1964 Topps #17 Willie Kirkland
About Willie Kirkland
Card 17 sits in the first series of Topps' 1964 set and stands as Kirkland's only Topps card in an Orioles uniform. Baltimore had acquired him from Cleveland on December 4, 1963, sending Al Smith and $25,000 the other way. The fit never took: 30 hits in 150 at-bats, a .200 average and three home runs across 66 games, most of them in right field. On August 12, 1964, the Orioles sold him to the Washington Senators, and he closed out the year with five home runs in 32 games for his new club.
Willie Charles Kirkland, nicknamed Boom Boom, was born February 17, 1934, in Siluria, Alabama, and raised in Detroit. A right fielder and a powerful left-handed hitter, he signed with the New York Giants out of Northwestern High School and piled up home runs in the minors before losing all of 1957 to military service. He broke in with the transplanted San Francisco Giants in 1958, batting cleanup behind Willie Mays in the club's first official West Coast game and collecting a single and an RBI in an 8-0 win over the Dodgers at Seals Stadium on April 15. He held the Giants' regular right-field job through 1960, and then a trade sent him to Cleveland, where he had his best big-league season in 1961. Over nine major-league seasons with the Giants, Indians, Orioles and Senators he batted .240 with 837 hits, 148 home runs and 509 RBI in 1,149 games. His playing days ran longer than that: after a 34-homer year for the Pacific Coast League's Hawaii Islanders in 1967, he spent six seasons with Japan's Hanshin Tigers, adding 126 more home runs across a 20-year professional career.
Sources: Wikipedia · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac · Retrosheet
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 189 | 1 | 12 | 89 | 48 | 22 | 11 | 5 | 1 |
| SGC | 4 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 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: #473 Baltimore Orioles
More Baltimore Orioles cards:
- #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
- #285 Robin Roberts
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1964 Topps #17 card?
It is card #17 of the 587-card 1964 Topps Baseball set, picturing Willie Kirkland of the Baltimore Orioles.
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.