1962 Topps #213 Richie Ashburn
About Richie Ashburn
Number 213 places Ashburn in the 1962 set's third series, an ordinary mid-set card. The listing is already New York Mets, since the Cubs sold him to the expansion club on December 8, 1961, but the season behind it is his last in Chicago: .257 in 109 games, 49 runs, 19 RBI, 7 steals and 55 walks in only 307 at-bats. He was a part-timer by then, starting 56 games in center and 13 in left while the Cubs ran their College of Coaches experiment, rotating a different coach into the manager's chair.
Don Richard Ashburn - Whitey to the minor-league teammates who named him for his light-blond hair - was a slap-and-run leadoff man and center fielder who spent his first twelve big-league seasons (1948-1959) with the Philadelphia Phillies. He debuted as a 21-year-old on Opening Day 1948 and started that summer's All-Star Game as a rookie. A left-handed spray hitter with almost no power, he won National League batting titles in 1955 (.338) and 1958 (.350), earned five All-Star selections, and patrolled center field for the pennant-winning 1950 Whiz Kids, who were swept by the Yankees in that year's World Series. His glove drew as much notice as his bat: he had 400 or more outfield putouts in nine seasons, a record, cleared 500 four times, and still ranks third all-time among center fielders in putouts behind only Willie Mays and Tris Speaker. Philadelphia traded him to the Chicago Cubs in January 1960 for three players; after two seasons at Wrigley Field the expansion New York Mets bought him for their first year. He retired following 1962 with a .308 average, 2,574 hits and 234 steals, then sat in the Phillies broadcast booth from 1963 until his death in 1997. The writers gave him 2.1 percent in 1968, his first year on the ballot; the Veterans Committee elected him in 1995.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · National Baseball Hall of Fame
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 546 | 1 | 19 | 158 | 193 | 92 | 48 | 35 | 0 |
| SGC | 82 | 0 | 4 | 8 | 34 | 16 | 10 | 10 | 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 #213 card?
It is card #213 of the 600-card 1962 Topps Baseball set, picturing Richie Ashburn 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.