1962 Topps #74 Bob Lillis
About Bob Lillis
1962 Topps #74 is a first-series card. It is his first as a Houston Colt .45, the club that took him with the fifth pick overall in the expansion draft of October 10, 1961. Slotted as a utility man at the start, he had the shortstop job about ten games into the franchise's first season and, at 31, an everyday role for the first time. He played 98 games at short, 33 at second and 10 at third, hit .249 over 129 games after a miserable April and May, and struck out only 23 times. The writers voted him the Colt .45s' most valuable player for that inaugural year.
Robert Perry Lillis, born June 2, 1930, in Altadena, California, was an All-Southern California shortstop at Pasadena High School and a second-team All-American at USC in 1950 and 1951 before Brooklyn signed him that June. A right-handed hitter and thrower, he spent eight years in the Dodgers farm system, two of them in the Army, blocked by Pee Wee Reese and later by Don Zimmer. He debuted for Los Angeles on August 17, 1958 and hit .391 in 20 games, but Maury Wills arrived in 1959 and owned the position; on May 30, 1961 the Dodgers traded Lillis and Carl Warwick to St. Louis for Daryl Spencer. Houston took him fifth overall in the October 1961 expansion draft, and he gave the Colt .45s almost six seasons at shortstop and around the infield as the club became the Astros in 1965. Over ten years he played 817 games and batted .236 with three home runs, 137 RBI and 549 hits. He scouted and ran player development for Houston, coached from 1973, managed the Astros from August 1982 through 1985 at 276-261, then coached eleven seasons for the San Francisco Giants through 1996 on the staff of former Dodgers teammate Roger Craig. He is a member of the Pasadena Sports Hall of Fame.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 357 | 0 | 9 | 155 | 144 | 29 | 11 | 9 | 0 |
| SGC | 17 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 7 | 3 | 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. 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 Houston Colt .45's cards:
- #12 Harry Craft
- #23 Norm Larker
- #44 Don Taussig
- #126 Al Cicotte
- #156 Merritt Ranew
- #177 Bobby Shantz
- #204 Johnny Weekly
- #227 Bobby Tiefenauer
- #248 Bob Aspromonte
- #278 Ken Johnson
- #304 Dick Farrell
- #332 Don Buddin
- #354 Roman Mejias
- #373 Al Heist
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1962 Topps #74 card?
It is card #74 of the 600-card 1962 Topps Baseball set, picturing Bob Lillis of the Houston Colt .45's.
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.