1962 Topps #51 1961 AL Batting Leaders
On this card: Norm Cash, Elston Howard, Al Kaline, Jim Piersall
About this card
Cards #51-60 are the League Leaders subset, each card listing the 1961 leaders in one statistical category - batting, home runs, ERA, wins and strikeouts - with the American League card first and the National League card second in each pair.
The story on this card
Card 51 leads off the League Leaders subset with the 1961 American League batting race. Tigers first baseman Norm Cash, whose best major league mark had been .286, came out of nowhere to hit .361 with 193 hits, 41 home runs and 132 RBI. Yankees catcher Elston Howard is listed next at .348, a career high reached in only 129 games, short of the plate appearances he needed to chase Cash for the title. So the official runner-up was Tigers right fielder Al Kaline at .324, with Indians center fielder Jim Piersall third at .322. It was printed in the first series.
Norm Cash, "Stormin' Norman," held down first base in Detroit for fifteen seasons, won the 1961 American League batting title at .361, made five All-Star teams and helped the Tigers win the 1968 World Series, finishing with 377 home runs. Elston Howard broke the color line for the New York Yankees in 1955, grew into a Gold Glove catcher, and in 1963 became the first Black player named Most Valuable Player in the American League. Mr. Tiger: Al Kaline gave the Detroit Tigers 22 seasons, most of them in right field, won the American League batting title at 20 in 1955, took home ten Gold Gloves and finished with 3,007 hits and 399 home runs. Jim Piersall was a two-time All-Star, two-time Gold Glove center fielder whose publicized 1952 breakdown inspired the memoir and film Fear Strikes Out; he later marked his 100th career home run, with the 1963 Mets, by circling the bases facing backward.
Sources: Wikipedia (Norm Cash) · Wikipedia (Elston Howard) · Wikipedia (Al Kaline) · SABR BioProject (Elston Howard) · SABR BioProject (Norm Cash) · SABR BioProject (Al Kaline) · SABR BioProject (Jim Piersall)
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 531 | 0 | 7 | 111 | 166 | 99 | 73 | 71 | 4 |
| SGC | 74 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 21 | 12 | 11 | 23 | 0 |
Graded population — a scarcity guide, not a price. Snapshot 2026-09-24. Half-grades fold down (8.5→8), and PSA's qualified grades are counted separately from the straight-grade rows shown here. Slabs of the three cards printed #139 are joined by description, never by number alone. PSA registers the green tints as a separate set; a tint's population is listed under that state of the card it belongs to.
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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1962 Topps #51 card?
It is card #51 of the 600-card 1962 Topps Baseball set, picturing Norm Cash, Elston Howard, Al Kaline and Jim Piersall. Cards #51-60 are the League Leaders subset, each card listing the 1961 leaders in one statistical category - batting, home runs, ERA, wins and strikeouts - with the American League card first and the National League card second in each pair.
How many cards are in the 1962 Topps Baseball set?
600 cards, tracked as 708 collectible states. The numbers run from 1 to 598 with no gaps, but three different cards were printed #139 - two Hal Reniff poses, catalogued 139a and 139b, and the Babe Hits 60 Babe Ruth Special, 139c - so 598 numbers make 600 cards; 93 cards carry catalogued print variations, the series-2 green tints among them, that the master set counts separately.
Sources: Baseball Almanac, Trading Card Database, PSA CardFacts, Cardboard Connection, BaseballCardPedia, 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 2026-10-03.