1964 Topps #170 Dick Radatz
About Dick Radatz
The 1964 card, #170 in the second series, follows a season better still: 15-6 in 1963 with a 1.97 ERA, 25 saves and 162 strikeouts over 66 games and 132-1/3 innings. Those 25 saves made him the first pitcher in big-league history with back-to-back 20-save seasons. He made his first All-Star team that July and struck out five of the eight National Leaguers he faced, Willie Mays and Willie McCovey among them. He finished fifth in the AL Most Valuable Player voting while working for a seventh-place Boston club that went 76-85.
Richard Raymond Radatz, a 6-foot-6 right-hander out of Detroit and Michigan State University, debuted with the Boston Red Sox on April 10, 1962, after a minor-league conversion from starter to reliever. He was the American League's most feared closer of the early 1960s: a two-time All-Star (1963, 1964) and two-time Sporting News Fireman of the Year (1962, 1964) who led the league in saves as a rookie and, in 1964, struck out a still-standing major-league record 181 batters in relief. The nickname "The Monster" is credited to Mickey Mantle, though the accounts of the night he hung it on Radatz do not agree. Boston traded him to Cleveland in June 1966, and he later pitched for the Chicago Cubs, Detroit Tigers and Montreal Expos before finishing in 1969 with a 52-43 record, a 3.13 ERA, 122 saves and 745 strikeouts in 693-2/3 innings. The Red Sox put him in their team Hall of Fame in 1997. He died in 2005 at age 67 after a fall at his Easton, Massachusetts home.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac (1) · Baseball Almanac (2)
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 198 | 2 | 20 | 79 | 52 | 30 | 9 | 6 | 0 |
| SGC | 5 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
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: #579 Boston Red Sox
More Boston Red Sox cards:
- #8 1963 American League Batting Leaders
- #10 1963 American League Home Run Leaders
- #12 1963 American League R.B.I. Leaders
- #25 Bill Monbouquette
- #60 Frank Malzone
- #79 Bob Heffner
- #93 Gary Geiger
- #112 Bob Tillman
- #153 Dick Williams
- #182 Sox Sockers
- #186 Roman Mejias
- #210 Carl Yastrzemski
- #228 Felix Mantilla
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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1964 Topps #170 card?
It is card #170 of the 587-card 1964 Topps Baseball set, picturing Dick Radatz of the Boston Red Sox.
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.