1961 Topps #292 Jim Baumer
About Jim Baumer
Card 292 sits in the fourth print series, and it is Baumer's recognized rookie card, a dozen years after his first big league at-bat. He went 4 for 10 for the 1949 White Sox at 18, then spent the whole of the 1950s in the minors: the answer to a favorite trivia question, a man who played in the majors in the 1940s and the 1960s but not in between. Cincinnati took him in the Rule 5 draft and opened 1961 with him at second base, but he got into only ten of the club's first thirteen games and hit .125. His last game came April 27, and on May 10 the Reds traded him to Detroit for Dick Gernert. The pennant Cincinnati won that fall came without him.
James Sloan Baumer was born in Tulsa in 1931 and raised in nearby Broken Arrow, and out of high school the right-handed-hitting shortstop had contract offers from nearly every club in the majors. He signed with the Chicago White Sox in June 1949 for a bonus reported at $50,000 to $53,000, among the largest in the game to that point, the same month the Yankees landed another Oklahoma schoolboy, Mickey Mantle, for $1,500. Chicago pictured him as the eventual successor to 42-year-old Luke Appling. The bonus rules of the day kept him on the big league roster, and he hit .400 in a September trial at age 18, but he then vanished into the minor leagues for the whole of the 1950s. A Rule 5 pick brought him back for one last look with the 1961 Reds. He hit 82 home runs for the Nishitetsu Lions in Japan from 1963 through 1967, then scouted for Houston and Milwaukee, signed Robin Yount to his first Brewers contract, took over as Milwaukee's scouting director in 1974 and served as the club's general manager from 1975 through 1977. A long second act with the Phillies followed, where he ran scouting and the farm system and rose to vice president. He died in 1996 at 65.
Sources: Wikipedia · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 257 | 0 | 14 | 114 | 84 | 30 | 9 | 6 | 0 |
| SGC | 5 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 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 #292 card?
It is card #292 of the 587-card 1961 Topps Baseball set, picturing Jim Baumer of the Cincinnati Reds.
Is 1961 Topps #292 a rookie card?
Yes - #292 is the 1961 Topps rookie card of Jim Baumer.
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.