1958 Topps #203 Rube Walker
About Rube Walker
Walker's 1958 Topps card is #203, printed in the third series and showing him with the Los Angeles Dodgers in the wake of the club's move west. Roy Campanella's automobile accident before the season had left him the number one catcher, but he hit .114 in 44 at-bats behind John Roseboro and was waived on June 17. The club kept him on as a coach for the rest of the year.
Albert Bluford Walker was a left-handed-hitting, right-handed-throwing catcher from Lenoir, North Carolina, who spent 1948 through 1958 in the National League with the Chicago Cubs and then the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers. Signed by the Cubs out of Lenoir High School in 1944, he led the Three-I League in batting at .354 in 1946 and reached Chicago in 1948. Traded to Brooklyn in June 1951, he spent years backing up Roy Campanella, was behind the plate in the 1951 playoff game when Bobby Thomson homered, and went hitless as a pinch hitter in the 1956 World Series. He finished with 608 games, 360 hits and a .227 average. The bigger career came afterward. He managed in the minors, then served as pitching coach for the Senators and, from 1968 through 1981, the New York Mets, where he worked with Tom Seaver and Nolan Ryan and introduced the five-man rotation used by the 1969 champions. He died in Morganton, North Carolina, in 1992.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · BaseballCardPedia
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 399 | 0 | 16 | 161 | 123 | 53 | 32 | 14 | 0 |
| SGC | 24 | 0 | 1 | 10 | 8 | 2 | 2 | 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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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1958 Topps Rube Walker card?
It is card #203 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 Rube Walker, Los Angeles Dodgers.
How many graded copies of the 1958 Topps Rube Walker #203 are there?
PSA has graded 399 copies and SGC 24 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.
How many cards are in the 1958 Topps set?
494 issued cards, numbered 1-495 - #145 (Ed Bouchee) was pulled before release and never issued, leaving a permanent gap. The PSA master census counts 534 items: the 494 base cards plus 33 yellow-letter variations, 4 numerical checklist-back team cards, the 'Herrer' #433 error, and 2 unnumbered ad cards.
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.