1969 Topps #40 Mayo Smith
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 Mayo Smith
Coming off the 1968 championship, Smith managed the Tigers to a 90-72 record and a second-place finish in 1969, his third full season running the club. This 1969 Topps card, #40 in the first print series, depicts him with the Tigers in that follow-up season.
Mayo Smith spent nearly four decades in professional baseball as a player, manager and scout. An outfielder, he starred for years in the minors with the Toronto Maple Leafs and Buffalo Bisons, winning the International League batting title in 1944, before a brief major league career with the 1945 Philadelphia Athletics. He turned to managing in the Yankees farm system, then led the Philadelphia Phillies from 1955 to 1958 and the Cincinnati Redlegs in 1959. After years as a Yankees advance scout, he took over the Detroit Tigers in 1967 and guided them to a pennant and the 1968 World Series championship over the St. Louis Cardinals, earning The Sporting News Manager of the Year Award. He remained Detroit's manager through 1970. He was nicknamed Catfish in high school after Georgia football All-American Vernon Catfish Smith, and later, as the Yankees' longtime advance man, was known around the game as America's Guest.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 246 | 7 | 45 | 120 | 41 | 18 | 9 | 6 | 0 |
| SGC | 6 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 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 #40 card?
It is card #40 of the 664-card 1969 Topps Baseball set, picturing Mayo Smith of the Detroit Tigers. 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.