1962 Topps #16 Darrell Johnson
About Darrell Johnson
Card #16 catches Johnson just after the best six weeks of his playing career. The last-place Phillies sold him to the pennant-contending Reds on August 14, 1961, and the veteran platooned with rookie Johnny Edwards down the stretch, starting 17 of his 20 games and batting .315 with 17 hits in 54 at-bats. One of them, an August 16 homer off the Dodgers' Johnny Podres, was the second and last of his career. Cincinnati ran down Los Angeles for the pennant, and Johnson started Games One and Four of the World Series against his old Yankees club, going 2-for-4 off Whitey Ford as New York won in five. The Reds sold him to Baltimore on April 24, 1962. His Cincinnati card is a first-series number.
Darrell Dean Johnson was born in Horace, Nebraska on August 25, 1928, but grew up in California. A reserve catcher, he appeared in parts of six major league seasons between 1952 and 1962 for the St. Louis Browns, Chicago White Sox, New York Yankees, St. Louis Cardinals, Philadelphia Phillies, Cincinnati Reds and Baltimore Orioles. A Browns scout signed him after the 1949 California state amateur tournament, and he climbed through the minors as a right-handed hitting, right-handed throwing catcher with a well-regarded arm. He credited his double-jointed thumbs with keeping that throwing hand healthy, telling The Sporting News in 1955 that a foul tip usually knocked a thumb out of joint and he could snap it back. He batted .234 with 75 hits, two home runs and 28 runs batted in across 134 games. His best stretch followed an August 1961 sale to Cincinnati, where he caught the pennant-winning Reds down the stretch and then played in the World Series against the Yankees. Baltimore released him as a player in June 1962, and he turned to coaching, scouting and managing, most famously taking the 1975 Boston Red Sox to the American League pennant and winning The Sporting News Manager of the Year award. He later managed the expansion Seattle Mariners and the Texas Rangers.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 349 | 0 | 10 | 147 | 126 | 43 | 18 | 5 | 0 |
| SGC | 21 | 0 | 1 | 9 | 6 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 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 #16 card?
It is card #16 of the 600-card 1962 Topps Baseball set, picturing Darrell Johnson of the Cincinnati Reds.
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.