1970 Topps #559 Tommy Davis
About Tommy Davis
Davis is an Astro on #559, a sixth-series card. Between the Seattle Pilots and Houston he hit .266 in 1969 with 7 home runs, 89 RBI and a career-high 20 stolen bases in 147 games. Jim Bouton, his teammate at both stops, featured him heavily in Ball Four, published the next year, and the two stayed friends. Davis opened 1970 with Houston, hitting .282 in 57 games before his contract was sold to Oakland in June, and he finished the season with the Chicago Cubs.
Herman Thomas Davis Jr. was born March 21, 1939, in Brooklyn and signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers for a $4,000 bonus after a personal phone call from Jackie Robinson steered him away from the Yankees. He won minor-league batting titles at Kokomo in 1957 and Spokane in 1959, then struck out as a pinch hitter in his only September 1959 at-bat. He became the first Los Angeles Dodger to win a batting championship, taking the National League crown in 1962 at .346 with 230 hits and 153 RBI, a franchise record that broke Roy Campanella's 142. He repeated in 1963 at .326, the only back-to-back batting titles in the club's Los Angeles history. A broken and dislocated ankle on May 1, 1965, ended that season, and he kept hitting for ten organizations across eighteen seasons, among them the one-year Seattle Pilots. In Baltimore he served as designated hitter from 1973 to 1975 and won the Outstanding Designated Hitter Award in 1974, when he collected 181 hits. He finished with 2,121 hits and a .294 average in 1,999 games, then worked as a Dodgers minor-league instructor and as the Seattle Mariners' hitting coach in 1981. He died April 3, 2022, in Phoenix at 83.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · National Baseball Hall of Fame · Baseball Almanac · BaseballCardPedia
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 217 | 8 | 69 | 99 | 21 | 13 | 3 | 4 | 0 |
| SGC | 5 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Graded population — a scarcity guide, not a price. Data as of 2026-10-19. 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
Team card: #448 Houston Astros
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- #60 Jim Wynn
- #113 Jim Ray
- #126 Marty Martinez
- #155 Denis Menke
- #178 Denny Lemaster
- #208 Fred Gladding
- #227 Astros 1970 Rookie Stars
- #248 Jesus Alou
- #272 Hector Torres
- #316 Skip Guinn
- #339 Johnny Edwards
- #355 Doug Rader
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1970 Topps #559 card?
It is card #559 of the 720-card 1970 Topps Baseball set, picturing Tommy Davis of the Houston Astros.
How many cards are in the 1970 Topps Baseball set?
720 cards, tracked as 726 collectible states. Numbers run from 1 to 720 with none skipped, issued in seven series - #1-132, #133-263, #264-372, #373-459, #460-546, #547-633 and the high numbers, #634-720; 6 cards, all of them checklists, carry catalogued print variations that the master set counts separately.
Sources: Trading Card Database, PSA CardFacts, BaseballCardPedia, 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 2026-10-25.