1962 Topps #288 Billy Williams
About Billy Williams
Card #288, a fourth-series number, is the first Topps card to report a full Williams season, and it was a fine one to carry: .278 with 25 home runs and 86 RBIs in 146 games, worth 62 percent of the Rookie of the Year vote and a comfortable win over Milwaukee's Joe Torre. He was the first Chicago Cub ever to take the award. The job had opened in mid-June, when sore knees pushed Ernie Banks from left field to first base; Williams started every remaining game and never gave it back.
Billy Williams played left field for the Chicago Cubs from 1959 through 1974, joining Ernie Banks and Ron Santo in an everyday core that pulled a long-buried franchise back toward contention in the late 1960s. Born in Whistler, Alabama, he liked to say his signing bonus was a bus ticket and a cigar for his father. Bigotry in the Double-A Texas League drove him home in 1959 until Cubs scout Buck O'Neil came to Whistler and coaxed him back. He hit .278 with 25 home runs and 86 RBIs in 1961 and became the first Cub named National League Rookie of the Year. A six-time All-Star known as "Sweet-Swinging Billy from Whistler" for a short, effortless stroke, he won the 1972 batting title at .333 and finished MVP runner-up twice, in 1970 and 1972, both times behind Cincinnati's Johnny Bench. He played 1,117 straight games from September 1963 to September 1970, a National League record that stood until 1983. Williams closed an 18-year career, the last two as Oakland's designated hitter, with a .290 average, 2,711 hits, 426 home runs and 1,475 RBIs -- a home run total that then ranked eighth in major league history among left-handed hitters. He entered the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1987 and later coached 19 seasons in the majors.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 1,114 | 0 | 4 | 68 | 245 | 284 | 220 | 292 | 1 |
| SGC | 354 | 0 | 2 | 12 | 51 | 68 | 109 | 105 | 7 |
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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Related cards
Team card: #552 Chicago Cubs Team
More Chicago Cubs cards:
- #25 Ernie Banks
- #47 Bob Will
- #66 Cuno Barragan
- #89 Barney Schultz
- #119 Danny Murphy
- #170 Ron Santo
- #191 Jim Brewer
- #240 George Altman
- #264 Dick Ellsworth
- #274 Sammy Taylor
- #309 Moe Morhardt
- #359 Bobby Locke
- #372 Jack Curtis
- #387 Lou Brock
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1962 Topps #288 card?
It is card #288 of the 600-card 1962 Topps Baseball set, picturing Billy Williams of the Chicago Cubs.
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.