1961 Topps #419 Tom Borland
About Tom Borland
Card #419 sits in the fifth series of the 1961 set. He had appeared the year before on the 1960 Topps Rookie Star card, #117, printed the year he broke in with Boston. Here he is a Red Sox left-hander fresh off 1960, when he got into 26 games, four of them starts, and gave up 67 hits in 51 innings for a 6.53 ERA. His entire 1961 came to one appearance, on April 23, which makes #419 the last Topps card of a career that ended that spring.
Tom Borland, a left-handed pitcher born in El Dorado, Kansas, in 1933, moved to McAlester, Oklahoma, at age four and pitched three seasons at Oklahoma A&M, going 19-2 and taking Most Outstanding Player honors at the 1955 College World Series. He signed with the Pacific Coast League's Oakland Oaks that July, then was declared a free agent by Commissioner Ford Frick once it came out that the Baltimore Orioles had signed him in violation of the bonus rule and loaned him to Oakland; the Red Sox signed him that October. Two years in the United States Army cost him the 1956 and 1957 seasons. After going 14-8 with a 2.73 ERA for the American Association champion Minneapolis Millers in 1959, he debuted for Boston on May 15, 1960. He worked mostly out of the bullpen, with four starts, and his two-year line came to 27 games, an 0-4 record, three saves and a 6.75 ERA. Boston traded him to the expansion Houston Colt .45s in March 1962 for Dave Philley, but he never pitched for them, closing out at Triple-A Oklahoma City. He later ran a tire business in Stillwater and was inducted into Oklahoma State's Cowboy Baseball Hall of Fame in 1998. He died in 2013 at 80.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 264 | 0 | 20 | 146 | 66 | 24 | 5 | 3 | 0 |
| SGC | 9 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 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 #419 card?
It is card #419 of the 587-card 1961 Topps Baseball set, picturing Tom Borland of the Boston Red Sox.
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.