1964 Topps #16 John Boozer
About John Boozer
A first-series card at #16, it reports Boozer's best season in the majors: 3-4 with a career-best 2.93 ERA over 26 games, eight of them starts and two complete, plus 69 strikeouts in 83 innings. He recorded his first save in mid-June, closing out the Cardinals in St. Louis with 2 2/3 scoreless innings, and won for the first time on July 18, a 5-1 three-hitter over Houston.
John Morgan Boozer, a 6-foot-3, 205-pound right-hander from Columbia, South Carolina, signed with the Philadelphia Phillies out of Wofford College in July 1958. Three seasons in the low minors led to a breakout 1961 at Double-A Chattanooga, where he went 19-9 with a 2.61 ERA, was picked for the Southern Association All-Star Game and was named the league's Rookie of the Year. He reached the majors on July 22, 1962, and pitched seven seasons for Philadelphia, 1962-1964 and 1966-1969, almost all of it out of the bullpen: 14-16 with a 4.09 ERA, 15 saves and 282 strikeouts in 171 games, 22 of them starts. He is one of only four players in major league history ejected from a game for violating the rule that bars a pitcher from going to his mouth on the mound. Teammates remembered him as one of the game's great flakes, a tobacco chewer who bit grasshoppers in half and ate moths in front of anyone he could turn queasy. He came home to become Lexington County, South Carolina's first recreation director, spending fifteen years building the county's playgrounds and ballfields, and died of Hodgkin's disease in January 1986 at age 47.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 298 | 0 | 29 | 144 | 76 | 24 | 13 | 12 | 0 |
| SGC | 8 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 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: #293 Philadelphia Phillies
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- #135 Johnny Callison
- #157 Gene Mauch
- #173 Ryne Duren
- #191 Clay Dalrymple
- #208 Wes Covington
- #243 Phillies 1964 Rookie Stars
- #254 Don Hoak
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- #319 Paul Brown
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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1964 Topps #16 card?
It is card #16 of the 587-card 1964 Topps Baseball set, picturing John Boozer of the Philadelphia Phillies.
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.