1961 Topps #42 American League 1960 Batting Leaders - Pete Runnels / Al Smith / Minnie Minoso / Bill Skowron
On this card: Pete Runnels, Al Smith, Minnie Minoso, Bill Skowron
Minnie Minoso was elected by the Golden Days Era Committee and inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame with the class of 2022.
About this card
Cards #41-50 are the League Leaders subset - the first Topps set to carry one - each card listing the 1960 leaders in one statistical category, the National League card first and the American League card second in each pair.
The story on this card
Number 42 is a League Leaders card from the first series of the 1961 Topps set. It posts the 1960 American League batting race: Pete Runnels of Boston at .320, Al Smith of the White Sox at .315, his Chicago teammate Minnie Minoso at .311, and Yankees first baseman Bill Skowron at .309. Runnels took the title on 169 hits and drove in only 35 runs. Smith's .315 was a career high, and Minoso's 184 hits and 105 RBI led the card. All four were All-Stars in 1960, a season with two All-Star Games. The Chicago pair came off a third-place club, ten games behind Skowron's pennant-winning Yankees.
Pete Runnels, a Texas-born infielder who learned to hit from teammate Ted Williams in Boston, won two American League batting titles and played second, first, short, and third across fourteen big-league seasons. A twelve-year American League outfielder and third baseman who hit .272 with 164 home runs, Al Smith led the league in runs in 1955, played in two World Series, and is forever the man in the beer-bath photograph. Minnie Minoso was the White Sox's Cuban-born left fielder, an All-Star in seven seasons and a three-time Gold Glove winner who broke the club's color line in 1951, drove the Go-Go Sox, and reached Cooperstown with the class of 2022. Bill "Moose" Skowron was the muscular first baseman of the Yankee dynasty, an eight-time All-Star who won four championships in New York and then helped the 1963 Dodgers sweep his old team for a fifth ring.
Sources: Wikipedia (Pete Runnels) · Wikipedia (Al Smith (outfielder)) · Wikipedia (Bill Skowron) · SABR BioProject (Pete Runnels) · SABR BioProject (Al Smith 4) · SABR BioProject (Minnie Minoso) · SABR BioProject (Bill Skowron) · Baseball Almanac (1) · Baseball Almanac (2) · Baseball Almanac (Pete Runnels) · Baseball Almanac (Al Smith) · Baseball Almanac (Minnie Minoso) · Retrosheet
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 714 | 2 | 67 | 316 | 169 | 63 | 55 | 41 | 1 |
| SGC | 79 | 0 | 3 | 24 | 19 | 18 | 8 | 7 | 0 |
Graded population — a scarcity guide, not a price. Data as of 2026-09-04. PSA counts are straight grades only; PSA half grades (PSA 1.5 among them) and qualified slabs are not included. SGC half grades fold down (8.5→8). Slabs of the two cards printed #463 are joined by description, never by number alone.
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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1961 Topps #42 card?
It is card #42 of the 587-card 1961 Topps Baseball set, picturing Pete Runnels, Al Smith, Minnie Minoso and Bill Skowron. Cards #41-50 are the League Leaders subset - the first Topps set to carry one - each card listing the 1960 leaders in one statistical category, the National League card first and the American League card second in each pair.
How many cards are in the 1961 Topps Baseball set?
587 cards, tracked as 596 collectible states. Numbers run from 1 to 589, but #426, #587 and #588 were never issued and two different cards were printed #463 - Jack Fisher and the Milwaukee Braves Team card, catalogued 463b - and eight cards carry catalogued print variations that the master set counts separately.
Sources: Trading Card Database, PSA CardFacts, Cardboard Connection, The Topps Archives, 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 2026-10-05.