1961 Topps #152 Earl Torgeson
About Earl Torgeson
Card 152 falls in the second series of the 1961 Topps set and shows Torgeson with the Chicago White Sox, the club that had acquired him from Detroit in a June 1957 trade and that he helped to the 1959 American League pennant. By his age-37 season he was purely a pinch hitter: he went 1 for 15 through mid-June before Chicago sold him to the New York Yankees, where he managed two hits in 18 at-bats but still drew eight walks. New York released him as a player on September 2 and kept him on as a coach, so he was not on the roster when the Yankees beat Cincinnati in the World Series.
Clifford Earl Torgeson was a tall, bespectacled left-handed first baseman from Snohomish, Washington, who played fifteen major league seasons from 1947 through 1961 for the Braves, Phillies, Tigers, White Sox and Yankees. A regular for nine years, he paired a superb batting eye with baserunning speed rare at his position, leading the National League with 120 runs scored in 1950 and stealing 20 bases in 1951; with Sam Jethroe he gave the early-1950s Braves the best base-stealing tandem in the game. He finished at .265 with 149 home runs, 740 runs batted in and 980 walks, and his .385 career on-base percentage towered over the .339 league average of his era. In 1957, split between Detroit and Chicago, he led the American League with a .999 fielding average at first base. Fierce enough to be remembered for his brawls, he was also a clubhouse favorite for his humor. He played in the 1948 World Series for Boston, batting .389 to lead all regulars in a six-game loss to Cleveland, and reached it again with the 1959 pennant-winning White Sox. He later served Snohomish County as a commissioner and as director of emergency management, and died in Everett, Washington in 1990.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 313 | 3 | 25 | 151 | 91 | 28 | 8 | 7 | 0 |
| SGC | 17 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 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 #152 card?
It is card #152 of the 587-card 1961 Topps Baseball set, picturing Earl Torgeson 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.