1969 Topps #23 Lew Krausse
About Lew Krausse
Card #23, a first-series issue, follows Krausse through the franchise's opening year in Oakland: 10-11 with a 3.11 ERA over 185 innings, 25 starts among 36 appearances, for a club that went 82-80 and gave the Athletics their first winning record in seventeen years. He drew the start for the first Athletics home game in Oakland on April 17, 1968, in front of 50,164 at the Coliseum, allowing four runs in five and a third innings while Dave McNally held Oakland to two hits, a Rick Monday home run the lone run of a 4-1 loss. Former teammate Bill Stafford taught him a slider that year, and it brought his first complete-game win since September 1966.
Lewis Bernard Krausse Jr. (April 25, 1943 - February 16, 2021) was credited with 18 no-hitters in amateur ball before he left Chester High School in Pennsylvania. Kansas City signed him within hours of his June 6, 1961 graduation for $125,000, a figure Athletics general manager Frank Lane called baseball's largest bonus ever; his father, Lew Krausse Sr., a former Philadelphia Athletics pitcher, scouted for the club. Ten days after graduation, at 18, Krausse threw a three-hit, 4-0 shutout over the expansion Los Angeles Angels, becoming the youngest pitcher in either league to complete a nine-inning shutout. Control problems and elbow surgery then kept him in the minors through 1962 and 1963. He broke through in 1966 at 14-9 with a 2.99 ERA; in 1967 owner Charlie Finley fined and suspended him over a team flight, turmoil that cost manager Alvin Dark his job and Ken Harrelson his release. Krausse pitched twelve major league seasons for five clubs, finishing 68-91 with a 4.00 ERA, then built a Kansas City metals business. He entered the Delaware County, Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame in 1981.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · National Baseball Hall of Fame · SABR Games Project · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 196 | 0 | 34 | 94 | 35 | 18 | 7 | 8 | 0 |
| SGC | 4 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 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 Oakland Athletics cards:
- #1 American League 1968 Batting Leaders
- #44 Danny Cater
- #68 Dave Duncan
- #105 Rick Monday
- #124 Hank Bauer
- #143 Joe Nossek
- #195 John Odom
- #217 John Donaldson
- #235 Jim Hunter
- #260 Reggie Jackson
- #281 Ted Kubiak
- #302 Jim Pagliaroni
- #334 Phil Roof
- #358 Athletics 1969 Rookie Stars
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1969 Topps #23 card?
It is card #23 of the 664-card 1969 Topps Baseball set, picturing Lew Krausse of the Oakland Athletics.
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.