1964 Topps #292 Mike Roarke
About Mike Roarke
Gus Triandos went to Philadelphia in the December 1963 Jim Bunning trade, which left Roarke as the veteran backup to Bill Freehan, and Freehan needed little relief: he caught 144 games and hit .300 with 18 home runs and 80 runs batted in. Roarke got 29 games, 27 of them behind the plate, and batted .232 with 7 runs batted in for an 85-77 club that finished fourth. His last big-league appearance came on October 3, 1964, and he retired as a player on October 9 to join the Tigers' coaching staff. Card #292 sits in the fourth print series. It is the last of his four Topps cards.
Mike Roarke was a right-handed catcher who played four major-league seasons, all with the Detroit Tigers, from 1961 through 1964. Born in West Warwick, Rhode Island, on November 8, 1930, he captained both the football and baseball teams at Boston College, won the Scanlan Award in 1951 and graduated with honors in 1952. He signed with the Boston Braves that year, lost time to military service, and spent seven seasons in the minors without a call-up, since the Braves already had Del Crandall, an eleven-time National League All-Star, behind the plate. A trade that included Charley Lau sent him to Detroit after the 1959 season, and after one more minor-league summer at Denver he debuted on April 19, 1961, at age 30. Known as a good handler of pitchers and an excellent defensive catcher who struggled at the plate, he batted .230 with 6 home runs and 44 runs batted in over 194 games. He retired in October 1964 to coach, serving as a bullpen coach for the Tigers and the California Angels before a long run as a pitching coach with Detroit, the Cubs, Cardinals, Padres and Red Sox; his St. Louis staffs won National League pennants in 1985 and 1987 under Whitey Herzog. He died in 2019 at 88.
Sources: Wikipedia · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 227 | 2 | 42 | 125 | 39 | 12 | 7 | 0 | 0 |
| SGC | 8 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 5 | 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: #67 Detroit Tigers
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- #6 1963 American League Strikeout Leaders
- #8 1963 American League Batting Leaders
- #12 1963 American League R.B.I. Leaders
- #19 Don Wert
- #39 Hank Aguirre
- #58 Don Demeter
- #98 Bill Bruton
- #128 Mickey Lolich
- #143 Bubba Phillips
- #165 Jerry Lumpe
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- #197 Frank Lary
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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1964 Topps #292 card?
It is card #292 of the 587-card 1964 Topps Baseball set, picturing Mike Roarke of the Detroit Tigers.
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.