1961 Topps #38 Bob Lillis
About Bob Lillis
1961 Topps #38 is a first-series card. It shows Lillis with the Los Angeles Dodgers, where he had settled into the utility infield job after bouncing between the big club and the minors. He got into only 19 games for Los Angeles that season, nearly all of them at third base, and managed one hit in nine at-bats before the May 30 trade that sent him and Carl Warwick to St. Louis for Daryl Spencer. With the Cardinals he finally played: 86 games and 230 at-bats, more than the 186 he had taken in three-plus seasons as a Dodger, batting .217 while splitting the work between shortstop and second base.
Robert Perry Lillis, born June 2, 1930, in Altadena, California, was an All-Southern California shortstop at Pasadena High School and a second-team All-American at USC in 1950 and 1951 before Brooklyn signed him that June. A right-handed hitter and thrower, he spent eight years in the Dodgers farm system, two of them in the Army, blocked by Pee Wee Reese and later by Don Zimmer. He debuted for Los Angeles on August 17, 1958 and hit .391 in 20 games, but Maury Wills arrived in 1959 and owned the position; on May 30, 1961 the Dodgers traded Lillis and Carl Warwick to St. Louis for Daryl Spencer. Houston took him fifth overall in the October 1961 expansion draft, and he gave the Colt .45s almost six seasons at shortstop and around the infield as the club became the Astros in 1965. Over ten years he played 817 games and batted .236 with three home runs, 137 RBI and 549 hits. He scouted and ran player development for Houston, coached from 1973, managed the Astros from August 1982 through 1985 at 276-261, then coached eleven seasons for the San Francisco Giants through 1996 on the staff of former Dodgers teammate Roger Craig. He is a member of the Pasadena Sports Hall of Fame.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac · Retrosheet
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 486 | 10 | 72 | 278 | 87 | 19 | 13 | 7 | 0 |
| SGC | 25 | 0 | 5 | 8 | 6 | 3 | 2 | 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 #38 card?
It is card #38 of the 587-card 1961 Topps Baseball set, picturing Bob Lillis of the Los Angeles Dodgers.
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.