1963 Topps #350 Bob Purkey
About Bob Purkey
The 1962 season put Purkey on two League Leaders cards in the 1963 set's first series. No. 5 collects the National League ERA leaders, with Topps listing him third behind Sandy Koufax and Bob Shaw and ahead of Don Drysdale and Bob Gibson. No. 7 gathers the pitching leaders, where he again places third, behind Drysdale and Jack Sanford and in front of Joey Jay, Art Mahaffey and Billy O'Dell. He had earned both: seven straight wins to open the year, National League Player of the Month in May, 14-2 at the midpoint, 18 complete games, and a raise to roughly $40,000, reported as the largest ever paid a Reds pitcher. His own card, No. 350, follows in the fourth series.
Bob Purkey was a right-handed Pittsburgh native who pitched thirteen big-league seasons, from 1954 through 1966, for the Pittsburgh Pirates, Cincinnati Reds, and St. Louis Cardinals. Signed by his hometown Pirates out of South Hills High School, he went 16-29 over four years for second-division Pittsburgh clubs; midway through that run, in 1955, general manager Branch Rickey sent him to the minors and taught him a knuckleball in ten pitches. The pitch made his name, though he insisted he was really a sinker and slider man who lived on control, walking just 2.2 batters per nine innings. A December 1957 trade to Cincinnati for Don Gross remade him: over seven Reds seasons he went 103-76, was picked for five All-Star squads across three summers, and anchored the 1961 pennant winners. His best year was 1962, when he finished 23-5 with a 2.81 ERA, led all major-league pitchers in winning percentage, and placed third in the balloting for the lone Cy Young Award. A sore arm in the spring of 1963 took the rest; he wound up 129-115 with 793 strikeouts and a 3.79 ERA, and Cincinnati elected him to the Reds Hall of Fame in 1974.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 242 | 1 | 18 | 111 | 74 | 21 | 10 | 7 | 0 |
| SGC | 15 | 0 | 2 | 6 | 4 | 1 | 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.
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Related cards
More Bob Purkey in this set: #5 League Leaders, #7 League Leaders
Team card: #63 Cincinnati Reds
More Cincinnati Reds cards:
- #1 1962 National League Batting Leaders
- #3 1962 National League Home Run Leaders
- #5 1962 National League E.R.A. Leaders
- #7 1962 National League Pitching Leaders
- #21 Marty Keough
- #29 1963 Rookie Stars
- #37 Jerry Lynch
- #70 Jim O'Toole
- #90 Gordy Coleman
- #116 Jim Brosnan
- #133 Gene Freese
- #158 1963 Rookie Stars
- #178 Johnny Edwards
- #194 Joe Nuxhall
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1963 Topps #350 card?
It is card #350 of the 576-card 1963 Topps Baseball set, picturing Bob Purkey of the Cincinnati Reds.
How many cards are in the 1963 Topps Baseball set?
576 cards, tracked as 583 collectible states. The numbers run from 1 to 576 with no gaps and no number used twice, and seven cards carry a catalogued print variation - three checklists, the two Rookie Stars cards also printed with a "1962" heading, and the #341 Jack Baldschun and #454 Art Fowler print states - that the master set counts separately.
Sources: 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.