1961 Topps #23 Don Demeter
About Don Demeter
Topps' 1961 card catches Demeter at the end of his Dodgers run. Card #23 is a series-1 base issue showing him in Los Angeles flannels during the very season Philadelphia acquired him. It reports a lost 1960: 64 games and 168 at-bats, a .274 average and 9 home runs, the year cut short by the wrist he fractured on July 3 in a collision with teammate Maury Wills.
Don Demeter was a 6-foot-4 outfielder who signed with Brooklyn for an $800 bonus out of Capitol Hill High School and played 11 major league seasons (1956-1967) for the Dodgers, Phillies, Tigers, Red Sox and Indians. He won a World Series ring with the 1959 Dodgers, the year he homered three times in one game and became "Dangerous Don" in the papers. Traded to Philadelphia in May 1961, he had his finest season in 1962 - a .307 average, 29 home runs and 107 RBI - and that September began a 266-game errorless streak, the major league record for outfielders until Darren Lewis passed it in 1994. Dealt to Detroit for Jim Bunning after 1963, he later played for Boston and finished with Cleveland in 1967; a late-season physical voided a sale back to Detroit by flagging a heart problem later traced to diet, and he retired before the 1968 season. He batted .265 with 163 home runs and 563 RBI in 1,109 games, then pastored an Oklahoma City Baptist church he helped found. He entered the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame in 2010 and died in 2021 at 86.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 285 | 2 | 34 | 146 | 71 | 16 | 8 | 8 | 0 |
| SGC | 20 | 1 | 3 | 6 | 6 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 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 #23 card?
It is card #23 of the 587-card 1961 Topps Baseball set, picturing Don Demeter 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.