1961 Topps #331 Ned Garver
About Ned Garver
Kansas City left Garver unprotected in the 1960 expansion draft and the Los Angeles Angels took him, so the 35-year-old opened 1961 in a brand-new uniform after a 4-9, 3.83 season with the Athletics. He started his first appearance and one other game, but the Angels otherwise used him in relief, a role he never settled into: his arm, he said, could not handle warming up several days in a row. He pitched his last big-league game on June 4 against Cleveland and was released on a road trip days later, finishing at 0-2 with a 5.59 ERA in 12 games. Card 331 is a fourth-series printing.
Ned Garver was a right-handed pitcher from the farm town of Ney, Ohio, who broke into the major leagues on April 28, 1948 with the St. Louis Browns. Over 14 seasons with the Browns, Detroit Tigers, Kansas City Athletics and Los Angeles Angels he went 129-157 with a 3.73 ERA, nearly all of it for second-division clubs. His signature year was 1951, when he went 20-12 for a Browns club that finished 52-102; he and Irv Young, who won 20 for the 1905 Boston team, are the only pitchers since 1901 to win 20 games for a 100-loss team. Garver led the American League in complete games in 1950 and again in 1951, started the 1951 All-Star Game in his only All-Star selection, and finished second to Yogi Berra in that year's American League Most Valuable Player voting. He could swing it, too, hitting .305 in 1951 and .218 for his career with seven home runs, and he was used as a pinch hitter and pinch runner. A pinched vertebra in his neck in 1952 changed him for good, but he pitched on through 1961. He was never inducted into 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 | 277 | 0 | 15 | 130 | 88 | 34 | 6 | 3 | 1 |
| SGC | 6 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 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 #331 card?
It is card #331 of the 587-card 1961 Topps Baseball set, picturing Ned Garver of the Los Angeles Angels.
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.