1961 Topps #117 Dale Long
About Dale Long
Washington took Long with the 28th pick of the December 14, 1960 expansion draft, claiming him from the Yankees, and the 35-year-old opened the new club's first season as its everyday first baseman. Card #117 sits in the 1961 set's second series. He started 77 of Washington's first 94 games, slugging .500 in that span, then was pulled from the lineup and made only 15 more starts: 123 games, .249, 17 homers, 49 RBIs.
Richard Dale Long was born February 6, 1926, in Springfield, Missouri, and grew up in Wisconsin and western Massachusetts before a wartime U.S. Navy hitch that a noncombat injury cut short in May 1944. A left-handed first baseman listed at 6-foot-4, Long was the property of six big-league clubs and, after a 1951 cup of coffee with the Pittsburgh Pirates and St. Louis Browns, waited three and a half more years for a steady job. He got it in Pittsburgh in 1955. The following May he homered in eight consecutive games, a major-league record later matched but never broken, and that summer he started the All-Star Game at first base for the National League. Long later played for the Chicago Cubs, San Francisco Giants, New York Yankees and Washington Senators, and in 1958 he became the majors' first left-handed-throwing catcher since 1902. He won a World Series ring with the 1962 Yankees and finished ten big-league seasons at .267 with 132 home runs and 467 RBIs. After his playing career ended in 1964 he umpired in the minors, sold sporting goods and pharmaceuticals, ran a tavern, and supervised nuclear-submarine work before returning to baseball in the mid-1980s as a field representative for the National Association. He died of cancer on January 27, 1991, in Palm Coast, Florida.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 305 | 0 | 21 | 113 | 127 | 35 | 5 | 4 | 0 |
| SGC | 14 | 0 | 1 | 9 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 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
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- #158 Pete Daley
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- #206 Gene Green
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- #239 Dave Sisler
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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1961 Topps #117 card?
It is card #117 of the 587-card 1961 Topps Baseball set, picturing Dale Long of the Washington Senators.
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.