1962 Topps #224 Don Rudolph
About Don Rudolph
Card 224 lands in Topps' third series and pictures Rudolph with Cleveland, the club that grabbed him in the Rule 5 draft off an 18-9 season at Indianapolis. He threw one game for the Indians before the May 3 trade that sent him and Steve Hamilton to the expansion Senators for Willie Tasby, and Washington handed him the rotation job he had wanted for years. He beat his old White Sox on a complete game May 9, pitched batting practice for the American League at the All-Star Game in his new ballpark that July, then reeled off 31 straight scoreless innings from August 18 to September 2, including back-to-back shutouts of Minnesota and Baltimore, the only two of his career. An 0-4 September left him 8-10, 3.62.
Frederick Donald Rudolph, a left-hander out of Baltimore, turned pro in 1950 and won 41 games in two seasons for Class D Jesup before the White Sox bought his contract. Army service cost him the 1953 season, and he did not reach the majors until a September 1957 call-up in Chicago. He shuttled between the White Sox, Indianapolis and Louisville before a May 1959 trade sent him to Cincinnati, then rebuilt his stock in the minors, leading the Pacific Coast League with a 2.42 ERA for Seattle in 1960 and taking American Association Player of the Month honors for August 1961 at Indianapolis. Cleveland grabbed him in the Rule 5 draft after 1961 and dealt him to the expansion Washington Senators in May 1962, where he finally won a rotation spot. He was one of the quickest workers in the league - seven of his 23 starts in 1962 took under two hours - and is credited with inspiring the 1963 rule that cut warm-up pitches between innings to five. Off the field he was the husband and manager of burlesque dancer Patti Waggin. He went 18-32 with a 4.00 ERA over six big-league seasons, pitched two more years in the minors, and was killed in 1968, at 37, when his truck overturned near his Granada Hills, California, home.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 164 | 0 | 6 | 61 | 66 | 20 | 6 | 5 | 0 |
| SGC | 6 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 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 #224 card?
It is card #224 of the 600-card 1962 Topps Baseball set, picturing Don Rudolph of the Cleveland Indians.
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.