1962 Topps #87 Mike Roarke
About Mike Roarke
Roarke's second Detroit season was his best for power if not for average: 56 games, 53 of them behind the plate, a .213 mark, and 4 home runs with 14 runs batted in. Four of the six home runs he hit in the majors came in that one summer. Dick Brown carried the load with 134 games, and the two of them were the only catchers Detroit listed all year as the Tigers slipped to 85-76 and fourth place. Card #87 is a first-series number. Topps had issued his rookie card a year earlier.
Mike Roarke was a right-handed catcher who played four major-league seasons, all with the Detroit Tigers, from 1961 through 1964. Born in West Warwick, Rhode Island, on November 8, 1930, he captained both the football and baseball teams at Boston College, won the Scanlan Award in 1951 and graduated with honors in 1952. He signed with the Boston Braves that year, lost time to military service, and spent seven seasons in the minors without a call-up, since the Braves already had Del Crandall, an eleven-time National League All-Star, behind the plate. A trade that included Charley Lau sent him to Detroit after the 1959 season, and after one more minor-league summer at Denver he debuted on April 19, 1961, at age 30. Known as a good handler of pitchers and an excellent defensive catcher who struggled at the plate, he batted .230 with 6 home runs and 44 runs batted in over 194 games. He retired in October 1964 to coach, serving as a bullpen coach for the Tigers and the California Angels before a long run as a pitching coach with Detroit, the Cubs, Cardinals, Padres and Red Sox; his St. Louis staffs won National League pennants in 1985 and 1987 under Whitey Herzog. He died in 2019 at 88.
Sources: Wikipedia · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 211 | 0 | 3 | 60 | 111 | 25 | 5 | 7 | 0 |
| SGC | 15 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 2 | 5 | 2 | 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 #87 card?
It is card #87 of the 600-card 1962 Topps Baseball set, picturing Mike Roarke of the Detroit Tigers.
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.