1963 Topps #84 Ron Kline
About Ron Kline
Number 84 puts Kline in the first series of the 1963 set wearing Detroit flannels for the last time - the Tigers sold him to the Washington Senators in spring training 1963 for slightly more than the $25,000 waiver price. The card sums up 1962, the first year he did the bulk of his work in relief: 36 appearances, only four starts, all of them crowded into August, and he lost three of those. He worked 77 1/3 innings, went 3-6 with a 4.31 ERA for an 85-76 Detroit club, then toured Japan with the Tigers that fall, briefly weighed playing there, and re-signed with Detroit instead.
Ron Kline was a right-handed pitcher who worked parts of seventeen major-league seasons between 1952 and 1970, missing 1953 and 1954 for Army service during the Korean War. Signed by the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1950 out of a tryout camp at Forbes Field, the Callery, Pennsylvania, native broke in with a last-place Pittsburgh club and spent the 1950s as a hard-luck starter, twice leading the National League in losses despite earned run averages in the mid-3.00s. Passed along through St. Louis, the expansion Los Angeles Angels and Detroit, he reinvented himself in Washington, where four straight bullpen seasons from 1963 through 1966 brought 83 saves and an earned run average under 3.00 every year. Over 736 games for nine clubs he went 114-144 with a 3.75 ERA, 989 strikeouts and 108 saves, the best of it coming after he stopped starting. He bought a tavern in Callery in 1969, ran it for years as Ronnie Kline's Bullpen, and later served as the borough's mayor.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 224 | 0 | 1 | 72 | 88 | 35 | 20 | 8 | 0 |
| SGC | 4 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 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.
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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
- #134 Bob Scheffing
- #140 Frank Lary
- #164 Bubba Morton
- #169 1963 Rookie Stars
- #177 Bubba Phillips
- #218 Tiger Twirlers
- #224 Mike Roarke
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1963 Topps #84 card?
It is card #84 of the 576-card 1963 Topps Baseball set, picturing Ron Kline 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.