1965 Topps #97 Pedro Gonzalez
The back of this card gives Gonzalez's birth year as 1938; he was born in 1937.
Uncorrected error: Back gives Gonzalez's birth year as 1938, should be 1937
About Pedro Gonzalez
Card #97 comes from the second series, and it shows Gonzalez in a Yankees cap. He barely stayed: seven games and five at-bats into the season, New York sent him to Cleveland on May 10 for first baseman Ray Barker, and Gonzalez became the first Dominican to play for the Indians. He took over at second base for 116 games, batted .253 and hit the first five home runs of his career. His season ended on September 20, when he charged Detroit's Larry Sherry with a bat after two pitches near his head; the American League fined him $500 and sat him for the rest of the schedule. The card back gives his birth year as 1938 - he was born in 1937.
Pedro Gonzalez Olivares was born December 12, 1937, in San Pedro de Macoris, Dominican Republic, and signed with the Yankees organization in 1957, when big-league clubs were only beginning to scout the Caribbean. Signed as a second baseman, he hit .371 at Modesto in 1959 and .327 at Binghamton in 1960, then spent three years at Class AAA Richmond and made the International League All-Star team in 1963. That spring he reached the majors as the first Dominican-born player in New York Yankees history and the twelfth Dominican to play in the big leagues at all. Five seasons with the Yankees (1963-65) and Cleveland Indians (1965-67) brought 407 games, 264 hits, a .244 average, 8 home runs and 70 runs batted in. He was a bigger figure at home: thirteen winters in the Dominican league, ten of them with Tigres del Licey, whose blue uniforms and his leadership made him 'El Gran Capitan', while American record books knew him as 'Speedy Gonzalez.' He played on in Mexico into 1974, managed the Braves' Gulf Coast League club for a decade from 1976, scouted the Dominican Republic for Atlanta, was inducted into the Pabellon de la Fama del Deporte Dominicano in 1982, and died January 10, 2021, at 83.
Sources: Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 400 | 10 | 84 | 198 | 62 | 29 | 9 | 8 | 0 |
| SGC | 24 | 0 | 1 | 9 | 13 | 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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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1965 Topps #97 card?
It is card #97 of the 598-card 1965 Topps Baseball set, picturing Pedro Gonzalez of the New York Yankees.
Does 1965 Topps #97 have an error?
Back gives Gonzalez's birth year as 1938, should be 1937. It was never corrected, so there is no variation to chase - every copy of #97 reads the same way.
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.