1951 Topps Red Back #42 Ray Scarborough
About Ray Scarborough
Washington opened 1950 with Scarborough 3-5 and a 4.01 ERA, then sent him to the White Sox on May 31 in a six-player deal for Bob Kuzava, Cass Michaels and Johnny Ostrowski. Casey Stengel put him on the American League All-Star squad, though he did not get into the game. He went 10-13 with a 5.30 ERA in Chicago, 13-18 overall, and on December 10 was traded to Boston with Bill Wight for Joe Dobson, Dick Littlefield and Al Zarilla.
Ray Scarborough was a right-handed pitcher from Mount Gilead, North Carolina, who worked ten major league seasons for the Senators, White Sox, Red Sox, Yankees and Tigers and finished 80-85 with a 4.13 ERA. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Wake Forest and a former high school biology teacher, he debuted with Washington on June 26, 1942, and spent 1944 and 1945 in the Navy. His best year was 1948, when he went 15-8 with a 2.82 ERA for a seventh-place Senators club on which no other pitcher won more than eight. He beat Boston on September 28 in both 1948 and 1949, and Ted Williams later singled him out as a pitcher who baffled the Red Sox. Newspapers called him the pickle peddling pitcher for his winter job selling for the Mt. Olive Pickle Company. He pitched in relief for the 1952 Yankees in their World Series win over Brooklyn, retired in January 1954, then scouted for Baltimore, California and Milwaukee and helped revive baseball at Mount Olive College. He died on July 1, 1982.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 302 | 2 | 42 | 105 | 36 | 38 | 38 | 41 | 0 |
| SGC | 34 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 6 | 16 | 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: Team card Boston Red Sox
More Boston Red Sox cards:
- Red Back #4 Verne Stephens
- Red Back #10 Mel Parnell
- Red Back #20 Dominick DiMaggio
- Red Back #43 Maurice McDermott
- Red Back #46 Billy Goodman
- Blue Back #5 Johnny Pesky
- Blue Back #37 Bobby Doerr
- Major League All-Star Walt Dropo
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1951 Topps Red Back #42 card?
It is Red Back #42 in the 135-card 1951 Topps Baseball checklist, picturing Ray Scarborough of the Boston Red Sox.
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.