1969 Topps #394 Pilots Rookie Stars - Lou Piniella / Marv Staehle
On this card: Lou Piniella, Marv Staehle
Neither player here is a rookie-card subject: Piniella already had Topps cards in 1964 and 1968, and Staehle had appeared earlier as well.
About this card
This is one of the 52 Rookie Stars cards in the 1969 Topps set, each carrying two or three young players under a club or league title. A Rookie Stars card is a rookie card only for the players pictured who had no earlier Topps flagship card - the rookie-card answer on each card names them.
The story on this card
The Seattle Pilots grabbed Piniella in the October 1968 expansion draft, and Topps put him in a Pilots cap on card #394 in the fourth series alongside Marv Staehle. The April 1, 1969 trade to Kansas City, for John Gelnar and Steve Whitaker, came before Opening Day, yet the card still shows Seattle. He led off the Royals' first game, doubled off Tom Hall, then batted .282 with 11 home runs and 68 RBI and won American League Rookie of the Year. Rookie of the Year in 1969, an All-Star as a Royal, a two-time World Series champion as a Yankee and later manager of five clubs, Piniella collected 1,705 hits in 18 seasons and remains a Hall of Fame near-miss.
Staehle's 1969 Topps card, #394 in the fourth print series, shows him with the Seattle Pilots in the Rookie Stars subset, sharing a horizontal front with Lou Piniella. He had already appeared on Topps cardboard in 1965 and 1966. His only major league action in 1969 came with the expansion Montreal Expos, a six-game stretch in which he hit .412 with one home run. Marv Staehle was a light-hitting infielder who broke in with the White Sox in 1964, resurfaced with the expansion Montreal Expos and split second base with Gary Sutherland in 1970, then finished his career with Atlanta in 1971.
Sources: Wikipedia (Lou Piniella) · Wikipedia (Marv Staehle)
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 556 | 2 | 32 | 152 | 114 | 94 | 59 | 100 | 3 |
| SGC | 61 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 8 | 12 | 19 | 20 | 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 #394 card?
It is card #394 of the 664-card 1969 Topps Baseball set, picturing Lou Piniella and Marv Staehle. This is one of the 52 Rookie Stars cards in the 1969 Topps set, each carrying two or three young players under a club or league title. A Rookie Stars card is a rookie card only for the players pictured who had no earlier Topps flagship card - the rookie-card answer on each card names them.
Is #394 a rookie card?
No. Neither Lou Piniella nor Marv Staehle counts #394 as a rookie card: Piniella was on 1964 Topps #167 and Staehle on 1965 #41.
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.