1964 Topps #233 Hal Smith
About Hal Smith
Cincinnati signed Smith about two months after Houston let him go, wanting an experienced receiver to steady a young pitching staff, and card 233 catches him there for what turned out to be a short last stop. He hit .121 in 32 games, made his final major league appearance on July 22, 1964 - a pop-up against Mets left-hander Willard Hunter - and was released before the month was out. Number 233 comes from the third print series.
Harold Wayne Smith was a right-handed catcher who appeared in 879 games over ten major league seasons from 1955 to 1964, filling in at third base and first base along the way. Signed by the New York Yankees out of high school in 1949, he never played an inning for them; a 17-player trade after the 1954 season sent him to Baltimore, where he opened 1955 as the Orioles' starting catcher and played a career-high 135 games. Traded to Kansas City in August 1956, he put up his best year at the plate in 1957, batting .303 with 26 doubles and 13 home runs. The Pirates acquired him after the 1959 season, and in 1960 he platooned behind the plate with left-handed-hitting Smoky Burgess, batting .295 with 11 home runs and 45 runs batted in. He is remembered for the three-run homer off Jim Coates in the eighth inning of Game Seven of the 1960 World Series, which put Pittsburgh ahead 9-7 an inning before Bill Mazeroski's walk-off settled it. Houston took him in the 1961 expansion draft, and he finished up with Cincinnati in 1964, closing with 715 hits, 58 home runs, 323 runs batted in and a .267 average. He died in 2020 at age 89.
Sources: SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 233 | 3 | 33 | 113 | 57 | 17 | 8 | 2 | 0 |
| SGC | 5 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 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: #403 Cincinnati Reds
More Cincinnati Reds cards:
- #3 1963 National League Pitching Leaders
- #5 1963 National League Strikeout Leaders
- #33 Reds 1964 Rookie Stars
- #49 Bill Henry
- #72 Chico Cardenas
- #80 Vada Pinson
- #106 Joe Nuxhall
- #125 Pete Rose
- #144 Al Worthington
- #162 Hitting Area
- #166 Marty Keough
- #185 Jim O'Toole
- #207 Fred Hutchinson
- #260 Frank Robinson
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1964 Topps #233 card?
It is card #233 of the 587-card 1964 Topps Baseball set, picturing Hal Smith of the Cincinnati Reds.
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.