1962 Topps #36 Don Leppert
About Don Leppert
Card 36 in the first series of 1962 Topps is Leppert's rookie card, issued after he spent the back half of 1961 as Pittsburgh's extra catcher. In 1962 he made a major-league Opening Day roster for the first time, backing up Smoky Burgess: 45 games, a .266 average and 37 hits in 139 at-bats. On April 24 his opposite-field two-run homer off San Francisco's Juan Marichal put the Pirates ahead to stay in a 7-3 win. It was his last full season in the National League; that December the club dealt him to Washington for a minor-league pitcher and cash.
Don Leppert was a right-handed catcher from Indianapolis who signed out of Air Force service ball and needed six minor-league seasons before reaching the majors at 29. The Milwaukee Braves signed him in February 1955, after he had caught for base teams in Japan and in Fort Worth, Texas; at 6-foot-2 and 220 pounds he was a long-ball threat whose catching experience lagged behind his bat. He broke in with the Pittsburgh Pirates on June 18, 1961 and homered in his first major-league at-bat, off Curt Simmons at Forbes Field. Traded to the expansion Washington Senators in December 1962, he hit three home runs in one game in April 1963 and was named to the American League All-Star team that July. He finished with a .229 average, 15 home runs and 59 runs batted in over 190 games, then closed his playing career in the minors in 1966. He coached 18 seasons in the majors for the Pirates, Toronto Blue Jays and Houston Astros, worked the first-base line for Pittsburgh's 1971 world champions, and later served as a Minnesota Twins minor-league field coordinator. The Indiana Baseball Hall of Fame inducted him in 2003; he died in 2023 at 91.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 268 | 0 | 7 | 111 | 105 | 28 | 11 | 6 | 0 |
| SGC | 10 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 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 #36 card?
It is card #36 of the 600-card 1962 Topps Baseball set, picturing Don Leppert of the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Is 1962 Topps #36 a rookie card?
Yes - #36 is the 1962 Topps rookie card of Don Leppert.
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.