1961 Topps #89 Billy Martin
About Billy Martin
Cincinnati sold Martin to the Milwaukee Braves in December 1960, and he could not pry the second-base job away from incumbent Frank Bolling. The Braves gave him six at-bats, all of them hitless, before trading him on June 1 to the Minnesota Twins for shortstop Billy Consolo. Minnesota handed him the second-base job, and he played 108 games and hit .246 there, closing a .242 season that was the lowest full-year average of his career. His card is #89 out of the first series, a plain low number; Martin had been in the majors since 1950. It is the only card in this run that shows him in a Milwaukee uniform.
Billy Martin broke in with the New York Yankees on April 18, 1950 and became Casey Stengel's scrappy second baseman on four world championship clubs, batting .333 across five World Series. He was the hitting star of the 1953 Series, tying a record with 12 hits and breaking Babe Ruth's mark with 23 total bases; the Babe Ruth Award went to him as the best player in the Series, the World Series MVP trophy not being created until 1955. Two years in the Army cost him 1954 and most of 1955, and his lone All-Star selection came in 1956. A brawl at the Copacabana nightclub in May 1957 gave general manager George Weiss his opening, and Martin was traded to Kansas City that June, then bounced through Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Milwaukee and Minnesota before retiring with a .257 average and 64 home runs over 11 seasons. He scouted and coached for the Twins, then managed Minnesota, Detroit, Texas, Oakland and, in five separate stints, the Yankees, winning the 1977 World Series. The firings, most of them by George Steinbrenner, never stopped; he was killed when his truck went off an icy road on Christmas night 1989.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 707 | 0 | 12 | 153 | 180 | 147 | 89 | 125 | 1 |
| SGC | 146 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 20 | 32 | 43 | 46 | 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: #463b Milwaukee Braves Team
More Milwaukee Braves cards:
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- #61 Ron Piche
- #73 Al Spangler
- #84 Lee Maye
- #105 Carl Willey
- #120 Ed Mathews
- #137 Chuck Dressen
- #145 Bob Buhl
- #164 Felix Mantilla
- #183 Andre Rodgers
- #200 Warren Spahn
- #217 Mel Roach
- #245 Joe Adcock
- #261 Charlie Lau
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1961 Topps #89 card?
It is card #89 of the 587-card 1961 Topps Baseball set, picturing Billy Martin of the Milwaukee Braves.
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.