1966 Topps #61 Bob Bolin
About Bob Bolin
Back to 'Bob Bolin' for card #61, an early first-series card in the 1966 set and one of the numbers that also appears in Topps' Venezuelan release of the same year, a far harder version to track down. It carries the best season he had put together to that point: 14-6 with a 2.76 ERA and 135 strikeouts, all of it from a swing role that gave him just 13 starts in 45 appearances. Those 14 wins would stand as his major-league high. San Francisco reeled off 14 in a row that September and still finished two games behind the Dodgers, the first of four straight second-place finishes.
Bob Bolin grew up on the family farm near Smyrna, South Carolina, pulled for the Dodgers as a boy, and threw four straight no-hitters as a high school senior. A Pittsburgh contract pressed on him by Branch Rickey was voided by the commissioner, and Giants scout Tim Murchison won him over by listing the young arms already stacked up on the Dodger staff. Bolin signed with the New York Giants in November 1956 at seventeen. The 6-foot-4 right-hander threw two more no-hitters in the minors, in 1957 and 1959, and Eugene manager Roy Partee's switch to a sidearm delivery tightened his control before he reached the majors on April 18, 1961. He spent 1961 through 1969 with San Francisco, swinging between rotation and bullpen, and worked two games of the 1962 World Series. His best year was 1968, when he went 10-5 with a 1.99 ERA, second in the National League behind only Bob Gibson's 1.12. Traded to the Seattle Pilots that December, he pitched for the club once it became the Milwaukee Brewers, then finished in Boston from 1970 to 1973 with a career-high 15 saves in his last season. He retired 88-75 with a 3.40 ERA and 1,175 strikeouts in 495 games, was later named to the Giants' Wall of Fame, and died in 2023 at 84.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 211 | 1 | 25 | 95 | 52 | 18 | 7 | 12 | 1 |
| SGC | 6 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 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: #19 San Francisco Giants
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- #132 Orlando Cepeda
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- #176 Jim Davenport
- #215 National League 1965 Batting Leaders
- #217 National League 1965 Home Run Leaders
- #219 National League 1965 RBI Leaders
- #221 National League 1965 ERA Leaders
- #242 Jesus Alou
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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1966 Topps #61 card?
It is card #61 of the 598-card 1966 Topps Baseball set, picturing Bob Bolin of the San Francisco Giants.
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.