1964 Topps #70 Joe Torre


About Joe Torre
The first-series card is #70. Its back covers 1963, the year Torre split the catching with Del Crandall and came out ahead: 94 starts behind the plate, 142 games in all, a .293 average, 14 home runs and 71 RBI. That earned him a place on the National League All-Star roster as a reserve, though he never got into the game. By the time the card shipped, Milwaukee had traded Crandall to San Francisco, leaving the 23-year-old on the front as the club's undisputed number one catcher.
Joseph Paul Torre Jr., born July 18, 1940 in Brooklyn, New York, was signed off the city's sandlots by the Milwaukee Braves in 1959, following his older brother Frank into the organization. He reached the majors on September 25, 1960 and spent nine seasons with the Braves in Milwaukee and Atlanta, catching, hitting, and making the National League All-Star team five years running from 1963 through 1967. Six seasons with the St. Louis Cardinals followed, and once they moved him out from behind the plate he put together the year of his life: in 1971 he led the major leagues in batting at .363, in hits with 230 and in runs batted in with 137, and was named National League Most Valuable Player. Torre finished 18 seasons with a .297 average, 2,342 hits, 252 home runs and 1,185 RBI, the last of them taken as player-manager of the New York Mets in 1977. He then managed for 29 seasons, winning four World Series titles with the New York Yankees between 1996 and 2000 and retiring fifth all-time with 2,326 wins, the only man to collect 2,000 hits as a player and 2,000 wins as a manager. The Expansion Era Committee elected him unanimously to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2014.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · National Baseball Hall of Fame · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 604 | 0 | 21 | 143 | 164 | 129 | 72 | 75 | 0 |
| SGC | 90 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 19 | 20 | 27 | 17 | 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: #132 Milwaukee Braves
More Milwaukee Braves cards:
- #3 1963 National League Pitching Leaders
- #7 1963 National League Batting Leaders
- #9 1963 National League Home Run Leaders
- #11 1963 National League R.B.I. Leaders
- #35 Ed Mathews
- #53 Denis Menke
- #65 Felipe Alou
- #94 Braves 1964 Rookie Stars
- #115 Frank Bolling
- #152 Denver Lemaster
- #171 Ty Cline
- #198 Len Gabrielson
- #218 Hank Fischer
- #238 Roy McMillan
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1964 Topps #70 card?
It is card #70 of the 587-card 1964 Topps Baseball set, picturing Joe Torre of the Milwaukee Braves.
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.