1965 Topps #492 Gene Freese
About Gene Freese
Freese's 1965 Topps card, #492 out of series 6, shows him as a Pirate, which is how the season started and not how it ended. He got into 43 games for Pittsburgh with only 80 at-bats, taking the field in fewer than half of them and starting just 17 games at third base, before the Pirates sold his contract to the Chicago White Sox on August 23. Chicago used him even more sparingly: 17 games and 32 at-bats, though he hit .281 in them. The two stops together came to 60 games and 112 at-bats, a utility line for a man who had been a regular four years earlier.
Eugene Lewis Freese, a right-handed third baseman born in Wheeling, West Virginia, played twelve major league seasons between 1955 and 1966 for the Pirates, Cardinals, Phillies, White Sox, Reds and Astros, traded or sold seven times along the way. A three-sport athlete at West Liberty State College, he signed with Pittsburgh as an amateur free agent in March 1953 and reached the majors in 1955 alongside his older brother George, taking the Pirates' rookie-of-the-year award from the Pittsburgh baseball writers over Roberto Clemente. His best work came from 1959 through 1961, culminating in career highs across the board for the pennant-winning 1961 Reds. A spring-training ankle fracture in 1962 cost him that form for good; he never again played 100 games in a season, and he retired after the 1968 minor league campaign. He finished at .254 with 877 hits, 115 home runs and 432 RBIs in 1,115 games, then made New Orleans home, running the Basin Lounge and entering the New Orleans Professional Baseball Hall of Fame in 2008.
Sources: Wikipedia · Baseball-Reference · Retrosheet
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 275 | 4 | 49 | 146 | 50 | 15 | 9 | 2 | 0 |
| SGC | 10 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 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. 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: #209 Pittsburgh Pirates
More Pittsburgh Pirates cards:
- #2 National League 1964 Batting Leaders
- #12 National League 1964 Strikeout Leaders
- #25 Al McBean
- #54 Joe Gibbon
- #69 Bill Virdon
- #95 Bill Mazeroski
- #121 Gene Alley
- #143 Pirates 1965 Rookie Stars
- #160 Bob Clemente
- #195 Bob Veale
- #218 Dick Schofield
- #232 Steve Blass
- #246 Tom Butters
- #265 Jim Pagliaroni
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1965 Topps #492 card?
It is card #492 of the 598-card 1965 Topps Baseball set, picturing Gene Freese of the Pittsburgh Pirates.
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.