1962 Topps #489 Julio Gotay
About Julio Gotay
Topps put Gotay at number 489 in the sixth series, a mid-run card, and it is the card collectors treat as his rookie. The photo lands on the one year he was a big-league regular: he started 105 games at shortstop for St. Louis in 1962 and hit .255 with 12 doubles, two home runs and 27 runs batted in across 406 plate appearances. Nothing in the rest of his career touched that workload, which is why this sixth-series Cardinal is the Gotay card most collectors start with.
Julio Gotay was a right-handed shortstop and second baseman from Fajardo, Puerto Rico, who played all or parts of ten major-league seasons between 1960 and 1969 for the St. Louis Cardinals, Pittsburgh Pirates, Los Angeles Angels and Houston Astros. He reached the majors at 21, debuting for St. Louis on August 6, 1960, and singled off Joe Nuxhall in his first at-bat while pinch-hitting for Ed Bauta. Only one of those ten seasons made him a regular; the rest he spent as a utility infielder, in and out of Triple-A, finishing with a .260 average, 257 hits, 38 doubles, six home runs and 70 runs batted in over 389 games. He was famously superstitious, and teammate Jim Bouton wrote that he carried a dead fish on plane trips to ward off evil spirits. An uncle of infielder Ruben Gotay, he left the game after the 1971 minor-league season, earned a degree in education and taught physical education for years in Ponce, Puerto Rico, where he died on July 4, 2008, at 69.
Sources: Wikipedia · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 199 | 0 | 8 | 73 | 79 | 27 | 7 | 5 | 0 |
| SGC | 18 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 4 | 6 | 0 | 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
Team card: #61 St. Louis Cardinals Team
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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1962 Topps #489 card?
It is card #489 of the 600-card 1962 Topps Baseball set, picturing Julio Gotay of the St. Louis Cardinals.
Is 1962 Topps #489 a rookie card?
Yes - #489 is the 1962 Topps rookie card of Julio Gotay.
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.