1969 Topps #187 Leon Wagner
About Leon Wagner
Card #187 is a second-series card, and it is the oddest card Wagner ever had: he is in a Cincinnati Reds uniform for a team he never played a regular-season game for. The White Sox sold him to the Reds on December 5, 1968; he went to camp with them, was returned to Chicago on April 5, and was released the same day. How Topps got a genuine Reds photograph in time for an early series has never been explained. The Giants signed him in May, and after a summer at Phoenix he closed his career with 11 games and four hits in 12 at-bats, the last on October 2, 1969.
Leon Lamar Wagner (May 13, 1934 - January 3, 2004) was a left-handed-hitting outfielder who played twelve major-league seasons between 1958 and 1969 for the San Francisco Giants, St. Louis Cardinals, Los Angeles Angels, Cleveland Indians, and Chicago White Sox. New York Giants scout Ray Lucas signed him off a Michigan sandlot team in 1954, and he punished minor-league pitching - 51 home runs in the Carolina League in 1956 - while committing enough outfield errors to worry every manager he had. Blocked in San Francisco and St. Louis, he finally got a regular job with the expansion Angels in 1961 and became their first real slugger, peaking in 1962 with 37 home runs, 107 RBIs, a fourth-place MVP finish, and the All-Star Game MVP award, the first American Leaguer to win it. The press tagged him 'Daddy Wags' for the loose, below-the-waist wiggle he went through in the batter's box. Traded to Cleveland after the 1963 season, he anchored the Indians' outfield for three productive years, then slid into a platoon and pinch-hitting role as he turned 33. He finished at .272 with 211 home runs and 669 RBIs, and later sold cars and did public-relations work before his death in Los Angeles in 2004.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · National Baseball Hall of Fame · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 214 | 1 | 25 | 118 | 45 | 13 | 4 | 8 | 0 |
| SGC | 3 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 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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Related cards
More Cincinnati Reds cards:
- #2 National League 1968 Batting Leaders
- #26 Clay Carroll
- #70 Tommy Helms
- #81 Mel Queen
- #95 Johnny Bench
- #120 Pete Rose
- #142 Woody Woodward
- #213 Gerry Arrigo
- #234 Dave Bristol
- #259 Bill Short
- #280 Alex Johnson
- #295 Tony Perez
- #318 Jack Fisher
- #339 Reds 1969 Rookie Stars
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1969 Topps #187 card?
It is card #187 of the 664-card 1969 Topps Baseball set, picturing Leon Wagner of the Cincinnati Reds.
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.