1964 Topps #181 Dave Wickersham
About Dave Wickersham
1964 Topps #181 comes from the second print series, deep in the low numbers, and is the first Topps card to list Wickersham with the Detroit Tigers. Kansas City had sent him, Jerry Lumpe and Ed Rakow to Detroit in November 1963 for Rocky Colavito, Bob Anderson and cash, a deal that moved the A's most durable arm north. The statistics on it belong to his last Athletics season: 34 starts in 38 games, a staff-leading 237.2 innings, four complete games, one shutout and a 12-15 record with a 4.09 earned run average. The workload, not the won-lost record, was what Detroit had paid for.
David Clifford Wickersham was a right-handed pitcher from Erie, Pennsylvania, who spent ten seasons in the major leagues from 1960 to 1969. The Pittsburgh Pirates signed him as an amateur free agent before the 1955 season, and he enrolled at Ohio University in his off-seasons while working through six minor league campaigns. Kansas City claimed him in the 1959 minor league draft, and he reached the Athletics in September 1960. He worked out of the bullpen before moving into the rotation, and led American League pitchers in winning percentage in 1962. Traded to Detroit in November 1963, he had his best year in 1964, going 19-12 with a 3.44 earned run average for the Tigers and drawing consideration in the American League Most Valuable Player vote. He later pitched for the Pittsburgh Pirates and, in 1969, the Kansas City Royals, making him one of only four players to appear for both Kansas City major league franchises. He finished 68-57 with a 3.66 earned run average and 638 strikeouts over 283 games. A leader in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, he was inducted into the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame in 1989 and died in 2022 at age 86.
Sources: Wikipedia · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 244 | 2 | 19 | 127 | 65 | 20 | 5 | 6 | 0 |
| SGC | 9 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Graded population — a scarcity guide, not a price. Data as of 2026-09-04. Half grades fold down for both graders (8.5→8); PSA qualified slabs (OC, ST, PD, MC and the like) are not counted.
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Related cards
Team card: #67 Detroit Tigers
More Detroit Tigers cards:
- #6 1963 American League Strikeout Leaders
- #8 1963 American League Batting Leaders
- #12 1963 American League R.B.I. Leaders
- #19 Don Wert
- #39 Hank Aguirre
- #58 Don Demeter
- #98 Bill Bruton
- #128 Mickey Lolich
- #143 Bubba Phillips
- #165 Jerry Lumpe
- #197 Frank Lary
- #236 Bill Faul
- #250 Al Kaline
- #272 Jake Wood
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1964 Topps #181 card?
It is card #181 of the 587-card 1964 Topps Baseball set, picturing Dave Wickersham of the Detroit Tigers.
How many cards are in the 1964 Topps Baseball set?
587 cards, tracked as 589 collectible states. Numbers run from 1 to 587 with no gaps, and no number carries two different cards; two cards - #4, the A.L. Pitching Leaders, and #517, the seventh-series checklist - carry a catalogued back variation that the master set counts separately.
Sources: Trading Card Database, PSA CardFacts, Cardboard Connection, The Topps Archives, Baseball Almanac, 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 2026-10-11.