1962 Topps #221 Bill Short
About Bill Short
Card #221, a third-series card, lists Short with the Baltimore Orioles, who had taken him from the Yankees in the November 1961 Rule 5 draft. His entire major league season was five early relief appearances totaling four innings, with no decisions and a 15.75 ERA. The rest of the summer belonged to Rochester, where arm trouble held him to 65 innings and a 3-4 record, the start of a Red Wings stay that lasted into 1966.
William Ross Short, a 5-foot-9 left-hander from Kingston, New York, was signed by Yankees scout Paul Krichell in 1955 out of Newburgh Free Academy. He climbed from the Class-D Appalachian League through the Evangeline League and Binghamton, breaking out in 1959 at Triple-A Richmond, where a 17-6, 2.48 year made him an International League All-Star and the league's Most Valuable Pitcher. After Army service from October 1959 to April 1960 he won his April 23 Yankees debut as a starter against Baltimore, but a strained elbow and, in 1961, surgery for bone chips and spurs stalled him; the Orioles took him in the November 1961 Rule 5 draft. He spent the next four and a half years in the Baltimore system, mostly at Triple-A Rochester. Apart from a six-start recall to the Orioles in 1966, every big-league inning he threw after 1960 came in relief, for Baltimore, Boston, Pittsburgh, the Mets and finally Cincinnati in 1969. He finished 5-11 with a 4.73 ERA in 73 games, 16 of them starts, including a six-hit shutout of Minnesota on July 1, 1966, the only shutout of his career. He later served as a Pirates minor league pitching instructor, entered the International League Hall of Fame in 2009, and died in 2022 in Sarasota, Florida.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 171 | 0 | 2 | 48 | 72 | 25 | 13 | 11 | 0 |
| SGC | 8 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 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. 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 #221 card?
It is card #221 of the 600-card 1962 Topps Baseball set, picturing Bill Short of the Baltimore Orioles.
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.