1964 Topps #100 Elston Howard
About Elston Howard
Chasing a batting title at 35, Howard set career highs in games (150), hits (172) and walks (48), batted .313 - ten points behind champion Tony Oliva - and drove in 84 runs with 15 home runs. His glove was the story: 939 putouts and 1,008 total chances broke the American League records for a catcher, he led the league with a .998 fielding average, and a second straight Gold Glove followed along with a third-place finish in the Most Valuable Player vote. The Cardinals then took the World Series in seven. His 1964 Topps #100 is a first-series card.
Elston Howard was born February 23, 1929, in St. Louis and signed out of Vashon High School with the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro American League in 1948. The New York Yankees bought his contract in July 1950; Army service during the Korean War cost him two seasons, and a Most Valuable Player year at Triple-A Toronto in 1954 finished his apprenticeship. On April 14, 1955, he became the first Black player to appear for the Yankees. Casey Stengel used him as a spare catcher, outfielder and first baseman behind Yogi Berra, but he took over the majority of the catching in 1960 and grew into one of the American League's finest receivers, winning Gold Gloves in 1963 and 1964. The 1963 season brought him the league's Most Valuable Player Award, the first won by a Black player in the American League. He was picked for nine straight All-Star teams from 1957 through 1965, appeared in ten World Series - nine with New York and a last one with Boston - and won four championships as a player. He finished up with the Red Sox in 1968, then came back to coach first base for the Yankees as the American League's first Black coach. He died in 1980 at 51.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 655 | 1 | 22 | 175 | 207 | 104 | 66 | 80 | 0 |
| SGC | 92 | 0 | 0 | 11 | 25 | 17 | 17 | 18 | 4 |
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: #433 New York Yankees
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- #50 Mickey Mantle
- #69 Clete Boyer
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- #118 John Blanchard
- #139 World Series Game #4 - Sealing Yanks' Doom
- #164 Bud Daley
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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1964 Topps #100 card?
It is card #100 of the 587-card 1964 Topps Baseball set, picturing Elston Howard of the New York Yankees.
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.