1961 Topps #137 Chuck Dressen
About this card
Cards #131-139 and #219-226 are the manager subset: seventeen skippers in the same portrait layout as the players.
About Chuck Dressen
This is #137 from Topps' second series, a manager card in the 1961 set, and it pictures Dressen in a Milwaukee Braves uniform. The Braves had hired him on October 24, 1959, to replace Fred Haney, and the first year went well enough: 88-66 and second place in 1960, though a full seven games back. The 1961 club never got that close. Milwaukee was 71-58 and in third, seven games behind Cincinnati, when the front office fired him on September 2 and sent executive vice president Birdie Tebbetts down from the office to finish the year. The Braves ended up fourth at 83-71.
Chuck Dressen was a Decatur, Illinois-born third baseman and manager whose career in professional baseball spanned nearly five decades. He played for the Cincinnati Reds from 1925 to 1931 and closed his playing days with a late-season stint for the 1933 New York Giants, batting .272 over 646 big-league games. He first managed Cincinnati from 1934 to 1937, then coached under Leo Durocher with the Brooklyn Dodgers and under Bucky Harris with the New York Yankees before taking over as Brooklyn's manager from 1951 to 1953, winning two National League pennants with the 'Boys of Summer' teams built around Roy Campanella, Gil Hodges, Pee Wee Reese, Jackie Robinson and Duke Snider. He later managed the Washington Senators, the Milwaukee Braves and the Detroit Tigers, and also skippered the Oakland Oaks and Toronto Maple Leafs in the minor leagues. His career managerial record stood at 1,008-973, and he rode three World Series winners: the 1933 Giants as a player, though he never got into that Series, and the 1947 Yankees and 1959 Los Angeles Dodgers as a coach. Known for his supreme self-confidence, he liked to tell his players, 'Just hold them for a few innings, fellas. I'll think of something.'
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 296 | 0 | 2 | 87 | 117 | 53 | 17 | 19 | 1 |
| SGC | 15 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 6 | 5 | 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
Team card: #463b Milwaukee Braves Team
More Milwaukee Braves cards:
- #29 Don Nottebart
- #61 Ron Piche
- #73 Al Spangler
- #84 Lee Maye
- #89 Billy Martin
- #105 Carl Willey
- #120 Ed Mathews
- #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 #137 card?
It is card #137 of the 587-card 1961 Topps Baseball set, picturing Chuck Dressen of the Milwaukee Braves. Cards #131-139 and #219-226 are the manager subset: seventeen skippers in the same portrait layout as the players.
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.