1961 Topps #83 Bob Bruce
About Bob Bruce
Card #83 lands early in the first series with Bruce still a Tiger, and the back sums up a 1960 season split between bullpen and rotation: 4-7 with a 3.74 ERA over 34 games, 15 of them starts, 130 innings and 76 strikeouts. The high point was a two-hit complete game against the defending American League champion White Sox, a win but not a shutout; the first of his six was still three years off. Bruce reported to camp in 1961 with a rotation job in reach and carried a shutout into the ninth of a 3-1 win over the Los Angeles Angels, but a shoulder injury then held him to barely 36 more innings all year.
Robert James Bruce was born May 16, 1933, a birth the record books place in New York City and his family history places in Detroit; either way he grew up in Highland Park, the small city ringed by Detroit. He did not take baseball seriously until his senior year at Highland Park High, then won a scholarship to Alma College, where a 19-strikeout game against the University of Detroit brought scouts around. The Tigers signed the 6-foot-3 right-hander for a $20,000 bonus, and after Army service interrupted his climb he reached the majors on September 14, 1959. Bruce worked as a swingman in 50 games for Detroit before Houston acquired him for veteran Sam Jones on December 1, 1961, and the move to the expansion Colt .45s made him a rotation regular. He is remembered in Houston as the man who threw the first pitch in Astrodome history. Traded to Atlanta on the last day of 1966 in the package that brought Eddie Mathews to Houston, Bruce closed a nine-year, 219-game career with the Braves, finishing 49-71 with a 3.85 ERA, 733 strikeouts and six shutouts over 1,122.1 innings. He later ran his own real estate brokerage near Dallas, and died March 14, 2017, in Plano, Texas.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 368 | 0 | 36 | 207 | 81 | 26 | 11 | 7 | 0 |
| SGC | 17 | 0 | 3 | 6 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 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: #51 Detroit Tigers Team
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- #171 Paul Foytack
- #192 Dick Brown
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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1961 Topps #83 card?
It is card #83 of the 587-card 1961 Topps Baseball set, picturing Bob Bruce of the Detroit Tigers.
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.