1962 Topps #440 Joe Jay
About Joe Jay
Three cards divide up one enormous season. Number 58, a first-series leaders card, groups Jay with Warren Spahn and Jim O'Toole among the National League's top winners of 1961. Number 263 in the third series is a combination card pairing him with fellow starter Bob Purkey and Cincinnati pitching coach Jim Turner. Number 440, from the fifth series, gives him a card of his own. Behind all three is October: Jay was named to both National League All-Star squads in a two-game All-Star year without pitching in either, then threw a complete-game four-hitter to beat New York 6-2 in Game Two of the World Series, the only game Cincinnati won as the Yankees closed it out in five.
Joseph Richard Jay, born August 15, 1935, in Middletown, Connecticut, was a switch-hitting right-hander who pitched 13 seasons in the majors between 1953 and 1966 for the Milwaukee and Atlanta Braves and the Cincinnati Reds. Milwaukee signed him out of high school in 1953 for a $40,000 bonus, making him one of the original bonus babies and the first Little League alumnus to reach the big leagues; the bonus rule of the day pinned him to a major league roster before he had learned his trade in the minors. Seven uneven Braves seasons followed. After the 1960 campaign Milwaukee sent Jay and Juan Pizarro to Cincinnati for shortstop Roy McMillan, and the move remade him: 21 wins in 1961, 21 more in 1962, and a pennant for the Reds. He finished 99-91 with a 3.77 ERA and 999 strikeouts over 1,546 1/3 innings. Cincinnati elected him to the Reds Hall of Fame, a team honor, in July 2008. He died September 27, 2024, in Lutz, Florida, at 89.
Sources: SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 252 | 0 | 25 | 113 | 79 | 28 | 4 | 3 | 0 |
| SGC | 22 | 0 | 3 | 7 | 7 | 2 | 2 | 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.
Find this card
Search T206 Cards Live auctions Buy It Now on eBay Sold prices
As an eBay Partner Network affiliate, T206Cards.com may earn from qualifying purchases.
Related cards
More Joe Jay in this set: #58 League Leaders, #263 Combo
Team card: #465 Cincinnati Reds Team
More Cincinnati Reds cards:
- #2 Jim Brosnan
- #16 Darrell Johnson
- #41 Cliff Cook
- #80 Vada Pinson
- #103 Don Blasingame
- #120 Bob Purkey
- #148 Wally Post
- #151 Johnny Klippstein
- #171 Dave Sisler
- #172 Fred Hutchinson
- #193 Eddie Kasko
- #205 Gene Freese
- #233 World Series Game #2 - Jay Ties It Up
- #258 Marty Keough
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1962 Topps #440 card?
It is card #440 of the 600-card 1962 Topps Baseball set, picturing Joe Jay of the Cincinnati Reds.
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.