1958 Topps #11 Jim Rivera
Uncorrected error (per Beckett): born 1923; should be 1922. Yellow-letter variation tracked by Beckett as YT. It was never corrected, so there is only one version of the card.
About Jim Rivera
Jim Rivera's 1958 Topps card is #11 in the first series, showing him with the Chicago White Sox. It turns up in common white lettering and in a scarcer yellow team-name variation. The card reports 1957, when Jungle Jim opened the year at first base, moved back to right field in June, and hit .256 with 14 home runs, tying for the team lead with Larry Doby.
Manuel Joseph Rivera, the outfielder known as Jungle Jim, was born in New York City in 1921 to a Puerto Rican family and raised in Spanish Harlem. After his mother died when he was six he spent nearly a decade in a Catholic orphanage at Blauvelt, New York. He joined the Army Air Corps in 1942; a 1944 court-martial conviction sent him to the Atlanta federal penitentiary, where his play on the prison team caught the eye of Atlanta Crackers owner Earl Mann, who helped win his 1949 parole and signed him on release. Three straight minor league pennants followed, capped by a .352 season and the Pacific Coast League MVP award at Seattle in 1951. He debuted with the St. Louis Browns in 1952 and was traded that July to the White Sox, who had bought his contract from Seattle a year earlier. Headfirst slides, a rifle arm and daredevil catches made him a Go-Go Sox favorite: he led the American League with 16 triples in 1953 and 25 steals in 1955, and he called his home run in the September 22, 1959 pennant clincher at Cleveland his best moment in baseball. In Game Five of that World Series he came off the bench to make an over-the-shoulder catch at the fence that saved a 1-0 win.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball Almanac · BaseballCardPedia
Variations & how to tell them apart
Yellow Team (YT) #11
Fourteen Series 1/early-2 cards exist with the team/city name printed in yellow instead of white. The white version is the common counterpart; yellow variants run roughly 2-2.5x scarcer.
- #11 — base card: the lettering is printed in WHITE — the base, more common version. (this page)
- #11B — Yellow Team: the team/city name is printed in YELLOW — the scarcer version, roughly 2-2.5x tougher than white per PSA populations. — see the card page
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 204 | 0 | 2 | 45 | 63 | 56 | 17 | 21 | 0 |
| SGC | 11 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 0 |
Graded population — a scarcity guide, not a price. Snapshot 2026-07-09. Half-grades fold down (8.5→8). PSA counts are straight-graded (the +/Q qualifier rows are excluded).
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Related cards
More Jim Rivera in this set: #11B Yellow Team
More Chicago White Sox cards:
- #11B Jim Rivera (Yellow Team)
- #26 Ron H. Jackson
- #50 Billy Pierce
- #50B Billy Pierce (Yellow Team)
- #56 Bill Fischer
- #85 Luis Aparicio
- #85B Luis Aparicio (Yellow Team)
- #100 Early Wynn
- #100B Early Wynn (Yellow Team)
- #108 Jim Landis
- #108B Jim Landis (Yellow Team)
- #129 Jim Derrington
- #138 Earl Torgeson
- #153 Les Moss
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1958 Topps Jim Rivera card?
It is card #11 of the 1958 Topps Baseball set - Topps' sixth flagship issue: 494 cards numbered 1-495 (#145 was never issued), with die-cut player photos on solid-color backgrounds and the first team logos on Topps fronts. It pictures Jim Rivera, Chicago White Sox.
Does the 1958 Topps Jim Rivera #11 have a yellow variation?
Yes - #11 is one of the 33 cards that also exist with yellow lettering. This page covers the common white-letter version; the yellow version runs roughly 2-2.5x scarcer per PSA population data.
What is the error on the 1958 Topps
Per Beckett it is one of the set's 11 uncorrected errors (UER): born 1923; should be 1922. Yellow-letter variation tracked by Beckett as YT. It was never corrected, so there is only one version and no error premium.
How many graded copies of the 1958 Topps Jim Rivera #11 are there?
PSA has graded 204 copies and SGC 11 as of the 2026-07-09 snapshot. Population is a scarcity guide, not a price - high-grade 1958s are notoriously tough because of the set's chronic centering and print-quality issues.
Sources: PSA CardFacts, Beckett, BaseballCardPedia, Baseball-Reference, PSA & SGC population reports, and hobby press-sheet research (Topps Archives, 2026). Card data compiled and maintained by T206Cards.com. Page last updated 2026-09-30.