1962 Topps #371 Earl Battey
About Earl Battey
The 1962 set catches Battey after the only .300 season of his career: .302 with 17 home runs and 55 RBI in 133 games for the Twins in their first summer in Minnesota, good for a second straight Gold Glove and the first one ever won by a player in a Twins uniform. He had caught the first regular-season game in Twins history that April, a 6-0 win at Yankee Stadium. Luis Aparicio, the reigning American League stolen-base champion, rated him the toughest catcher in the league to run on. Card #371 is his series-5 base issue; Calvin Griffith answered that .302 by refusing him a $1,300 raise.
Earl Battey was born January 5, 1935, in Los Angeles and signed with the Chicago White Sox out of Jordan High School in Watts. He reached the majors in 1955 and spent five years behind Sherm Lollar before an April 1960 trade sent him and Don Mincher to the Washington Senators for Roy Sievers. Battey caught for that franchise, renamed the Minnesota Twins in 1961, through 1967: three straight Gold Gloves from 1960 to 1962, All-Star selections in 1962, 1963, 1965 and 1966, and a major league record for catchers with 15 baserunners picked off in 1962. He started all seven games of the 1965 World Series loss to Los Angeles and retired with 1,141 games, 969 hits, 104 home runs, 449 RBI and a .270 average. He worked a dozen years as a New York recreation specialist, earned an education degree from Bethune-Cookman University, and taught and coached in Ocala, Florida, where he died of cancer in 2003. The Twins elected him to their hall of fame in 2004.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 207 | 0 | 8 | 81 | 76 | 27 | 4 | 11 | 0 |
| SGC | 16 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 5 | 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 #371 card?
It is card #371 of the 600-card 1962 Topps Baseball set, picturing Earl Battey of the Minnesota Twins.
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.