1965 Topps #94 Charlie Lau
About Charlie Lau
Card #94 sits in the second series and puts Lau back in an Orioles cap for his second tour with the club: Baltimore, short a catcher after an injury to John Orsino, reacquired him from Kansas City on June 15, 1964, sending reliever Wes Stock the other way. He had hit .271 in 43 games for the Athletics before the deal, then batted .259 with 41 hits in 62 games for Baltimore the rest of the way. Fifteen of those 41 hits were doubles, the most he ever hit for one club in a season, and he split the catching with Dick Brown and a healthy Orsino as Baltimore finished three games behind the Yankees.
Charles Richard Lau, listed on cards and in the record books as both Charley and Charlie, was a left-handed-hitting, right-handed-throwing catcher and pinch hitter who spent parts of eleven seasons in the majors between 1956 and 1967. He played for the Detroit Tigers, the Braves in both Milwaukee and Atlanta, the Baltimore Orioles across two separate stints, and the Kansas City Athletics, finishing with a .255 average, 298 hits, 63 doubles and 16 home runs in 527 games. His larger fame came afterward: fifteen seasons as a big league coach, most of them as a hitting instructor, with the Orioles, the Oakland Athletics, the Royals, the Yankees and the White Sox, work that made him the man widely considered the game's leading batting instructor, the coach George Brett credited with making him a hitter and the tutor Reggie Jackson leaned on in New York. His manual "The Art of Hitting .300," published in 1980, sold widely, and "The Winning Hitter" followed posthumously. Lau died of colorectal cancer on March 18, 1984, at age 50; that year Romulus Senior High School in Michigan, where he had played, renamed its field Charlie Lau Memorial Field.
Sources: Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac (1) · Baseball Almanac (2) · Baseball Almanac (3) · Internet Archive
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 231 | 0 | 22 | 101 | 65 | 24 | 9 | 10 | 0 |
| SGC | 9 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 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. The two checklist variations, #79 and #508, are listed under the wording PSA uses for each state.
Find this card
Search T206 Cards Shop 1965 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: #572 Baltimore Orioles
More Baltimore Orioles cards:
- #1 American League 1964 Batting Leaders
- #3 American League 1964 Home Run Leaders
- #5 American League 1964 RBI Leaders
- #9 American League 1964 Pitching Leaders
- #15 Robin Roberts
- #33 Jackie Brandt
- #49 Orioles 1965 Rookie Stars
- #67 Harvey Haddix
- #113 Steve Barber
- #150 Brooks Robinson
- #169 Dave Vineyard
- #188 Sam Bowens
- #204 Russ Snyder
- #231 Jerry Adair
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1965 Topps #94 card?
It is card #94 of the 598-card 1965 Topps Baseball set, picturing Charlie Lau of the Baltimore Orioles.
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.