1979 Topps #219 Roy Smalley
About Roy Smalley
Smalley hit .341 through the first half of 1979, second best in the majors at that point, and was voted the American League's starting shortstop for the All-Star Game. He finished at .271 with a team-high 24 home runs and 95 RBI, led the league in games played, and was named shortstop on The Sporting News AL All-Star team. His Topps card is #219.
Roy Smalley was a switch-hitting shortstop who played 13 big-league seasons, 1975 to 1987, for the Texas Rangers, Minnesota Twins, New York Yankees and Chicago White Sox. The son of a major-league shortstop and a nephew of longtime manager Gene Mauch, he won College World Series titles at USC in 1972 and 1973 and was the first overall pick of the January 1974 draft, taken by Texas. He manned shortstop for Minnesota from 1976 until 1982, when the Twins sent him to the Yankees. His best season was 1979, when he set career highs in runs, home runs and RBI. He returned to the Twins in 1985 and appeared in the 1987 World Series, which Minnesota won over St. Louis. His career line was .257 with 163 home runs and 694 RBI in 1,653 games. He later worked as a Twins television analyst and was inducted into the USC Athletic Hall of Fame in 2007 and the College Baseball Hall of Fame in 2013.
Sources: Wikipedia · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 125 | 16 | 70 | 26 | 9 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| SGC | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 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: #41 Minnesota Twins / Gene Mauch
More Minnesota Twins cards:
- #1 1978 Batting Leaders
- #27 Dave Goltz
- #58 Bob Randall
- #81 Roger Erickson
- #113 Pete Redfern
- #137 Larry Wolfe
- #162 Tom Johnson
- #193 Glenn Adams
- #246 Darrell Jackson
- #249 Paul Thormodsgard
- #274 Willie Norwood
- #300 Rod Carew
- #362 Mike Cubbage
- #371 Jeff Holly
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1979 Topps #219 card?
It is card #219 of the 726-card 1979 Topps Baseball set, picturing Roy Smalley of the Minnesota Twins.
How many cards are in the 1979 Topps Baseball set?
726 cards, numbered 1 through 726 with none skipped and issued as a single series, tracked as 727 collectible states: #369 Bump Wills comes with a Rangers or a Blue Jays team banner, and the master set counts both.
Sources: Trading Card Database, PSA, 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.