1962 Topps #94 Jay Hook
About Jay Hook
Card #94, a print series 1 issue in the 1962 Topps set, is the first to show Hook with the New York Mets, who had taken him from Cincinnati in the October 1961 expansion draft. On April 23, 1962 at Forbes Field he pitched a complete-game five-hitter against a Pittsburgh club that had opened 10-0, a 9-1 win that was the first in Mets history after nine straight losses, and he drove in two runs himself. The rest of that 40-120 season was harder: 8-19, though he led the club with 34 starts and a career-best 13 complete games, and he was the team's elected player representative.
James Wesley Hook was a right-handed pitcher, born November 18, 1936 in Waukegan, Illinois and raised in nearby Grayslake, where his parents ran the town pharmacy. A three-sport star at Grayslake High School, he went to Northwestern University on an academic scholarship and played baseball and basketball there. Cincinnati, then still called the Redlegs, signed him in August 1957 for a reported $65,000 under the bonus rule in its final season, so the 20-year-old went from campus to the big-league roster and debuted that September. He spent most of 1958 and 1959 in the minors at Nashville and Seattle, then joined the Reds' regular rotation in 1960. Taken by the expansion New York Mets in the October 1961 draft, he won the first game in that franchise's history and pitched for New York into May 1964. Casey Stengel called him Professor because he went back to Northwestern for classes every offseason; he finished an engineering degree there and a master's in thermodynamics. Eight seasons left him 29-62 with a 5.23 ERA and 394 strikeouts in 752 2/3 innings. He retired at 28 to join Chrysler, later held senior management jobs at Rockwell International and Masco, and taught industrial management at Northwestern.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 357 | 0 | 11 | 116 | 147 | 61 | 15 | 7 | 0 |
| SGC | 20 | 0 | 3 | 7 | 9 | 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 #94 card?
It is card #94 of the 600-card 1962 Topps Baseball set, picturing Jay Hook of the New York Mets.
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.