1963 Topps #165 Jim Kaat
About Jim Kaat
Two cards from Kaat's breakout. The 1962 season behind them reads 18-14 with a 3.14 ERA in 269 innings for a Twins club that won 91 games and finished five behind the Yankees, and it brought him a first All-Star trip, a first Gold Glove and a share of the American League lead with five shutouts. Card #10 is the American League strikeout leaders card, where his 173 strikeouts put him in a five-man group with Camilo Pascual, Jim Bunning, Ralph Terry and Juan Pizarro. Card #165 is the second-series single, and the one that shows the pitcher rather than the leaderboard.
Jim Kaat pitched 25 seasons in the major leagues, 1959 through 1983, the longest career any pitcher had put together to that point, and spent the heart of it as the left-handed anchor of the Washington Senators and Minnesota Twins staff before finishing with the White Sox, Phillies, Yankees and Cardinals. A 6-foot-4 southpaw nicknamed Kitty, he worked so fast between pitches that he confounded umpires and annoyed the hitters standing in against him. He won 283 games, 190 of them for the Senators and Twins, more than anyone in the Minnesota era of the franchise, and put together three 20-win seasons, with a record eight-year gap between the first two. He was a three-time All-Star and the most decorated fielding pitcher of his era, taking 16 straight Gold Gloves, still the longest run at the position, though Greg Maddux later won more in total. He waited until he was 43 to get a World Series ring, working out of the bullpen for the 1982 Cardinals. He finished with a 3.45 ERA, 2,461 strikeouts, 180 complete games and 898 appearances, then spent more than two decades as an Emmy-winning broadcaster. The writers never came close to electing him; the Golden Days Era Committee did, for the Hall of Fame class of 2022.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · National Baseball Hall of Fame
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 546 | 1 | 13 | 120 | 178 | 117 | 69 | 48 | 0 |
| SGC | 132 | 0 | 2 | 22 | 21 | 38 | 25 | 23 | 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.
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Related cards
More Jim Kaat in this set: #10 League Leaders
Team card: #162 Minnesota Twins
More Minnesota Twins cards:
- #4 1962 American League Home Run Leaders
- #8 1962 American League Pitching Leaders
- #10 1962 American League Strikeout Leaders
- #26 Ray Moore
- #40 Vic Power
- #75 Bob Allison
- #89 Dick Stigman
- #110 Rich Rollins
- #127 Bill Tuttle
- #186 Jerry Zimmerman
- #198 Lenny Green
- #220 Camilo Pascual
- #228 1963 Rookie Stars
- #246 Lee Stange
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1963 Topps #165 card?
It is card #165 of the 576-card 1963 Topps Baseball set, picturing Jim Kaat of the Minnesota Twins.
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.