1962 Topps #143 Babe Ruth Special: Greatest Sports Hero
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 143 is the ninth of the ten Babe Ruth Special cards, numbered 135 through 144, that Topps tucked into the set's second series, the run from 110 to 196. Titled Greatest Sports Hero, it is one stop in a retrospective the company assembled the year after Roger Maris hit 61 home runs and pushed past Ruth's single-season mark. An extra printing of the whole second series came out with the color badly off, giving those cards a lime cast and lighter wood-grain borders; on 143 the tell is the girl's dress, orange on the regular card and lime green on the 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 #143 are tracked individually: 143a - No Green Tint and 143b - 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 143a - No Green Tint | |||||||||
| PSA | 888 | 0 | 11 | 180 | 259 | 193 | 92 | 142 | 11 |
| SGC | 203 | 1 | 2 | 17 | 35 | 45 | 44 | 56 | 3 |
| 143b - Green Tint | |||||||||
| PSA | 224 | 1 | 11 | 54 | 52 | 45 | 32 | 27 | 2 |
| SGC | 47 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 14 | 11 | 11 | 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, #142 Babe Ruth Special, #144 Babe Ruth Special
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1962 Topps #143 card?
It is card #143 of the 600-card 1962 Topps Baseball set, picturing Babe Ruth. 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.
Does 1962 Topps #143 have variations?
Yes. Two states are catalogued and tracked separately: 143a - No Green Tint (No green tint - the standard first printing) and 143b - Green Tint (Green tint - the color-shifted second printing of series 2). Owning any one of them fills the #143 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.