1969 Topps #109 Jim Lonborg
About Jim Lonborg
Card #109 is a first-series 1969 Topps issue, a plain low number. It shows a pitcher still searching: Lonborg went 7-11 with a 4.51 ERA over 143.2 innings in 1969, barely half the 273.1 he threw in his Cy Young year, and he would win only 27 games across the four seasons from 1968 through 1971 before Boston traded him away.
James Reynold Lonborg, a 6-foot-5 Stanford right-hander, signed with the Boston Red Sox in August 1963 for a $25,000 bonus, more than Baltimore offered. He reached the majors in 1965, went 9-17 with a 4.47 ERA as a groundball pitcher behind a leaky defense, then 10-10 in 1966. In 1967 he carried the Impossible Dream pennant race at 22-9 with a 3.16 ERA, tying for the American League lead in wins and starts and leading it with 246 strikeouts. Named an All-Star that July, he beat Minnesota on the final day to clinch the pennant, then threw a World Series one-hit shutout and a second complete-game win before losing Game Seven on two days rest as St. Louis took the Series four games to three. He became the first Red Sox pitcher to win the Cy Young Award. Skiing that December he tore ligaments in his left knee, and the shoulder trouble that followed cut his workload through 1971. Traded to Milwaukee and then Philadelphia, he won 17 games in 1974 and 18 in 1976, losing his only start in each of the 1976 and 1977 NL Championship Series. He finished 157-137, pitched last in 1979, then practiced dentistry in Massachusetts. Not a National Baseball Hall of Famer, he was elected to the Red Sox Hall of Fame in 2002.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 256 | 5 | 30 | 141 | 40 | 14 | 11 | 14 | 1 |
| SGC | 11 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 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
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- #3 American League 1968 RBI Leaders
- #5 American League 1968 Home Run Leaders
- #21 Jose Santiago
- #52 Mike Andrews
- #89 Russ Gibson
- #130 Carl Yastrzemski
- #148 Lee Stange
- #172 Jerry Stephenson
- #189 Red Sox 1969 Rookie Stars
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- #240 Ken Harrelson
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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1969 Topps #109 card?
It is card #109 of the 664-card 1969 Topps Baseball set, picturing Jim Lonborg of the Boston Red Sox.
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.