1964 Topps #147 Ray Sadecki
About Ray Sadecki
This card was on shelves as Sadecki put together his signature season. He won 10 games in 12 starts from mid-May into June, finished 20-11 with a 3.68 ERA, and beat Philadelphia on September 29 for his 20th win as the Phillies coughed up a six-and-a-half-game September lead. Handed Game One of the World Series because Bob Gibson had worked three times in the final week, he gave up four runs in six innings and got a 9-5 win over Whitey Ford, the last World Series game Ford ever pitched. His Game Four start lasted four batters, but St. Louis rallied there too and took the Series in seven. Card #147 comes from the set's second series.
Ray Sadecki, a left-handed pitcher born December 26, 1940, in Kansas City, Kansas, signed with the St. Louis Cardinals as a bonus baby out of Bishop Ward High School in 1958, still only seventeen, and reached the majors at nineteen in 1960. Over an 18-year career he pitched for the Cardinals, the San Francisco Giants and the New York Mets, with later stops for the Braves, Royals and Brewers, going 135-131 with a 3.78 ERA, 20 shutouts and 1,614 strikeouts in 563 games, 328 of them starts. Known for his palmball, he was the left-handed complement to Bob Gibson in St. Louis; his signature season came in 1964, when he won 20 games and beat Whitey Ford in Game One of the World Series as the Cardinals took the pennant and the title. He was traded to San Francisco in May 1966 in the deal that sent Orlando Cepeda to St. Louis, and posted his best full-season ERA, 2.78, for the Giants in 1967. Sadecki was inducted into the National Polish-American Sports Hall of Fame in 2007 and the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame in 2010. He died November 17, 2014, in Mesa, Arizona.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 268 | 0 | 32 | 130 | 65 | 22 | 9 | 10 | 0 |
| SGC | 17 | 0 | 2 | 7 | 5 | 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: #87 St. Louis Cardinals
More St. Louis Cardinals cards:
- #7 1963 National League Batting Leaders
- #11 1963 National League R.B.I. Leaders
- #24 Carl Sawatski
- #40 Dick Groat
- #59 Ernie Broglio
- #103 Curt Flood
- #119 Gary Kolb
- #160 Ken Boyer
- #183 Ron Taylor
- #211 Jim Coker
- #240 Bill White
- #262 Cardinals 1964 Rookie Stars
- #278 Bobby Shantz
- #295 Roger Craig
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1964 Topps #147 card?
It is card #147 of the 587-card 1964 Topps Baseball set, picturing Ray Sadecki of the St. Louis Cardinals.
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.