1962 Topps #161 Frank Baumann
About Frank Baumann
The season behind this card was a hard fall. Baumann went 10-13 in 1961 with his ERA nearly three runs higher at 5.61, and he tied for the American League lead in earned runs allowed. There were bright spots with the bat: on July 13 at Comiskey Park he and catcher Sherm Lollar hit back-to-back home runs, only the third time American League batterymates had done it. Card #161 is a second-series White Sox card. Collectors chase it in two printed states, one with a green tint and one without.
Frank Baumann, born in St. Louis on July 1, 1933, was a left-handed pitcher who became one of the premier bonus babies of the 1950s. He pitched Central High School to three straight Missouri state titles and closed his prep career with a no-hitter, and on June 19, 1952 he signed with the Boston Red Sox for a reported $86,000 - the highest price ever paid for a free agent's signature at the time. Owner Tom Yawkey called him Beau. Army service during the Korean War interrupted his climb, and the arm trouble he picked up in uniform - the result of endless push-ups, not pitching - shadowed the rest of his career. He debuted for Boston on July 31, 1955 with 5 2/3 scoreless innings of relief for the win, but needed return trips to the minors from 1956 through 1958 before spending all of 1959 in the majors. Boston traded him to the Chicago White Sox that November for Ron Jackson, and in 1960 he went 13-6 and led American League pitchers with a 2.67 ERA. He stayed with Chicago through 1964, moved across town to the Cubs, and finished in 1965 at 45-38 with a 4.11 ERA and 384 strikeouts over 797 1/3 innings. He died in St. Louis on December 13, 2020.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference
Print variations
Two states of #161 are tracked individually: 161a - No Green Tint and 161b - Green Tint. The difference is on the front of the card (green tint).
States catalogued by the PSA master set registry; each is tracked here individually.
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Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 161a - No Green Tint | |||||||||
| PSA | 239 | 0 | 2 | 87 | 104 | 29 | 11 | 6 | 0 |
| SGC | 11 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 161b - Green Tint | |||||||||
| PSA | 69 | 0 | 3 | 34 | 18 | 9 | 2 | 3 | 0 |
| SGC | 5 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 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. Where a grader registers a variation separately its population is listed under that variation. 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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Related cards
Team card: #113 Chicago White Sox Team
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- #116 Herb Score
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- #195 Joe Cunningham
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- #283 Charlie Smith
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- #325 Luis Aparicio
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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1962 Topps #161 card?
It is card #161 of the 600-card 1962 Topps Baseball set, picturing Frank Baumann of the Chicago White Sox.
Does 1962 Topps #161 have variations?
Yes. Two states are catalogued and tracked separately: 161a - No Green Tint (No green tint - the standard first printing) and 161b - Green Tint (Green tint - the color-shifted second printing of series 2). Owning any one of them fills the #161 slot; the master set counts each state.
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.