1962 Topps #420 Gus Triandos
About Gus Triandos
Billy Hitchcock took over as manager and the Orioles slid to 77-85 and seventh place. Triandos went down with them: .159 in 66 games, six home runs and 23 RBIs, with the rest of the catching going to Hobie Landrith and Charlie Lau. He asked to be traded and got his wish on November 26, when Baltimore sent him and Whitey Herzog to Detroit for catcher Dick Brown, closing an eight-year Oriole run of .249 with 142 home runs. Card #420 is a fifth-series card showing him with Baltimore.
Gus Triandos was a big, slow-footed, powerful catcher who played thirteen major league seasons from 1953 to 1965 with the Yankees, Orioles, Tigers, Phillies and Astros. Signed by the Yankees in 1948 out of San Francisco's Mission High School, he went to Baltimore in the seventeen-player swap of November 17, 1954, the largest two-team trade in major league history, played mostly first base for his first two Oriole seasons, and was the regular catcher by 1957. Under manager Paul Richards, who called him the best catcher in either league, he made the American League All-Star team in 1957, 1958 and 1959, and his 30 home runs in 1958 tied Yogi Berra's league record for catchers. That September he caught Hoyt Wilhelm's no-hitter and supplied the game's only run with a homer; Richards had an oversized mitt built to help him corral Wilhelm's knuckleball. He hit 142 home runs in eight Baltimore seasons, then caught Jim Bunning's 1964 perfect game as a Phillie to become the first catcher to handle no-hitters in both leagues. He stole exactly one base in 1,206 games and finished at .244 with 167 home runs and 608 RBIs. He later scouted for the Los Angeles Dodgers and joined the Baltimore Orioles Hall of Fame in 1981.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 221 | 0 | 10 | 57 | 87 | 52 | 7 | 8 | 0 |
| SGC | 20 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 9 | 5 | 2 | 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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Related cards
Team card: #476 Baltimore Orioles Team
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- #64 Russ Snyder
- #75 Milt Pappas
- #99 John Powell
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- #121 Billy Hitchcock
- #134 Billy Hoeft
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- #189 Dick Hall
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- #221 Bill Short
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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1962 Topps #420 card?
It is card #420 of the 600-card 1962 Topps Baseball set, picturing Gus Triandos of the Baltimore Orioles.
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.