1969 Topps #484 Joe Gordon
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 Joe Gordon
Card 484, from the fifth series, catches Gordon on his last job in a big-league dugout: the expansion Kansas City Royals of 1969. Owner Ewing Kauffman wanted a high-profile name and talked the former Yankees and Indians star into becoming the franchise's first manager, handing him a roster stocked out of the October 1968 expansion draft. Kansas City won its very first game, 4-3 over Minnesota in twelve innings at Municipal Stadium on April 8, then settled at 69-93-1, fourth in the new American League West, with Lou Piniella taking Rookie of the Year. Working on a one-year deal, Gordon resigned when the season ended, the only man ever to manage both of Kansas City's major-league clubs.
Joe Gordon, nicknamed "Flash" for the comic-book hero who shared his surname, was the outstanding second baseman of the 1940s across an eleven-year career with the New York Yankees (1938-1943, 1946) and Cleveland Indians (1947-1950). A University of Oregon man who also competed there in gymnastics, he turned that training into famously acrobatic work around the bag. His 25 home runs as a 1938 rookie broke Charlie Gehringer's American League record for second basemen, and Gordon kept raising his own mark, to 32 in 1948, a standard that held until Bret Boone hit 36 in 2001. He was a nine-time All-Star, won the 1942 American League Most Valuable Player award over Triple Crown winner Ted Williams while batting .322, and played on five World Series champions: four in New York and one in Cleveland, where he led the 1948 title club in home runs and runs batted in. Two years in the Army Air Force cost him the 1944 and 1945 seasons. He retired with 253 home runs, 975 runs batted in and a .268 average, then managed four big-league clubs. Gordon was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee in 2009, thirty-one years after his death.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 225 | 1 | 25 | 102 | 59 | 18 | 10 | 10 | 0 |
| SGC | 6 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 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:
- #29 Dave Morehead
- #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 #484 card?
It is card #484 of the 664-card 1969 Topps Baseball set, picturing Joe Gordon of the Kansas City Royals. 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.
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.