1966 Topps #188 Al Luplow
About Al Luplow
Card 188 sits in the second series and is the first Topps card to list Luplow with New York. The Mets bought him from Cleveland on November 29, 1965 for cash, coach Yogi Berra having pushed for him after watching him hit the Yankees three years earlier. Leaving was what Luplow wanted. Once Cleveland landed Rocky Colavito for right field he said publicly that he had no future with the Indians and asked to be traded; instead he spent 1965 stuck on the bench, used almost only as a pinch hitter or pinch runner, and went 6-for-45, a .133 average in 53 games with no starts at all.
Alvin David Luplow Jr., born in Saginaw, Michigan on March 13, 1939, was a Michigan State halfback who scored a touchdown on his first varsity carry before baseball won out. He left East Lansing in May 1959, with the Spartans' baseball season still running, to sign a Cleveland bonus contract reported at $35,000 or more, a departure that helped push the major leagues to bar the signing of college players during the school year. A left-handed hitter who threw right-handed and chased fly balls with no regard for walls, he debuted with the Indians on September 16, 1961 and played seven seasons through 1967 for Cleveland, the New York Mets and the Pittsburgh Pirates, batting .235 with 292 hits, 33 home runs and 125 runs batted in over 481 games. He is best remembered for June 27, 1963 at Fenway Park, when he flew over the low right-center bullpen wall to backhand a would-be game-tying home run off the bat of Dick Williams, a catch broadcaster Curt Gowdy called the greatest he had ever seen. Back home in Saginaw afterward he sold real estate, worked as an appraiser and coached youth baseball. He was in the first class of the Saginaw County Sports Hall of Fame in 2002 and died in Saginaw on December 28, 2017.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Retrosheet
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 183 | 1 | 26 | 95 | 37 | 14 | 3 | 7 | 0 |
| SGC | 5 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 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. Where SGC registers no separate row for a variation state, its slabs of that card are listed under the base state.
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Related cards
Team card: #172 New York Mets
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- #67 Mets 1966 Rookie Stars
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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1966 Topps #188 card?
It is card #188 of the 598-card 1966 Topps Baseball set, picturing Al Luplow of the New York Mets.
How many cards are in the 1966 Topps Baseball set?
598 cards, tracked as 613 collectible states. Numbers run from 1 to 598 with no gaps and no number used twice, and 14 cards carry catalogued print variations - five checklists, the trade and sold statement backs, the three-state #43 Don Landrum, three team-card dot pairs and the #161 Jerry Lumpe white streak - that the master set counts separately.
Sources: Trading Card Database, PSA CardFacts, Cardboard Connection, 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.