1965 Topps #225 Bo Belinsky


About Bo Belinsky
#225 is Belinsky's first Phillies card, a third-series issue: Philadelphia got him from the Angels in December 1964 for pitcher Rudy May and first baseman Costen Shockley. The season behind it was his best - 9-8 with a 2.86 ERA in 23 games, built on a six-of-eight run at a 1.82 ERA from May 27 to July 9 that finished with a two-hit shutout of the White Sox. It ended in a Washington hotel in the small hours of August 14, when Belinsky knocked out 64-year-old Los Angeles Times writer Braven Dyer, was suspended without pay, and refused an option to Hawaii.
Robert "Bo" Belinsky signed with the Pittsburgh Pirates in May 1956, quit his first minor-league club in midseason, and spent the next five seasons in the Baltimore chain, where he led the Double-A Southern Association in strikeouts at Little Rock in 1961; the expansion Los Angeles Angels took him in the Rule 5 draft that November. He won his first four major-league starts in 1962, capped by a 2-0 no-hitter over Baltimore on May 5 at Dodger Stadium - the first in Angels history and the first thrown in a West Coast game - and finished 10-11 with a 3.56 ERA. The left-hander never matched it, pitching for the Angels (1962-1964), Phillies (1965-1966), Astros (1967), Pirates (1969) and Reds (1970) and ending 28-51 with a 4.10 ERA and 476 strikeouts in 665 1/3 innings. A Trenton pool hustler who went by Bo, he was the country's best-known athlete-playboy 3 1/2 years before Joe Namath reached New York, dating Ann-Margret, Tina Louise and Connie Stevens and marrying Playboy Playmate Jo Collins. Alcohol and cocaine followed; he got sober, became a born-again Christian and counseled other addicts before dying in Las Vegas on November 23, 2001.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac · Retrosheet
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 254 | 2 | 35 | 129 | 55 | 18 | 6 | 9 | 0 |
| SGC | 8 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 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. The two checklist variations, #79 and #508, are listed under the wording PSA uses for each state.
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Related cards
Team card: #338 Philadelphia Phillies
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- #52 Ed Roebuck
- #72 Tony Gonzalez
- #107 Phillies 1965 Rookie Stars
- #123 Frank Thomas
- #163 John Briggs
- #184 John Boozer
- #203 Dallas Green
- #248 Gus Triandos
- #280 Dick Stuart
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- #310 Johnny Callison
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1965 Topps #225 card?
It is card #225 of the 598-card 1965 Topps Baseball set, picturing Bo Belinsky of the Philadelphia Phillies.
How many cards are in the 1965 Topps Baseball set?
598 cards, tracked as 600 collectible states. Numbers run from 1 to 598 with no gaps and no printed-number collisions, and two checklist cards - #79 and #508 - carry catalogued print variations that the master set counts separately.
Sources: Trading Card Database, PSA CardFacts, Cardboard Connection, BaseballCardPedia, 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.