1969 Topps #38 Zoilo Versalles
About Zoilo Versalles
Card #38 is a first-series card in the 1969 Topps set, and it carries one of the odder team assignments in the set: it puts Versalles with the San Diego Padres, a club he never played a game for. The expansion Padres drafted him off the Dodgers after the 1968 season, then sent him to the Cleveland Indians on December 2 to complete an earlier trade for first baseman Bill Davis. He opened 1969 in Cleveland and was hitting .226 in 72 games when the expansion Washington Senators bought his contract in late July. He batted .267 the rest of the way, was invited back to camp in 1970, and was released that April.
Zoilo Casanova Versalles Rodriguez, born December 18, 1939 in Havana, Cuba, was a shortstop signed by the Washington Senators in 1958. He debuted on August 1, 1959, hit just .153 in that trial, and went back to the minors before returning for good in 1961, the season the franchise settled in Minnesota as the Twins. He gave the position uncommon offense for the era, pacing the American League in triples three times and reaching double figures in home runs four straight years. The peak came in 1965: he led the league in runs, doubles, triples, extra-base hits and total bases, won a second Gold Glove, and was a near-unanimous American League Most Valuable Player, the first Latin American-born player to take the award. A hematoma in his lower back in 1966 never fully healed and his hitting collapsed. Minnesota traded him to the Los Angeles Dodgers after 1967; he later played for Cleveland, the expansion Washington Senators and Atlanta, spent a season in the Mexican League, and closed out in Japan with the Hiroshima Toyo Carp in 1972. He died in Bloomington, Minnesota in 1995 at 55. He was elected to the Minnesota Twins Hall of Fame in 2006; he is not in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 267 | 2 | 57 | 133 | 41 | 17 | 11 | 6 | 0 |
| SGC | 6 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 1 | 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
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- #184 Roberto Pena
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- #271 Larry Stahl
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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1969 Topps #38 card?
It is card #38 of the 664-card 1969 Topps Baseball set, picturing Zoilo Versalles of the San Diego Padres.
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.