1969 Topps #24 Walt Alston
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 Walt Alston
Alston appears in the first series at #24, the very number the Dodgers would retire in his honor on June 5, 1977, making him the fourth man so recognized by the club. The card follows a modest step forward: 76-86 in 1968, tied with Philadelphia in the National League standings, 21 games back of St. Louis. That winter general manager Buzzie Bavasi resigned to run the expansion San Diego Padres as their first president.
Walter Emmons Alston got into exactly one major-league game, sent to first base for the ejected Johnny Mize by the 1936 St. Louis Cardinals and struck out by Lon Warneke in his only at-bat, then built a Hall of Fame career from the dugout instead. He spent 19 years in the minor leagues as a player, player-manager and manager, among them the 1946 Nashua Dodgers, the first US-based integrated professional team of the century, where he handled Roy Campanella and Don Newcombe, and six seasons at Brooklyn's Triple-A clubs in St. Paul and Montreal. When Charlie Dressen demanded a multi-year deal, owner Walter O'Malley handed the job to Alston for 1954, on the first of 23 straight one-year contracts. Nicknamed Smokey as a schoolboy pitcher for the speed of his fastball, he was so reserved that writers called him the Quiet Man. Alston led the Dodgers to seven National League pennants and four World Series titles in 1955, 1959, 1963 and 1965, including Brooklyn's only championship, and was named National League Manager of the Year six times. He retired after 1976 with 2,040 regular-season wins in 3,658 games. The Veterans Committee elected him to the Hall of Fame in 1983; a heart attack that year kept him from the ceremony, and he died in Oxford, Ohio, in 1984.
Sources: SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 424 | 6 | 97 | 186 | 66 | 33 | 17 | 19 | 0 |
| SGC | 30 | 0 | 3 | 15 | 8 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 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
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- #47 Paul Popovich
- #65 Willie Davis
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- #122 Ron Fairly
- #139 Andy Kosco
- #140 Jim Lefebvre
- #161 John Purdin
- #216 Don Sutton
- #241 Jim Brewer
- #266 Dodgers 1969 Rookie Stars
- #289 Bart Shirley
- #310 Tom Haller
- #327 Willie Crawford
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1969 Topps #24 card?
It is card #24 of the 664-card 1969 Topps Baseball set, picturing Walt Alston of the Los Angeles Dodgers. 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.