1962 Topps #4 John DeMerit
About John DeMerit
The 1962 Topps #4 comes out of the set's first series. It shows DeMerit with the New York Mets, whose inaugural roster he made that spring, and it is the last Topps card of his career. He got into just 14 games, five of them as a pinch runner. On May 16 at the Polo Grounds he had a single, a walk and a fifth-inning solo homer off Dick Ellsworth, the third and final long ball of his career, then scored the winning run in the 11th on Felix Mantilla's single, 6-5 over the Cubs. Four days later he played his last big-league game and, rather than accept a sale to Syracuse, retired at 26.
John DeMerit was a Wisconsin outfielder who signed a $100,000 bonus contract with his hometown Milwaukee Braves on May 26, 1957, after a standout career at the University of Wisconsin, where he set a school record with 12 home runs in a season. Born in West Bend and raised in Port Washington, he was bound by the era's bonus rule to stay on the Braves' major-league roster all of 1957, and he got into 33 games as a 21-year-old rookie with only five singles to show for 34 at-bats. Milwaukee still won the pennant, and DeMerit appeared in the World Series as a pinch runner in Game Three as the Braves beat the New York Yankees for the championship. Once the bonus rule changed he spent most of 1958 and 1959 and all of 1960 in the farm system, surfacing in Milwaukee for only 14 games across those two seasons. His one full big-league year came in 1961, and after the Braves left him unprotected the New York Mets took him in the October 1961 expansion draft. He finished with a .174 average, 23 hits, three home runs and seven RBIs over 93 games.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 319 | 0 | 5 | 136 | 117 | 43 | 9 | 9 | 0 |
| SGC | 20 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 9 | 2 | 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 #4 card?
It is card #4 of the 600-card 1962 Topps Baseball set, picturing John DeMerit 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.