1962 Topps #494 Sammy White
About Sammy White
By 1962 White was a veteran backstop playing out the string in Philadelphia. He had signed with the Phillies as a free agent that spring, joining a club run by former Red Sox teammate Gene Mauch and reuniting with his old Boston roommate, pitcher Frank Sullivan. He got into 41 games, started 31 of them behind the plate, and batted .216 before making his last big league appearance in August; the Phillies released him that October, ending an eleven-season career that had begun in Boston in 1951. His card here is number 494, from the set's sixth series, and lists him with the Phillies.
Sammy White was a right-handed catcher from Wenatchee, Washington, who grew up in Seattle. A standout at the University of Washington in both baseball and basketball, he left school in 1949 to sign with the Seattle Rainiers of the Pacific Coast League, and Boston bought his contract that same season. White was the Red Sox number one catcher from 1952 through 1959 and earned a reputation as one of the game's best defensive receivers: Casey Stengel marveled at his knack for framing a pitch, and Mel Parnell rated him the best of all the catchers he threw to in Boston. He was an American League All-Star in 1953, though Stengel kept Yogi Berra behind the plate the whole game, and his best year with the bat came in 1954, when he hit .282 with 14 home runs and 75 RBIs. Traded to Cleveland for catcher Russ Nixon in March 1960, White refused to report and sat out the season to run his Boston bowling alley. He returned with the Milwaukee Braves in 1961 and closed his career with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1962, finishing at .262 with 66 home runs and 421 RBIs over eleven seasons and 1,043 games. He entered the State of Washington Hall of Fame in 1980 and the Husky Hall of Fame in 1984.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 214 | 0 | 8 | 75 | 84 | 26 | 15 | 6 | 0 |
| SGC | 17 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 7 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
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
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- #146 Don Demeter
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- #181 Paul Brown
- #212 Jim Owens
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- #249 Ed Keegan
- #269 Bob Oldis
- #284 Ruben Amaro
- #303 Frank Torre
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1962 Topps #494 card?
It is card #494 of the 600-card 1962 Topps Baseball set, picturing Sammy White of the Philadelphia Phillies.
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.