1963 Topps #224 Mike Roarke
About Mike Roarke
Detroit sent Dick Brown to Baltimore in November 1962 for Gus Triandos and Whitey Herzog, and the shuffle dropped Roarke to third catcher. Triandos played 106 games and young Bill Freehan another 100, leaving Roarke 23 appearances, 16 of them behind the plate, the lightest workload of his four seasons. He made the swings count: 14 hits in 44 at-bats, a .318 average that is comfortably the best of any season he put up. Card #224 comes from Topps' third print series.
Mike Roarke was a right-handed catcher who played four major-league seasons, all with the Detroit Tigers, from 1961 through 1964. Born in West Warwick, Rhode Island, on November 8, 1930, he captained both the football and baseball teams at Boston College, won the Scanlan Award in 1951 and graduated with honors in 1952. He signed with the Boston Braves that year, lost time to military service, and spent seven seasons in the minors without a call-up, since the Braves already had Del Crandall, an eleven-time National League All-Star, behind the plate. A trade that included Charley Lau sent him to Detroit after the 1959 season, and after one more minor-league summer at Denver he debuted on April 19, 1961, at age 30. Known as a good handler of pitchers and an excellent defensive catcher who struggled at the plate, he batted .230 with 6 home runs and 44 runs batted in over 194 games. He retired in October 1964 to coach, serving as a bullpen coach for the Tigers and the California Angels before a long run as a pitching coach with Detroit, the Cubs, Cardinals, Padres and Red Sox; his St. Louis staffs won National League pennants in 1985 and 1987 under Whitey Herzog. He died in 2019 at 88.
Sources: Wikipedia · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 173 | 0 | 8 | 85 | 57 | 17 | 5 | 1 | 0 |
| SGC | 7 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 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: #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 #224 card?
It is card #224 of the 576-card 1963 Topps Baseball set, picturing Mike Roarke of the Detroit Tigers.
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.