1963 Topps #573 Coot Veal
Veal's entire 1962 big-league season was one pinch-hit appearance for Pittsburgh, so he logged no time in the field that year.
About Coot Veal
Number 573 sits in Topps' seventh series, one of the high numbers that close out the 1963 set. It shows Veal back with Detroit. Pittsburgh had sent him down to Columbus after a 1962 big-league season that amounted to a single pinch-hit appearance and no time in the field, then traded him to the Detroit organization, where he hit .258 for Denver and .349 in the playoffs. A good spring won him a bench spot on the Tigers' 1963 Opening Day roster. He was batting .313 in late April before sliding to .219 in 15 games; his last big-league game came June 20 against Boston, an 0-for-3, with Dick McAuliffe now at shortstop. Ten days later Detroit sold him to Syracuse.
Orville Inman Veal, known to everyone as Coot, was a right-handed shortstop born July 9, 1932, in Deepstep, Georgia. He starred in baseball and basketball at Auburn, still called Alabama Polytechnic Institute when he was there, and signed with Detroit in 1952. Thirteen seasons of professional ball followed, six of them touching the majors with the Tigers, Senators, Pirates and Tigers again across 247 games. He was the classic good-field, no-hit infielder: a .231 hitter with one home run in 611 at-bats, but a .976 fielding percentage, four points better than Hall of Famer Luis Aparicio's. So little of his offense went for extra bases that his career on-base percentage, .298, finished ahead of his slugging percentage, .288. Casey Stengel, watching him for the first time, asked aloud where that Veal fellow had been hidden. The name came from a high school coach who tagged him Kook after a third baseman on a Black team that barnstormed the area; in college it was heard as Coot and stuck for life. He went into the Macon, Georgia, Sports Hall of Fame in 2001 and died March 14, 2021.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 229 | 1 | 6 | 98 | 94 | 22 | 6 | 2 | 0 |
| SGC | 17 | 0 | 1 | 7 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 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.
Find this card
Search T206 Cards Live auctions Buy It Now on eBay Sold prices
As an eBay Partner Network affiliate, T206Cards.com may earn from qualifying purchases.
Related cards
Team card: #552 Detroit Tigers
More Detroit Tigers cards:
- #4 1962 American League Home Run Leaders
- #6 1962 American League E.R.A. Leaders
- #8 1962 American League Pitching Leaders
- #10 1962 American League Strikeout Leaders
- #25 Al Kaline
- #44 Terry Fox
- #64 Dick McAuliffe
- #84 Ron Kline
- #134 Bob Scheffing
- #140 Frank Lary
- #164 Bubba Morton
- #169 1963 Rookie Stars
- #177 Bubba Phillips
- #218 Tiger Twirlers
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1963 Topps #573 card?
It is card #573 of the 576-card 1963 Topps Baseball set, picturing Coot Veal of the Detroit Tigers.
Why is #573 harder to find?
It is a high number card from the seventh print series, #512-576 - the last and scarcest run in the set. Price guides often band the highs as #523-576, but the printing break falls between #511 and #512.
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.