1961 Topps #181 Fred Green
About Fred Green
Coming off the best season of his life, Green was penciled into Pittsburgh's 1961 bullpen but could not repeat it, going 0-0 with a 4.79 ERA in 13 games before he was shipped back to Triple-A Columbus, where his 7-3 record helped the club win the International League pennant. He never won another big-league game, and on September 25 the expansion Washington Senators claimed him on waivers. This card is 1961 Topps #181, a second-series card showing him with the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Fred Allen Green was a 6-foot-4 left-handed reliever from Titusville, New Jersey, signed by the Pittsburgh Pirates out of high school in 1952 as part of Branch Rickey's youth movement. He climbed the farm system, lost 1957 to an Army hitch, and reached Pittsburgh in April 1959, making his only big-league start that September. In 1960 he was the first left-hander Danny Murtaugh called on and the lefty complement to Elroy Face, setting career bests with 45 appearances, 70 innings, eight wins and three saves behind a 3.21 ERA as the Pirates took the pennant; The Sporting News named him to its 1960 All-Star rookie team. The Yankees hammered him in the World Series, 11 hits and ten earned runs in four innings across three Pirate blowout losses, two of those hits Mickey Mantle home runs, but Pittsburgh won the close games and the title. He went winless in 13 games in 1961, pitched five times for Washington in 1962, and closed out with eight sharp Pirate relief outings in 1964, finishing 9-7 with four saves and a 3.48 ERA in 88 games, all but one of them in relief.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac · Retrosheet
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 309 | 2 | 20 | 130 | 107 | 29 | 12 | 9 | 0 |
| SGC | 18 | 0 | 1 | 9 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 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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- #100 Harvey Haddix
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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1961 Topps #181 card?
It is card #181 of the 587-card 1961 Topps Baseball set, picturing Fred Green of the Pittsburgh Pirates.
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.