1969 Topps #659 Johnny Podres
About Johnny Podres
His last card as a player, #659, is buried in the seventh series, a high number out of the expansion Padres' first summer. San Diego was his third and final big league club. After a 1968 spent in the minors, Podres came back at 36, made the staff, and went 5-6 with a 4.31 earned run average across 17 games and 64 2/3 innings before his last big league appearance on June 21, 1969. The card closes a 15-season ledger that opened in Brooklyn sixteen years earlier: 2,265 innings and 24 shutouts.
John Joseph Podres was a left-hander out of Witherbee, a hamlet in New York's Adirondacks where his father worked the mines and pitched semipro ball on Sundays. Brooklyn signed him as an amateur free agent before the 1951 season, and by 1953 he was with the Dodgers, 9-4 as a rookie. Two years later he became folklore. Podres beat the Yankees in Game 3 of the 1955 World Series on his 23rd birthday, then started Game 7 on October 4 and shut them out 2-0 to give Brooklyn the only championship it ever won, taking home the first World Series Most Valuable Player Award ever given. The Navy claimed his 1956 season. He came back to lead the National League with a 2.66 earned run average and six shutouts in 1957, was named to four All-Star teams, and added three more rings after the club moved to Los Angeles. He finished at 148-116 with a 3.68 earned run average and 1,435 strikeouts, then coached pitchers for the Padres, Red Sox, Twins and Phillies across 23 seasons. Cooperstown honors the moment without ever having elected the man: a bronze of Podres stands outside the Hall of Fame, 60 feet six inches from a statue of Roy Campanella. The National Polish-American Sports Hall of Fame inducted him in 2002.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 315 | 3 | 58 | 175 | 54 | 15 | 6 | 4 | 0 |
| SGC | 32 | 0 | 6 | 20 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 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 #659 card?
It is card #659 of the 664-card 1969 Topps Baseball set, picturing Johnny Podres of the San Diego Padres.
Why is #659 harder to find?
It is a high number card from the seventh and last print series, #589-664 - the scarce end of the set.
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.