1962 Topps #1 Roger Maris
About Roger Maris
The record season put Maris at card #1, the lead-off slot in the set for 61 home runs, 141 RBI and 132 runs scored. Card #313 replays the blow itself: its title reads Maris Blasts 61st, and it is an action card from the fourth series. Card #53 heads the A.L. Home Run Leaders front over Mickey Mantle's 54 and the 46 apiece posted by Harmon Killebrew and Jim Gentile. Card #401, the A.L. and N.L. Homer Kings card, pairs him with Orlando Cepeda, who led the National League with 46 for San Francisco. Cards #1 and #53 came in the first series, #401 in the fifth.
Roger Maris broke in with the Cleveland Indians in April 1957, moved to the Kansas City Athletics in a June 1958 trade, and joined the Yankees in a seven-player deal on December 11, 1959. In 1960 he hit .283 with 39 home runs and led the American League in RBI with 112 and in slugging at .581, taking a Gold Glove in right field and the first of two straight Most Valuable Player awards. The next season he ran down Babe Ruth's single-season home run record, finishing 1961 with 61 homers, a league-best 141 RBI and a major-league-best 132 runs in the first American League year of a 162-game schedule. Commissioner Ford Frick wanted the mark listed apart unless it came inside 154 games; no asterisk was ever printed, and committees in 1968 and 1991 affirmed it. An All-Star every year from 1959 through 1962, he won World Series titles with the Yankees in 1961 and 1962, went to the St. Louis Cardinals for Charley Smith in December 1966, won a third in 1967, and retired after 1968 with 275 home runs. The Yankees retired his number 9 in 1984. Diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 1983, he died on December 14, 1985, at 51, and is not in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 4,225 | 0 | 6 | 86 | 326 | 741 | 922 | 2,114 | 30 |
| SGC | 1,614 | 0 | 1 | 15 | 68 | 134 | 340 | 969 | 87 |
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
More Roger Maris in this set: #53 League Leaders, #313 In Action, #401 Combo
Team card: #251 New York Yankees Team
More New York Yankees cards:
- #18 Managers' Dream
- #31 Tom Tresh
- #48 Ralph Terry
- #65 Bobby Richardson
- #88 Ralph Houk
- #93 John Blanchard
- #110 Bill Skowron
- #136 Babe Ruth Special: Babe Joins Yanks
- #137 Babe Ruth Special: Babe and Mgr. Huggins
- #138 Babe Ruth Special: The Famous Slugger
- #139a Hal Reniff
- #139b Hal Reniff
- #139c Babe Ruth Special: Babe Hits 60
- #140 Babe Ruth Special: Gehrig and Ruth
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1962 Topps #1 card?
It is card #1 of the 600-card 1962 Topps Baseball set, picturing Roger Maris of the New York Yankees.
What are the key cards in the 1962 Topps set?
The #200 Mickey Mantle anchors the set, with #1 Roger Maris opening it, #300 Willie Mays, #320 Hank Aaron, #5 Sandy Koufax and #10 Bob Clemente (printed under the shortened name Topps used for him) among the stars, #18 Managers' Dream pairing Mantle and Mays, and Mantle again on the #471 AL All-Star card. The #387 Lou Brock and #199 Gaylord Perry rookies head the first-year cards, and #530 Bob Gibson sits in the short-printed high series (#523-598), the hardest cards to find. Behind them come the #218 Joe Torre rookie, Mantle's #318 In Action card and the ten-card Babe Ruth Special.
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.