1962 Topps #197 Daryl Spencer
About Daryl Spencer
Card #197, from the third print series, is his first Topps card as a Dodger, and the move behind it was abrupt: on May 30, 1961, St. Louis traded him to Los Angeles for Bob Lillis and Carl Warwick while the Cardinals were in town, and he had batted against Sandy Koufax on his last day as a Cardinal before facing Bob Gibson that night as a Dodger. He hit .254 over 37 games for St. Louis, then took over third base in Los Angeles -- 60 games, 46 hits, eight home runs, 27 RBI -- and won three straight Saturday games in June with home runs off the Giants, Phillies and Braves, two of them ninth-inning walk-offs. The Dodgers finished 89-65, four back of Cincinnati.
Daryl Dean Spencer was a right-handed-hitting infielder from Wichita, Kansas, who played shortstop, second base and third base in the major leagues from 1952 to 1963. He signed with the Giants in 1949, hit a career-high 20 home runs in 1953, then lost 1954 and 1955 to Army service. His peak ran from 1956 through 1960 -- the Giants' regular shortstop from 1956 to 1958, their second baseman in 1959, then the Cardinals' starting shortstop in 1960 -- and he averaged 148 games a season across those five years. On April 15, 1958, at Seals Stadium, he hit the first home run in San Francisco Giants history, a fourth-inning solo shot off future Hall of Famer Don Drysdale in an 8-0 win over the Dodgers. He spent his last three big-league seasons as a utility man with the Cardinals, Dodgers and Reds, then moved to Japan's Hankyu Braves, where he played between 1964 and 1972, twice won the Best Nine award and added 152 home runs. Over parts of ten major league seasons he appeared in 1,098 games and batted .244 with 105 home runs and 428 RBI. He was inducted into the Kansas Baseball Hall of Fame in 1971.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 185 | 0 | 11 | 59 | 82 | 22 | 3 | 8 | 0 |
| SGC | 8 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 5 | 1 | 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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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1962 Topps #197 card?
It is card #197 of the 600-card 1962 Topps Baseball set, picturing Daryl Spencer of the Los Angeles Dodgers.
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.