1961 Topps #52 George Crowe
About George Crowe
Crowe came to the Cardinals in a six-player trade with Cincinnati after the 1958 season, and by 1961 he was in his third St. Louis summer, kept on strictly as a left-handed bat off the bench. He was 40, and the end came fast: seven pinch-hit trips, one hit, a last major league game on April 30, and his release on May 10, after which the club offered him a player-coach job at its Triple-A farm team, where he worked with a young Tim McCarver. Card 52 shows him as a Cardinal in the 1961 set's first print series.
George Crowe was a left-handed first baseman and pinch hitter who played nine major league seasons between 1952 and 1961 for the Boston and Milwaukee Braves, the Cincinnati Redlegs, and the St. Louis Cardinals. Before he reached organized baseball he played in the Negro leagues with the New York Black Yankees in 1947 and 1948, and he was a standout basketball player too, voted Indiana's first Mr. Basketball in 1939 and later a member of the barnstorming New York Rens. Steady big-league playing time came late: he was 36 when he hit 31 home runs for Cincinnati in 1957, filling in for the injured Ted Kluszewski, and he was picked for the National League All-Star squad in 1958 though he never got into the game. Over nine seasons he batted .270 with 81 home runs and 299 RBI in 702 games, and he retired credited with the major league record for career pinch-hit home runs, 14 at the time, a mark later passed by Jerry Lynch and Cliff Johnson. Younger Black players leaned on him for guidance - Vada Pinson remembered Crowe telling him, "I'm your father, your big daddy up here" - and he was elected to Indiana's basketball and baseball halls of fame.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 345 | 3 | 51 | 183 | 68 | 19 | 15 | 6 | 0 |
| SGC | 16 | 0 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 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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Related cards
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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1961 Topps #52 card?
It is card #52 of the 587-card 1961 Topps Baseball set, picturing George Crowe 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.