1951 Topps Blue Back #18 Ned Garver
About Ned Garver
Garver went 13-18 in 1950 with a 3.39 ERA, and the losses came from a Browns club with the league's worst defense. On May 13 he held Detroit scoreless for ten innings against Virgil Trucks, then lost in the 11th on Vic Wertz's single. On June 30 he went a career-high 12 2/3 innings against the White Sox and lost 3-2 when Gus Zernial homered in the 13th. After that game he completed 17 of his last 18 starts yet won only seven of them, finishing with a career-high 260 innings.
Ned Garver was a right-handed pitcher from the farm town of Ney, Ohio, who broke into the major leagues on April 28, 1948 with the St. Louis Browns. Over 14 seasons with the Browns, Detroit Tigers, Kansas City Athletics and Los Angeles Angels he went 129-157 with a 3.73 ERA, nearly all of it for second-division clubs. His signature year was 1951, when he went 20-12 for a Browns club that finished 52-102; he and Irv Young, who won 20 for the 1905 Boston team, are the only pitchers since 1901 to win 20 games for a 100-loss team. Garver led the American League in complete games in 1950 and again in 1951, started the 1951 All-Star Game in his only All-Star selection, and finished second to Yogi Berra in that year's American League Most Valuable Player voting. He could swing it, too, hitting .305 in 1951 and .218 for his career with seven home runs, and he was used as a pinch hitter and pinch runner. A pinched vertebra in his neck in 1952 changed him for good, but he pitched on through 1961. He was never inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac · BaseballCardPedia
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 131 | 0 | 6 | 22 | 10 | 13 | 23 | 57 | 0 |
| SGC | 10 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 7 | 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
More St. Louis Browns cards:
- Red Back #9 Roy Sievers
- Red Back #19 Dick Kokos
- Blue Back #24 Sherman Lollar
- Blue Back #33 Don Lenhardt
- Blue Back #36 Cliff Fannin
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1951 Topps Blue Back #18 card?
It is Blue Back #18 in the 135-card 1951 Topps Baseball checklist, picturing Ned Garver of the St. Louis Browns.
How many cards are in the 1951 Topps Baseball set?
135 cards across five issues - the Red Backs and Blue Backs (52 each), nine Team cards, and eleven each of Connie Mack's All-Stars and the Major League All-Stars. With the Zernial and Holmes variations and both versions of each Team card the master set is 146. All 135 count toward the full set; Jim Konstanty, Robin Roberts and Eddie Stanky, the three rarest Major League All-Stars, are so rarely seen that collectors often count a complete set as 132 without them.
Sources: PSA, BaseballCardPedia, Trading Card Database, Baseball-Reference, PSA & SGC population reports. Card data compiled and maintained by T206Cards.com. Page last updated 2026-10-26.