1961 Topps #187 Billy Klaus
About Billy Klaus
Baltimore left Klaus unprotected in the December 1960 American League expansion draft, and the new Washington Senators took him, reuniting him with Mickey Vernon, his 1957 Red Sox teammate and now his manager. He was in the Senators' home-opener lineup at Griffith Stadium and spent the club's first season mostly at third base, splitting the job with Danny O'Connell while the expansion Senators went 61-100 and finished ninth. He batted .227 in 91 games. Card number 187 sits in Topps' second series and pictures Klaus in a Washington cap; it belongs to the regular run.
Billy Klaus was a scrappy, hard-nosed infielder who spent parts of eleven big league seasons at shortstop, third base, and second base after nearly a decade of minor league apprenticeship. Born in Spring Grove, Illinois, on December 9, 1928, he grew up on his grandfather's dairy farm and broke in with the Boston Braves in April 1952 before a blockbuster trade routed him through the New York Giants system to the Boston Red Sox. There in 1955, at 26, he was named the regular shortstop on June 5 and hit .283 with 60 runs batted in, drawing the sparkplug tag from Boston writers and finishing runner-up to Herb Score for American League Rookie of the Year. He stayed a Red Sox regular through 1957, shifting between third base and shortstop, before a reduced 1958 role led to a trade to Baltimore for Jim Busby. After stints with the Orioles, Senators, and Phillies, and a brief run with Japan's Chunichi Dragons in 1963, Klaus retired at .249 with 626 hits in 821 games. He managed in the minors, ran a painting business in Sarasota, Florida, and North Carolina, and was inducted into the Lake County High School Sports Hall of Fame in 2001.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac (1) · Baseball Almanac (2)
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 369 | 0 | 21 | 135 | 150 | 43 | 11 | 9 | 0 |
| SGC | 15 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 8 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 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
More Washington Senators cards:
- #117 Dale Long
- #129 Ed Hobaugh
- #134 Mickey Vernon
- #146 Marty Keough
- #158 Pete Daley
- #174 Ray Semproch
- #206 Gene Green
- #229 Rudy Hernandez
- #239 Dave Sisler
- #259 John Schaive
- #275 Gene Woodling
- #293 Tom Sturdivant
- #318 Danny O'Connell
- #332 Dutch Dotterer
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1961 Topps #187 card?
It is card #187 of the 587-card 1961 Topps Baseball set, picturing Billy Klaus of the Washington Senators.
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.