1962 Topps #103 Don Blasingame
About Don Blasingame
Blasingame is a Cincinnati Red on card #103, a first-series issue from the year after the Reds took the 1961 National League pennant. The season behind it was split by his April 27 trade from San Francisco: three pinch-hit trips as a Giant, two of them walks and none a hit, then .222 with 100 hits, 18 doubles and 21 RBI in 123 games at second base for the pennant winners. He played three World Series games that October, one hit in seven at-bats, as the Yankees closed Cincinnati out in five.
Don Blasingame, a native of Corinth, Mississippi, signed with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1953 and entered pro ball as a shortstop before being taught second base. His speed with the Class AA Houston Buffaloes in 1954 - a .315 season with a career-best 34 stolen bases - got him tagged "Blazing-game," soon shortened to "The Blazer." He debuted on September 20, 1955, took the second-base job in 1956, and made his only All-Star team in 1958, pinch-hitting for Warren Spahn. Trades then carried him to San Francisco, Cincinnati and Washington, and the Senators sold him to Kansas City in August 1966, where he played his last big league game. At his retirement no big leaguer had grounded into fewer double plays per at-bat, a mark Don Buford later passed. Blasingame then spent fifteen years in Japan as a player, coach and manager for the Nankai Hawks, also coaching Hiroshima and managing the Hanshin Tigers, before joining the Philadelphia Phillies in player development. He entered the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame in 1980 and died of a heart attack in Fountain Hills, Arizona, in 2005.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 218 | 0 | 4 | 56 | 109 | 40 | 7 | 2 | 0 |
| SGC | 11 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 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 #103 card?
It is card #103 of the 600-card 1962 Topps Baseball set, picturing Don Blasingame 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.