1964 Topps #487 Mike McCormick
About Mike McCormick
The back of card #487 holds his one durable season in the American League: 6-8 with a 4.30 earned run average in 1963, 21 starts among 25 appearances, 136 innings and only two complete games for an Orioles club that finished fourth at 86-76. In public he insisted the arm had come back. It had not, and doctors at Johns Hopkins found a torn muscle in the shoulder. Number 487 comes out of the sixth series.
Mike McCormick was born September 29, 1938, in Pasadena, California, and signed with the New York Giants on August 31, 1956, for a $50,000 bonus out of Mark Keppel High School in Alhambra. The bonus rule kept such a signing on the big-league roster, so the left-hander debuted four days later at seventeen, having never pitched in the minors. Sixteen seasons followed: the New York and San Francisco Giants (1956-1962 and 1967-1970), the Baltimore Orioles (1963-1964), the Washington Senators (1965-1966), the New York Yankees (1970) and the Kansas City Royals (1971). He led the National League with a 2.70 earned run average in 1960 and made all four All-Star squads of 1960 and 1961, when the majors staged two games a summer. A ruined shoulder nearly finished him at twenty-four; he rebuilt himself around a screwball and went 22-10 in 1967 to win San Francisco's first Cy Young Award and The Sporting News awards for Pitcher of the Year and Comeback Player of the Year. He retired with 134 wins, 128 losses, a 3.73 ERA, 1,321 strikeouts and 23 shutouts in 484 games, sold securities and then office equipment, and died June 13, 2020, at 81 in North Carolina. He is not a National Baseball Hall of Fame inductee; the Giants honor him on their Wall of Fame.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac (1) · Baseball Almanac (2)
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 160 | 2 | 17 | 77 | 32 | 20 | 6 | 6 | 0 |
| SGC | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 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.
Find this card
Search T206 Cards Shop 1964 Topps cards Live auctions Buy It Now on eBay Sold prices
As an eBay Partner Network affiliate, T206Cards.com may earn from qualifying purchases.
Related cards
Team card: #473 Baltimore Orioles
More Baltimore Orioles cards:
- #17 Willie Kirkland
- #22 Jerry Adair
- #45 Milt Pappas
- #63 Johnny Orsino
- #89 Boog Powell
- #126 Russ Snyder
- #145 Norm Siebern
- #161 Dave McNally
- #178 Hank Bauer
- #201 Orioles 1964 Rookie Stars
- #221 Bob Saverine
- #230 Brooks Robinson
- #239 Herm Starrette
- #263 Chuck Estrada
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1964 Topps #487 card?
It is card #487 of the 587-card 1964 Topps Baseball set, picturing Mike McCormick of the Baltimore Orioles.
Why is #487 harder to find?
It is a series 5-6 card. Cards from the fifth and sixth print series (#371-522) are a step tougher to find than #1-370; availability in 1964 runs in three tiers, not a cliff.
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.