he retired after 1963 with 164 home runs and a .262 average. He coached the Twins in two stints, managed Washington in 1968, entered the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame in 1988, and died in 2006.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 190 | 2 | 20 | 87 | 53 | 14 | 12 | 2 | 0 |
| SGC | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 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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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1969 Topps #294 card?
It is card #294 of the 664-card 1969 Topps Baseball set, picturing Jim Lemon of the Washington Senators. This is one of the 25 manager cards in the 1969 Topps set - one for each of the 24 clubs, with Washington twice (#294 Jim Lemon, the outgoing manager, and #650 Ted Williams, hired that February). Nine of the 25 are Hall of Famers.
Why are there two Washington Senators manager cards?
Washington changed managers over the winter: #294 Jim Lemon is the outgoing manager and #650 Ted Williams the new one, hired that February, so the set carries 25 manager cards for 24 clubs.
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.