1961 Topps #225 Bill Rigney
About this card
Cards #131-139 and #219-226 are the manager subset: seventeen skippers in the same portrait layout as the players.
About Bill Rigney
Hired to break in an expansion roster, Rigney had the Angels playing over their heads in the franchise's only season at Los Angeles' Wrigley Field: 70-91 and eighth in the ten-team American League, a .435 winning percentage that still stands as the best any expansion club has managed in its first year. They finished ahead of both the new Washington Senators and the Kansas City Athletics. Card #225 comes out of the third series, a mid-number, and it belongs to the set's manager subset with Rigney alone on the front under the Los Angeles Angels name.
Bill Rigney was an infielder and manager born January 29, 1918, in Alameda, California. He played third base, shortstop and second base for the New York Giants from 1946 through 1953, made the National League All-Star team in 1948, and appeared in the 1951 World Series strictly as a pinch-hitter, batting four times in four games and singling once. After managing the Giants' top farm club, the Minneapolis Millers, to the 1955 American Association pennant, he took over the parent club in 1956, serving as its last manager in New York and its first in San Francisco before being fired on June 17, 1960. In 1961 he became the first manager in Los Angeles Angels history, and the expansion club's 86-76 third-place finish in 1962 earned him The Sporting News Manager of the Year award. He ran the Angels until May 27, 1969, then led the Minnesota Twins to the 1970 American League West title, the only postseason berth of his 18 seasons as a big-league manager, and closed his managing career back in the Giants' dugout in 1976 with an overall record of 1,239-1,321. He was inducted into the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame in 1994 and died February 20, 2001, in Walnut Creek, California.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 309 | 1 | 40 | 155 | 70 | 21 | 9 | 13 | 0 |
| SGC | 14 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 7 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 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 #225 card?
It is card #225 of the 587-card 1961 Topps Baseball set, picturing Bill Rigney of the Los Angeles Angels. Cards #131-139 and #219-226 are the manager subset: seventeen skippers in the same portrait layout as the players.
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.