1962 Topps #12 Harry Craft
About this card
The set carries nineteen manager cards, including three Hall of Famers: Casey Stengel of the first-year Mets at #29, Walt Alston at #217 and Al Lopez at #286.
About Harry Craft
Topps gave Craft card #12 in the first series of 1962, one of the set's manager cards, and the job behind the portrait was brand new. He had guided the Triple-A Houston Buffs through 1961, the city's last minor-league skipper, before being handed the expansion Colt .45s. Houston opened on April 10, 1962 at Colt Stadium with an 11-2 win over the Cubs, the first big-league game ever played in Texas, and a 32-41 mark through three months looked survivable until a 5-24 July. The Colts landed at 64-96-2, eighth in the ten-team National League, six full games clear of those same Cubs.
Harry Francis Craft (1915-1995) was a center fielder who earned his keep with his glove and a manager who ran Houston's first big-league club. He broke in with the Cincinnati Reds in September 1937, held center field as the Reds won National League pennants in 1939 and 1940, started all four games of the 1939 World Series sweep by the Yankees, and made a single pinch-hitting appearance in the 1940 Series that Cincinnati took from Detroit in seven games. He hit for the cycle in a 23-2 rout of Brooklyn on June 8, 1940, but his bat kept fading, and a July 1942 waiver deal to the Yankees ended his major-league playing days at 27; he served in the Navy during the war and finished as a player with Kansas City in the minors in 1948. Managing went better. He was Mickey Mantle's first professional manager, at Independence in 1949 and Joplin in 1950, then ran the Kansas City Athletics from August 1957 through 1959, took a turn as head coach in the Cubs' 1961 College of Coaches, and opened the Houston Colt .45s in 1962. He later scouted and worked in player development for the Orioles, Giants and Yankees before retiring in 1991. Cooperstown never called, but the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame elected him in 1963.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 185 | 0 | 1 | 53 | 82 | 33 | 12 | 4 | 0 |
| SGC | 14 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 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
More Houston Colt .45's cards:
- #23 Norm Larker
- #44 Don Taussig
- #74 Bob Lillis
- #126 Al Cicotte
- #156 Merritt Ranew
- #177 Bobby Shantz
- #204 Johnny Weekly
- #227 Bobby Tiefenauer
- #248 Bob Aspromonte
- #278 Ken Johnson
- #304 Dick Farrell
- #332 Don Buddin
- #354 Roman Mejias
- #373 Al Heist
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1962 Topps #12 card?
It is card #12 of the 600-card 1962 Topps Baseball set, picturing Harry Craft of the Houston Colt .45's. The set carries nineteen manager cards, including three Hall of Famers: Casey Stengel of the first-year Mets at #29, Walt Alston at #217 and Al Lopez at #286.
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.