1965 Topps #27 Dick Bertell
About Dick Bertell
Card #27 lands early, in the first series, and reports the busiest year of Bertell's career: 112 games in 1964, 110 of them behind the plate, with career highs of 84 hits, four home runs and 35 RBI at a .238 average. He also threw out 34 runners trying to steal, more than any other National League catcher that season. Chicago went 76-86 and finished eighth, and this was the last year Bertell would both open and close a season as the Cubs' first-string catcher.
Richard George Bertell was born in Oak Park, Illinois, went to high school in Des Moines, Iowa, and signed with the Chicago Cubs as an undrafted free agent out of Iowa State in June 1957. A right-handed catcher, he reached the majors on September 22, 1960, driving in a run with a sacrifice fly in his first at-bat, and played parts of seven big-league seasons. All but 22 of his 444 games came with the Cubs; the exception was the last four months of 1965 with the San Francisco Giants after a May trade. He was a light hitter, finishing at .250 with 327 hits, 10 home runs and 112 RBI, but the arm was why he played: he threw out 47.74 percent of the runners who tried to steal on him, fourth on the all-time list. His final major league hit was a triple off Hall of Famer Jim Bunning in April 1967. Bertell died on December 20, 1999, in Mission Viejo, California, and his old college put him in the Iowa State Hall of Fame the next year.
Sources: Wikipedia · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac (1) · Baseball Almanac (2)
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 393 | 7 | 95 | 193 | 65 | 18 | 9 | 6 | 0 |
| SGC | 13 | 0 | 6 | 6 | 1 | 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. 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: #91 Chicago Cubs
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- #10 National League 1964 Pitching Leaders
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- #34 Cal Koonce
- #64 Lou Burdette
- #110 Ron Santo
- #149 Wayne Schurr
- #161 Frank Baumann
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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1965 Topps #27 card?
It is card #27 of the 598-card 1965 Topps Baseball set, picturing Dick Bertell of the Chicago Cubs.
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.