1961 Topps #157 Cal McLish
About Cal McLish
Cincinnati shipped McLish and Juan Pizarro to the White Sox for infielder Gene Freese the previous December, putting him back under Al Lopez, the manager who had given him his first innings back in Cleveland. Veteran teammate Roy Sievers said publicly that the two new arms were worth a pennant. Sievers got half of it right: Pizarro led Chicago in wins, while McLish slogged to 10-13 with a 4.38 ERA over 31 games. Only afterward did it come out that he had worked the whole season with a double hernia, which needed surgery once the year ended. Card 157, from the second series, catches him in his one summer on the South Side.
Calvin Coolidge Julius Caesar Tuskahoma McLish was born in Anadarko, Oklahoma, on December 1, 1925, the seventh of eight children, named by a father who had not been allowed to name the first six. Signed out of Oklahoma City's Central High School by Brooklyn scout Tom Greenwade, he reached the Dodgers in May 1944 at 18 with almost no pitching experience, then reported for Army duty that August and served in Europe with the 3rd Infantry Division, missing all of 1945. Most of the early 1950s went by in the Pacific Coast League until a Cleveland farm club bought him in 1955. He finally held a big-league rotation spot at 32, going 16-8 in 1958 and 19-8 in 1959, clearing 200 innings both years and saving the second of that summer's two All-Star Games for the American League. Cincinnati, the White Sox and the Phillies followed in three straight winters, and he retired in 1964 at 92-92 with 713 strikeouts. He coached big-league pitchers from 1965 to 1982, for Gene Mauch in Philadelphia and Montreal and then in Milwaukee, where Rollie Fingers and Pete Vuckovich won Cy Young Awards. The Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame inducted him in 2009.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 350 | 0 | 12 | 149 | 141 | 34 | 7 | 7 | 0 |
| SGC | 12 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 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
Team card: #7 Chicago White Sox Team
More Chicago White Sox cards:
- #30 Nellie Fox
- #56 Russ Kemmerer
- #79 Joe Ginsberg
- #90 Jerry Staley
- #124 J.C. Martin
- #132 Al Lopez
- #152 Earl Torgeson
- #170 Al Smith
- #185 Herb Score
- #205 Bill Pierce
- #227 Juan Pizarro
- #247 Billy Goodman
- #271 Jim Landis
- #285 Sherm Lollar
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1961 Topps #157 card?
It is card #157 of the 587-card 1961 Topps Baseball set, picturing Cal McLish of the Chicago White Sox.
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.