1969 Topps #238 Ken Johnson
About Ken Johnson
By the third series of 1969, card #238 was picturing a 35-year-old near the end of the line. Atlanta's 1968 rotation belonged to Phil Niekro, Pat Jarvis and Ron Reed, and Ken Johnson took what was left of the work: 31 appearances, 135 innings, a 5-8 record and a 3.47 ERA for a club that finished exactly .500. He made only nine more appearances as a Brave, going 0-1 with a 4.97 ERA, and was gone before Atlanta won the first National League West title. The Yankees and then the Cubs took turns with him over the rest of 1969, and three April games for Montreal in 1970 closed out 13 seasons.
Ken Johnson (Kenneth Travis Johnson), born June 16, 1933, in West Palm Beach, Florida, was a 6-foot-4 right-handed pitcher who spent 13 major-league seasons, 1958 through 1970, with seven clubs: the Kansas City Athletics, Cincinnati Reds, Houston Colt .45s/Astros, Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves, New York Yankees, Chicago Cubs, and Montreal Expos. Naturally left-handed, he threw right-handed because a right-handed glove was the only one his father could find for him as a boy. He debuted for Kansas City on September 13, 1958, and spent almost a decade in the Philadelphia/Kansas City organization before a mid-1961 move to Cincinnati and a new knuckleball finally settled him as a big-league starter. He is remembered as the only pitcher in major-league history to lose a complete-game, nine-inning no-hitter, a 1-0 defeat to Cincinnati on April 23, 1964, while pitching for Houston. Johnson also appeared in the 1961 World Series for the pennant-winning Reds. He finished 91-106 with a 3.46 ERA, 50 complete games and 1,042 strikeouts over 1,737 1/3 innings, and died November 21, 2015, in Pineville, Louisiana.
Sources: Wikipedia · Baseball-Reference · SABR Games Project · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 222 | 4 | 29 | 124 | 40 | 13 | 4 | 8 | 0 |
| SGC | 7 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 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 Atlanta Braves cards:
- #2 National League 1968 Batting Leaders
- #33 Wayne Causey
- #53 Sonny Jackson
- #79 Milt Pappas
- #100 Hank Aaron
- #128 Tommie Aaron
- #154 Jim Britton
- #177 Ron Reed
- #196 Lum Harris
- #210 Felix Millan
- #261 Bob Johnson
- #282 Pat Jarvis
- #300 Felipe Alou
- #331 Braves 1969 Rookie Stars
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1969 Topps #238 card?
It is card #238 of the 664-card 1969 Topps Baseball set, picturing Ken Johnson of the Atlanta Braves.
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.