1962 Topps #590 Curt Flood
About Curt Flood
Card #590 lands in the seventh and final series of the 1962 set, a high number. The season it reports is the one that turned Flood's career around: Johnny Keane took over as manager in July 1961 and installed him as the everyday center fielder, and he closed at .322 with 108 hits and 21 RBI in 335 at-bats. That was the first of the six seasons in which he batted over .300.
Curtis Charles Flood grew up in Oakland, California, and signed with the Cincinnati Redlegs in 1956. Cincinnati traded him to the St. Louis Cardinals in December 1957, and he held center field there from 1958 through 1969. Flood won seven straight Gold Gloves (1963-1969), made three All-Star teams (1964, 1966, 1968), batted over .300 six times, and ran off 226 consecutive errorless games from September 1965 to June 1967, a National League record for an outfielder. He won World Series rings with St. Louis in 1964 and 1967 and finished fourth in the 1968 NL MVP vote. After the 1969 season the Cardinals traded him to the Philadelphia Phillies; Flood refused to report, told commissioner Bowie Kuhn he was not a piece of property to be bought and sold, and sued Major League Baseball over the reserve clause. He sat out 1970, played 13 games for the Washington Senators in 1971, and lost 5-3 in the Supreme Court in 1972. Free agency arrived anyway by 1976, and Congress named the 1998 Curt Flood Act for him; the Cardinals put him in their team Hall of Fame in 2015. He died in January 1997, two days after his 59th birthday and two years after a throat cancer diagnosis. He has never been elected to the National Baseball 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 | 452 | 1 | 8 | 99 | 141 | 92 | 68 | 42 | 1 |
| SGC | 104 | 0 | 2 | 14 | 22 | 25 | 24 | 12 | 5 |
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: #61 St. Louis Cardinals Team
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- #50 Stan Musial
- #83 Larry Jackson
- #106 Carl Sawatski
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- #149 Bob Duliba
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- #198 Johnny Keane
- #202 Carl Warwick
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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1962 Topps #590 card?
It is card #590 of the 600-card 1962 Topps Baseball set, picturing Curt Flood of the St. Louis Cardinals.
Why is #590 harder to find?
It is a high number card (cards 523-598) from the seventh print series, distributed last and in the smallest quantity - the toughest cards in the set and home to all 42 short prints and the Rookie Parade.
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.