1961 Topps #444 Joe Nuxhall
About Joe Nuxhall
Nuxhall's 1961 Topps card, number 444 in the fifth series, is the only one of his 1960s Topps cards showing him outside a Reds uniform. He had asked for a trade after a miserable 1960 in Cincinnati - 1-8 with a 4.42 ERA in 38 games - and on January 25, 1961 the Reds sent him to the Kansas City Athletics for John Briggs and John Tsitouris. Kansas City turned out to be his only full season away from the Reds organization: 5-8 with a 5.34 ERA in 37 games. He did hit .292 with two home runs, one of them off Whitey Ford.
Joseph Henry Nuxhall, a left-handed pitcher born in Hamilton, Ohio on July 30, 1928, holds a distinction unmatched in Major League Baseball history: at 15 years, 316 days old, he became the youngest player ever to appear in a big-league game, called up by the wartime Cincinnati Reds in 1944 straight from pitching against seventh-, eighth- and ninth-graders. That single rocky relief outing against the Cardinals was his only big-league work for eight years; he came up slowly through the Reds' farm system and even went back to Hamilton High School for his diploma before sticking in Cincinnati in 1952 at age 23. Over a 16-season career spent mostly with the Reds, with stops in Kansas City and Los Angeles, Nuxhall went 135-117 with a 3.90 ERA and 1,372 strikeouts, was an All-Star in 1955 and 1956, and led the National League in shutouts in 1955. Cooperstown never called; the Reds elected him to their own Hall of Fame in 1968. He announced his retirement as a player in April 1967 and moved straight to the club's radio booth, where he spent the next four decades. He died in 2007.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 393 | 0 | 33 | 191 | 103 | 33 | 20 | 13 | 0 |
| SGC | 17 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 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: #297 Kansas City Athletics Team
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- #57 Marv Throneberry
- #94 Johnny Kucks
- #106 Whitey Herzog
- #119 A's Big Armor
- #143 Russ Snyder
- #177 Don Larsen
- #197 Dick Hall
- #199 Bob Boyd
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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1961 Topps #444 card?
It is card #444 of the 587-card 1961 Topps Baseball set, picturing Joe Nuxhall of the Kansas City Athletics.
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.