1964 Topps #204 Matty Alou
About Matty Alou
Card #204, a series-3 issue, covers a lean 1963 season in which Alou batted just .145 with 11 hits over 63 games in limited duty. The year's real headline came off the stat line: on September 15, 1963, he joined brothers Felipe and Jesus in the Giants' outfield for the last two innings of a 13-5 win at Forbes Field, the first all-brother outfield in major league history.
Mateo Rojas Alou, always Matty on his Topps cards, signed with the New York Giants in the winter of 1956-57 out of San Cristobal province, Dominican Republic, the middle Alou brother between Felipe and Jesus. He debuted with the San Francisco Giants in September 1960 and spent six seasons there as a part-time outfielder before the Pirates landed him for pitcher Joe Gibbon and infielder Ozzie Virgil on December 1, 1965. Pirates manager Harry Walker handed him a 38-ounce bat and rebuilt his stroke to stop pulling and slap the ball the other way; his average jumped from .231 to .342 and he won the 1966 National League batting title, edging his own brother Felipe. Four straight .330-plus seasons ran through 1969, with All-Star selections in 1968 and 1969. He played all 162 games in 1969 and led the majors with 698 at-bats, then a major league record and since surpassed, and 231 hits, the most by a National League batter since Joe Medwick in 1937. Alou earned a World Series ring with the 1972 Oakland Athletics, ten years after losing with the 1962 Giants. He later played three seasons in Japan for the Taiheiyo Club Lions, then managed, coached and scouted in the Dominican Republic, and entered the Hispanic Heritage Baseball Museum Hall of Fame in 2007.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 275 | 5 | 19 | 124 | 72 | 32 | 12 | 11 | 0 |
| SGC | 21 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 6 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 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: #257 San Francisco Giants
More San Francisco Giants cards:
- #3 1963 National League Pitching Leaders
- #9 1963 National League Home Run Leaders
- #18 Billy O'Dell
- #41 Friendly Foes
- #47 Giants 1964 Rookie Stars
- #82 Jim Davenport
- #99 Al Stanek
- #123 Jose Pagan
- #150 Willie Mays
- #169 Del Crandall
- #189 Bob Hendley
- #222 Bill Pierce
- #242 Harvey Kuenn
- #280 Juan Marichal
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1964 Topps #204 card?
It is card #204 of the 587-card 1964 Topps Baseball set, picturing Matty Alou of the San Francisco Giants.
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.