1961 Topps #286 George Witt
About George Witt
Witt's 1961 Topps card, number 286 in the fourth print series, places him with the Pittsburgh Pirates one last time. His rookie card is 1959 Topps number 110. The season behind it was thin: nine appearances, one start, an 0-1 record and a 6.32 ERA. The one flash came on May 7 against Sandy Koufax and the Dodgers, when Witt carried a no-hitter into the sixth inning before Charlie Neal tied the game with a home run and Norm Larker and Frank Howard followed with back-to-back shots. Pittsburgh sent him outright to Class A Asheville, then sold his contract to the Los Angeles Angels on October 10, 1961.
George Adrian Witt, the big red-haired right-hander from Long Beach, California, pitched parts of six major league seasons between 1957 and 1962. Signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers organization in 1950, he was drafted away by Pittsburgh in the November 1954 minor league draft and went 18-7 for the Pacific Coast League's Hollywood Stars in 1957 before a September call-up. His one great year was 1958: 9-2 with a 1.61 earned run average over 18 games and 15 starts, five complete games and three shutouts, the lowest ERA in the National League though he fell short of the innings needed to qualify, and Pittsburgh's writers voted him the club's outstanding rookie. A bad elbow then took over. He went 0-7 in 1959 and spent part of 1960 in the minors, but he was back for the Pirates' title run and worked three World Series games against the Yankees, all of them Pittsburgh losses, allowing no run of his own in two and two-thirds innings. He finished 11-16 with a 4.32 ERA and 156 strikeouts in 66 games. Witt later coached baseball and tennis at Tustin High School in Orange County, served as its athletic director, and from 1969 taught biology there. He died on January 30, 2013.
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 | 316 | 2 | 11 | 163 | 80 | 32 | 17 | 11 | 0 |
| SGC | 16 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 5 | 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 #286 card?
It is card #286 of the 587-card 1961 Topps Baseball set, picturing George Witt 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.