1969 Topps #181 Mel Nelson
About Mel Nelson
Card #181 is the last of Nelson's five cards in this Topps decade and the only one that shows him in a St. Louis uniform. He had earned the spot the summer before, recalled from Tulsa to go 2-1 with a 2.91 ERA in 18 games for Red Schoendienst's pennant winners. The 1969 season gave him eight appearances: four runs allowed in the opener, five clean outings after that, three runs in the next, and then June 2, when he walked the only batter he faced in a 6-3 loss. That was his last major league pitch. He spent 1970 at Richmond and was done.
Melvin Frederick Nelson (May 30, 1936 - November 26, 2021) was born in San Diego, grew up in San Bernardino, and signed with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1954 as a right-handed-hitting outfielder; the move to the mound, where he threw left-handed, came later. He reached St. Louis as a September call-up in 1960 and struck out Maury Wills and Charlie Neal in his first relief outing against the Dodgers. A brief Army stint and a short run at Atlanta preceded the Cardinals selling his contract to the Los Angeles Angels for $25,000 in October 1962. He later joined the Minnesota Twins organization and spent all of 1965 with the pennant winners, though he never got into that World Series. Back in the minors afterward, he signed a free-agent deal with St. Louis in 1968, threw the only complete game of his career against Atlanta, and worked a scoreless ninth inning in Game Six of the 1968 World Series, a 13-1 Detroit win. Six big league seasons with the Cardinals, Angels and Twins left him 4-10 with a 4.40 ERA in 93 games. He then scouted for eight organizations between 1973 and 2005.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 226 | 5 | 29 | 132 | 47 | 7 | 3 | 3 | 0 |
| SGC | 7 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
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 St. Louis Cardinals cards:
- #8 National League 1968 ERA Leaders
- #10 National League 1968 Pitching Leaders
- #12 National League 1968 Strikeout Leaders
- #18 Dick Schofield
- #39 Dick Hughes
- #60 Nelson Briles
- #85 Lou Brock
- #110 Mike Shannon
- #136 Cardinals 1969 Rookie Stars
- #160 Vada Pinson
- #162 World Series Game #1 - Gibson Fans 17; Sets New Record!
- #164 World Series Game #3 - McCarver's Homer Puts St. Louis Ahead
- #165 World Series Game #4 - Brock's Lead-Off HR Starts Cards' Romp
- #200 Bob Gibson
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1969 Topps #181 card?
It is card #181 of the 664-card 1969 Topps Baseball set, picturing Mel Nelson of the St. Louis Cardinals.
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.