1963 Topps #287 Dick Bertell
About Dick Bertell
Card #287 is a fourth-series base card, and the line on its back is the best Bertell ever posted: .302 in 1962 on 65 hits, six doubles and 18 RBI. He got there in only 77 games, fewer than half of Chicago's schedule, and still worked more innings behind the plate than any other catcher on the roster. The club around him was awful, 59-103 and ninth in a ten-team National League, which made a catcher hitting .302 one of the few things a Cubs fan had to point at that summer.
Richard George Bertell was born in Oak Park, Illinois, went to high school in Des Moines, Iowa, and signed with the Chicago Cubs as an undrafted free agent out of Iowa State in June 1957. A right-handed catcher, he reached the majors on September 22, 1960, driving in a run with a sacrifice fly in his first at-bat, and played parts of seven big-league seasons. All but 22 of his 444 games came with the Cubs; the exception was the last four months of 1965 with the San Francisco Giants after a May trade. He was a light hitter, finishing at .250 with 327 hits, 10 home runs and 112 RBI, but the arm was why he played: he threw out 47.74 percent of the runners who tried to steal on him, fourth on the all-time list. His final major league hit was a triple off Hall of Famer Jim Bunning in April 1967. Bertell died on December 20, 1999, in Mission Viejo, California, and his old college put him in the Iowa State Hall of Fame the next year.
Sources: Wikipedia · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 257 | 0 | 26 | 107 | 90 | 22 | 10 | 2 | 0 |
| SGC | 8 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 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
Team card: #222 Chicago Cubs
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- #3 1962 National League Home Run Leaders
- #15 Ken Hubbs
- #31 Cal Koonce
- #54 1963 Rookie Stars
- #58 Bob Will
- #81 Jimmie Schaffer
- #95 Larry Jackson
- #113 Don Landrum
- #175 Bob Buhl
- #193 Andre Rodgers
- #212 Glen Hobbie
- #242 Power Plus
- #252 Ron Santo
- #272 Danny Murphy
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1963 Topps #287 card?
It is card #287 of the 576-card 1963 Topps Baseball set, picturing Dick Bertell of the Chicago Cubs.
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.