1962 Topps #147 Bill Kunkel
About Bill Kunkel
Kunkel opened 1962 back in Kansas City but the innings dried up: nine appearances, 7 2/3 innings, a 3.52 ERA, and a trip down to the Triple-A Portland Beavers, where he posted a 5.12 ERA in 51 innings over 10 games. On August 3 the A's shipped him and Leo Posada to the Milwaukee Braves for Orlando Pena. He never pitched for the Braves in the majors, finishing the year at Triple-A Toronto at 6-1 with a 2.35 ERA. Card 147 is a second-series card and a collecting puzzle in itself, printed in four states: a portrait, a pitching pose, and green-tint versions of both.
William Gustave James Kunkel, born July 7, 1936 in Hoboken, New Jersey, was a right-handed relief pitcher whose early climb was interrupted by two years of military service. Originally signed by the Boston Red Sox in 1955, he pitched in the Brooklyn Dodgers and Los Angeles Dodgers farm systems before Kansas City took him in the November 1960 Rule 5 draft. He lasted three big league seasons, working between Triple-A stops, and finished 6-6 with a 4.29 ERA and 83 strikeouts in 142 2/3 innings. He refereed two National Basketball Association seasons and one in the American Basketball Association while climbing the minor league umpiring ladder, debuted as an American League umpire in September 1968, and went full time in 1969. Over 17 seasons he worked 2,227 regular season games, two World Series (1974 and 1980), two All-Star Games and four League Championship Series, calling his last game in August 1984. He remains the most recent former major leaguer to umpire in the majors. Cancer took him in May 1985, at 48; his son Jeff was a major league shortstop from 1984 to 1992.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference
Print variations
Four states of #147 are tracked individually: 147a - Portrait, 147b - Pitching, 147c - Pitching-Green Tint and 147d - Portrait-Green Tint. The difference is on the front of the card (photo pose + pose green tint + 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 147a - Portrait | |||||||||
| PSA | 169 | 0 | 5 | 45 | 71 | 27 | 10 | 11 | 0 |
| SGC | 21 | 0 | 3 | 7 | 3 | 1 | 7 | 0 | 0 |
| 147b - Pitching | |||||||||
| PSA | 141 | 0 | 9 | 45 | 46 | 28 | 7 | 6 | 0 |
| SGC | 6 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 147c - Pitching-Green Tint | |||||||||
| PSA | 96 | 1 | 9 | 28 | 26 | 12 | 9 | 11 | 0 |
| 147d - Portrait-Green Tint | |||||||||
| PSA | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 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
Team card: #384 Kansas City Athletics Team
More Kansas City Athletics cards:
- #13 Dick Howser
- #38 Gene Stephens
- #82 Deron Johnson
- #122 Norm Bass
- #127 Pride of the A's
- #168 Leo Posada
- #184 Haywood Sullivan
- #246 Art Ditmar
- #254 Gordon Windhorn
- #275 Norm Siebern
- #305 Jerry Lumpe
- #333 Frank Cipriani
- #342 Ed Rakow
- #357 Jerry Walker
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1962 Topps #147 card?
It is card #147 of the 600-card 1962 Topps Baseball set, picturing Bill Kunkel of the Kansas City Athletics.
Does 1962 Topps #147 have variations?
Yes. Four states are catalogued and tracked separately: 147a - Portrait (Bill Kunkel portrait - the base pose (the non-tint pose in TCDB and BCP)), 147b - Pitching (The pitching pose without the tint - TCDB and BCP know it only as a tint; PSA registers it plain as well), 147c - Pitching-Green Tint (The pitching pose with the green tint) and 147d - Portrait-Green Tint (The portrait with the green tint). Owning any one of them fills the #147 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.