1961 Topps #140 Gus Triandos
About Gus Triandos
Baltimore's 95 wins in 1961 were a franchise record, topping the 93 of the 1922 St. Louis Browns, yet the Orioles finished third, fourteen games behind the Yankees. Triandos opened the season as their catcher and had his last productive summer there: 115 games, .244, 21 doubles, 17 home runs, 63 RBIs, and a 31st birthday at the end of July. Paul Richards resigned late in the year to become general manager of the expansion Houston Colt .45s, leaving Lum Harris as interim manager. Card #140 is a second-series Oriole card.
Gus Triandos was a big, slow-footed, powerful catcher who played thirteen major league seasons from 1953 to 1965 with the Yankees, Orioles, Tigers, Phillies and Astros. Signed by the Yankees in 1948 out of San Francisco's Mission High School, he went to Baltimore in the seventeen-player swap of November 17, 1954, the largest two-team trade in major league history, played mostly first base for his first two Oriole seasons, and was the regular catcher by 1957. Under manager Paul Richards, who called him the best catcher in either league, he made the American League All-Star team in 1957, 1958 and 1959, and his 30 home runs in 1958 tied Yogi Berra's league record for catchers. That September he caught Hoyt Wilhelm's no-hitter and supplied the game's only run with a homer; Richards had an oversized mitt built to help him corral Wilhelm's knuckleball. He hit 142 home runs in eight Baltimore seasons, then caught Jim Bunning's 1964 perfect game as a Phillie to become the first catcher to handle no-hitters in both leagues. He stole exactly one base in 1,206 games and finished at .244 with 167 home runs and 608 RBIs. He later scouted for the Los Angeles Dodgers and joined the Baltimore Orioles Hall of Fame in 1981.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac (1) · Baseball Almanac (2)
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 393 | 0 | 12 | 111 | 154 | 73 | 27 | 15 | 1 |
| SGC | 20 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 6 | 5 | 0 | 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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Related cards
Team card: #159 Baltimore Orioles Team
More Baltimore Orioles cards:
- #10 Brooks Robinson
- #26 Wes Stock
- #62 Al Pilarcik
- #71 Jerry Adair
- #85 Jerry Walker
- #102 Gene Stephens
- #125 Steve Barber
- #131 Paul Richards
- #182 Dave Nicholson
- #218 Hal Brown
- #240 Ron Hansen
- #256 Billy Hoeft
- #277 Hank Foiles
- #295 Milt Pappas
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1961 Topps #140 card?
It is card #140 of the 587-card 1961 Topps Baseball set, picturing Gus Triandos of the Baltimore Orioles.
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.