1961 Topps #540 Jackie Jensen
About Jackie Jensen
Jensen sat out 1960 and came back to the Red Sox in 1961, the season the American League put a club in Los Angeles and added three long round trips to a schedule his fear of flying made unbearable. Hitting .130 at the end of April, he left the team in Detroit and saw a Las Vegas hypnotist before rejoining; he batted .287 with 12 home runs from May through August, then faded to a final .263 with 13 homers and 66 RBIs. Topps gave him three Red Sox cards: #173, a second-series card, shared with Frank Malzone and Vic Wertz; #476, a sixth-series card in the MVP subset; and #540, a seventh-series high number. He retired for good after the season.
Jack Eugene Jensen, born in San Francisco on March 9, 1927, grew up mainly in Oakland and entered the University of California after a Navy hitch. He was the Golden Bears' ace pitcher and a .385 hitter on the 1947 club that won the first College World Series, outdueling Bobby Layne's Texas and beating Yale, and in 1948 he was a consensus All-American halfback who ran for more than 1,000 yards and carried an unbeaten regular season into a Rose Bowl loss to Northwestern. He left Cal after his junior year for the Oakland Oaks, and the Yankees bought his contract along with Billy Martin's. Blocked by Joe DiMaggio and then Mickey Mantle, he was traded to Washington in May 1952 and to Boston in December 1953, where general manager Joe Cronin told him Fenway Park was made for his right-handed power. Cronin was right: Jensen led the American League in RBIs three times (1955, 1958, 1959), stole a league-best 22 bases in 1954, made three All-Star teams, and won the 1958 AL Most Valuable Player award plus a 1959 Gold Glove for his arm before a fear of flying pushed him out at 32. He is in the College Football Hall of Fame and the Red Sox Hall of Fame, not the National Baseball Hall 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 | 553 | 2 | 58 | 215 | 136 | 93 | 32 | 16 | 1 |
| SGC | 53 | 0 | 5 | 11 | 17 | 6 | 8 | 5 | 1 |
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
More Jackie Jensen in this set: #173 Beantown Bombers, #476 MVP
Team card: #373 Boston Red Sox Team
More Boston Red Sox cards:
- #16 Billy Muffett
- #33 Gary Geiger
- #53 Russ Nixon
- #69 Earl Wilson
- #81 Tracy Stallard
- #99 Don Buddin
- #113 Mike Fornieles
- #128 Rip Repulski
- #173 Beantown Bombers
- #193 Gene Conley
- #210 Pete Runnels
- #221 Mike Higgins
- #236 Don Gile
- #257 Carroll Hardy
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1961 Topps #540 card?
It is card #540 of the 587-card 1961 Topps Baseball set, picturing Jackie Jensen of the Boston Red Sox.
Why is #540 harder to find?
It is a high number card (cards 523-589) from the seventh and last print series - the scarce end of the set, including the 22 Sporting News All-Stars.
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.