1962 Topps #142 Babe Ruth Special: Coaching for the Dodgers
Ruth coached first base (and at times third) for the 1938 Brooklyn Dodgers - not one of his playing teams.
About this card
Cards #135-144 are the ten-card Babe Ruth Special, a tribute run printed inside the green-tint series that follows Ruth from Babe As A Boy (#135) to his Farewell Speech (#144). #137 pairs him with manager Miller Huggins and #140 with Lou Gehrig; #141 lists the 1935 Boston Braves and #142 the 1938 Brooklyn Dodgers he coached; and Babe Hits 60 shares printed #139 with two Hal Reniff cards, so it is catalogued 139c.
The story on this card
Card 142 belongs to the Babe Ruth Special run in the 1962 set's second series - a plain series-2 card. It shows Ruth in a Brooklyn uniform, number 35, for a club he never played for. General manager Larry MacPhail signed him in June 1938 at $15,000 to coach out the season and pull crowds to a 22-31 seventh-place team. Ruth debuted June 19 in the third-base box during a Sunday doubleheader at Ebbets Field, then worked mainly at first, loose enough about relaying signals to feud with team captain Leo Durocher. Brooklyn finished 69-80; when Durocher replaced Burleigh Grimes as manager that October, Ruth was let go, closing his last season in uniform. Two states exist: green tint and no green tint.
Babe Ruth was baseball's original superstar, a Red Sox pitching ace turned Yankees slugger who led the American League in home runs twelve times, hit 60 in 1927 for Murderers' Row, and won the 1923 Most Valuable Player award.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · National Baseball Hall of Fame
Print variations
Two states of #142 are tracked individually: 142a - No Green Tint and 142b - Green Tint. The difference is on the front of the card (green tint).
States catalogued by the PSA master set registry; each is tracked here individually.
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Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 142a - No Green Tint | |||||||||
| PSA | 787 | 0 | 6 | 129 | 204 | 155 | 113 | 171 | 9 |
| SGC | 186 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 24 | 39 | 49 | 62 | 2 |
| 142b - Green Tint | |||||||||
| PSA | 160 | 0 | 6 | 24 | 34 | 33 | 27 | 35 | 1 |
| SGC | 39 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 6 | 9 | 9 | 10 | 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. Where a grader registers a variation separately its population is listed under that variation. 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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Related cards
More Babe Ruth in this set: #135 Babe Ruth Special, #136 Babe Ruth Special, #137 Babe Ruth Special, #138 Babe Ruth Special, #139c Babe Ruth Special, #140 Babe Ruth Special, #141 Babe Ruth Special, #143 Babe Ruth Special, #144 Babe Ruth Special
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1962 Topps #142 card?
It is card #142 of the 600-card 1962 Topps Baseball set, picturing Babe Ruth of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Cards #135-144 are the ten-card Babe Ruth Special, a tribute run printed inside the green-tint series that follows Ruth from Babe As A Boy (#135) to his Farewell Speech (#144). #137 pairs him with manager Miller Huggins and #140 with Lou Gehrig; #141 lists the 1935 Boston Braves and #142 the 1938 Brooklyn Dodgers he coached; and Babe Hits 60 shares printed #139 with two Hal Reniff cards, so it is catalogued 139c.
Why is #142 listed with the Brooklyn Dodgers?
The card shows Ruth coaching for the 1938 Brooklyn Dodgers - not one of his playing teams - so it carries the team name as printed, though the franchise had moved to Los Angeles by 1962.
Does 1962 Topps #142 have variations?
Yes. Two states are catalogued and tracked separately: 142a - No Green Tint (No green tint - the standard first printing) and 142b - Green Tint (Green tint - the color-shifted second printing of series 2). Owning any one of them fills the #142 slot; the master set counts each state.
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.