1962 Topps #383 Ray Sadecki
About Ray Sadecki
This card reached collectors during the roughest year of Sadecki's first Cardinals run. A contract holdout kept him out of camp until he signed on March 2, and he never found his rhythm: seven starts in April and May produced a 6.69 ERA and cost him his rotation spot. A June relief outing against Cincinnati in which he recorded no outs and gave up five runs drew a $250 fine from manager Johnny Keane, and by midsummer St. Louis had shipped him to the International League's Atlanta Crackers, where he went 7-1. He closed the big-league season 6-8 with a 5.54 ERA.
Ray Sadecki, a left-handed pitcher born December 26, 1940, in Kansas City, Kansas, signed with the St. Louis Cardinals as a bonus baby out of Bishop Ward High School in 1958, still only seventeen, and reached the majors at nineteen in 1960. Over an 18-year career he pitched for the Cardinals, the San Francisco Giants and the New York Mets, with later stops for the Braves, Royals and Brewers, going 135-131 with a 3.78 ERA, 20 shutouts and 1,614 strikeouts in 563 games, 328 of them starts. Known for his palmball, he was the left-handed complement to Bob Gibson in St. Louis; his signature season came in 1964, when he won 20 games and beat Whitey Ford in Game One of the World Series as the Cardinals took the pennant and the title. He was traded to San Francisco in May 1966 in the deal that sent Orlando Cepeda to St. Louis, and posted his best full-season ERA, 2.78, for the Giants in 1967. Sadecki was inducted into the National Polish-American Sports Hall of Fame in 2007 and the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame in 2010. He died November 17, 2014, in Mesa, Arizona.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 164 | 0 | 9 | 75 | 48 | 16 | 12 | 4 | 0 |
| SGC | 10 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 3 | 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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Related cards
Team card: #61 St. Louis Cardinals Team
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- #50 Stan Musial
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- #106 Carl Sawatski
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- #149 Bob Duliba
- #167 Tim McCarver
- #198 Johnny Keane
- #202 Carl Warwick
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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1962 Topps #383 card?
It is card #383 of the 600-card 1962 Topps Baseball set, picturing Ray Sadecki of the St. Louis Cardinals.
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.