1961 Topps #513 Jim Brosnan
About Jim Brosnan
Brosnan was the bullpen anchor on the 1961 Reds club that went 93-61 and clinched Cincinnati's first National League pennant in 21 years, finishing four games up on the Dodgers. He made 53 appearances, all in relief, and went 10-4 with 16 saves and a 3.04 ERA over 80 innings. The Yankees then took the World Series in five games; Brosnan worked three of them, two of those outings scoreless, and was hit hard in Game 4. His card here is 1961 Topps number 513, from the set's sixth print series. Bowman had already pictured him in 1955.
Jim Brosnan (born October 24, 1929, in Cincinnati, Ohio) was a right-handed pitcher who worked mostly in relief across nine big-league seasons for the Chicago Cubs, St. Louis Cardinals, Cincinnati Reds, and Chicago White Sox, debuting in 1954 and then sticking for good from 1956 through 1963. A 6-foot-4 fastball-and-slider reliever known as an unusual intellectual - he kept books in his locker, smoked a pipe, and wore horn-rimmed glasses on the mound - he finished 55-47 with a 3.54 ERA in 385 games, his career-low 2.36 ERA coming for Cincinnati in 1960. He is remembered as much for a new kind of sports book: his diary of the 1959 season, The Long Season, was one of the first unvarnished, self-written accounts of a big-league player's year, praised by columnist Red Smith as caustic and candid, and enough of an affront to some peers that Joe Garagiola called its author a kooky beatnik. He followed it with Pennant Race, a journal of 1961. Signed by the Cubs at 17 in 1946, he lost two years to the U.S. Army at Fort Meade before returning to the minors. He attended Xavier University, kept writing for national magazines after his playing days, worked as a Chicago-area sportscaster, and died in 2014.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 422 | 1 | 27 | 240 | 95 | 32 | 14 | 13 | 0 |
| SGC | 32 | 0 | 3 | 18 | 6 | 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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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1961 Topps #513 card?
It is card #513 of the 587-card 1961 Topps Baseball set, picturing Jim Brosnan of the Cincinnati Reds.
Why is #513 harder to find?
It is from the sixth print series (cards 447-522) - noticeably tougher than the first five, easier than the true highs.
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.