1961 Topps #213 Bill Stafford
About Bill Stafford
Six months in the Army ended in a March discharge and cost Stafford six weeks of spring training, so he opened the season in the bullpen, worked into Ralph Houk's rotation by June, and won his first three regularly scheduled starts with complete games. He finished 14-9 over 195 innings with eight complete games, three shutouts and a 2.68 earned run average, second in the American League. His last win was the one everyone remembers: a 1-0 decision over Boston on October 1, the afternoon Roger Maris hit his 61st home run off Tracy Stallard. In the World Series he started Game Three against Cincinnati and left trailing, and late homers by Johnny Blanchard and Maris stole it back. Number 213, a third-series card, is his recognized rookie card.
Bill Stafford was a right-handed sinkerballer who spent six of his eight big-league seasons with the New York Yankees. The Yankees signed him out of Coxsackie-Athens High School in upstate New York for $4,000 in June 1957, and he debuted at Fenway Park on August 17, 1960, in the middle of a three-team pennant race. He grew into the number three starter behind Whitey Ford and Ralph Terry, and in 1961 he finished 14-9 with a 2.68 earned run average, second in the American League. Then came April 10, 1963, and a sharp pain in his right shoulder that the club called minor; it was an undiagnosed rotator cuff injury, and he was never the same. He pitched on in New York through 1965, went to the Kansas City Athletics in a June 1966 trade, and threw his last major league pitch in September 1967. His record was 43-40 with a 3.52 ERA over 186 games, and he belonged to five Yankee pennant winners and two world champions. He worked afterward in sales, coached at a Connecticut college and at the high school level, and settled in Michigan, where he died of a heart attack in September 2001 at 63.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 374 | 3 | 33 | 166 | 91 | 45 | 19 | 17 | 0 |
| SGC | 28 | 0 | 2 | 10 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 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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Related cards
Team card: #228 New York Yankees Team
More New York Yankees cards:
- #2 Roger Maris
- #19 Cletis Boyer
- #28 Hector Lopez
- #40 Bob Turley
- #68 Deron Johnson
- #104 John Blanchard
- #116 Joe DeMaestri
- #133 Ralph Houk
- #142 Luis Arroyo
- #160 Whitey Ford
- #180 Bobby Richardson
- #252 Bill Short
- #265 Tony Kubek
- #300 Mickey Mantle
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1961 Topps #213 card?
It is card #213 of the 587-card 1961 Topps Baseball set, picturing Bill Stafford of the New York Yankees.
Is 1961 Topps #213 a rookie card?
Yes - #213 is the 1961 Topps rookie card of Bill Stafford.
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.