1961 Topps #438 Curt Flood
About Curt Flood
The 1961 card #438 is a fifth-series number. The back reviews a hard 1960: a .237 average over 140 games, with 94 hits, 20 doubles and 38 RBI in 396 at-bats. Manager Solly Hemus had him in and out of the lineup, but the glove never wavered - two errors all year across 134 games in the outfield. The bat came around the following summer, and the Gold Glove run was still two seasons away.
Curtis Charles Flood grew up in Oakland, California, and signed with the Cincinnati Redlegs in 1956. Cincinnati traded him to the St. Louis Cardinals in December 1957, and he held center field there from 1958 through 1969. Flood won seven straight Gold Gloves (1963-1969), made three All-Star teams (1964, 1966, 1968), batted over .300 six times, and ran off 226 consecutive errorless games from September 1965 to June 1967, a National League record for an outfielder. He won World Series rings with St. Louis in 1964 and 1967 and finished fourth in the 1968 NL MVP vote. After the 1969 season the Cardinals traded him to the Philadelphia Phillies; Flood refused to report, told commissioner Bowie Kuhn he was not a piece of property to be bought and sold, and sued Major League Baseball over the reserve clause. He sat out 1970, played 13 games for the Washington Senators in 1971, and lost 5-3 in the Supreme Court in 1972. Free agency arrived anyway by 1976, and Congress named the 1998 Curt Flood Act for him; the Cardinals put him in their team Hall of Fame in 2015. He died in January 1997, two days after his 59th birthday and two years after a throat cancer diagnosis. He has never been elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac · Stats Crew
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 655 | 5 | 44 | 255 | 186 | 73 | 51 | 40 | 1 |
| SGC | 86 | 0 | 2 | 15 | 22 | 20 | 12 | 15 | 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: #347 St. Louis Cardinals Team
More St. Louis Cardinals cards:
- #11 Curt Simmons
- #32 Ray Sadecki
- #52 George Crowe
- #64 Alex Grammas
- #75 Lindy Shows Larry
- #91 Walt Moryn
- #118 Chris Cannizzaro
- #127 Ron Kline
- #139 Solly Hemus
- #148 Julian Javier
- #178 Bob Nieman
- #198 Carl Sawatski
- #211 Bob Gibson
- #232 Bill White
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1961 Topps #438 card?
It is card #438 of the 587-card 1961 Topps Baseball set, picturing Curt Flood of the St. Louis Cardinals.
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.