1968 Topps #277 Jerry Buchek
About Jerry Buchek
Card 277 sits in the third series of 1968 Topps. The season behind it is a short one. Gil Hodges took over the Mets and the second-base job went past Buchek to Ken Boswell and Phil Linz; he got 73 games, batted .182 with one home run and 11 runs batted in, and made his final major league appearance on September 29, 1968. That December the Mets traded him back to the Cardinals, who passed him along to Philadelphia, and he never played another big league game.
Gerald Peter Buchek, born May 9, 1942 in St. Louis, was a right-handed-hitting infielder who signed with his hometown Cardinals out of McKinley High School for a bonus big enough to start him in the high minors at 18. He debuted on June 30, 1961 but did not hold a major league job until 1964, and across all or parts of seven seasons he was a versatile reserve who filled in at shortstop, second base and third. He was part of the Cardinals' 1964 World Series championship team, singling off Jim Bouton in his only Series at-bat. Traded to the New York Mets before the 1967 season, he finally got everyday work and set personal bests in games, hits, home runs and runs batted in. He finished with a .220 average, 259 hits, 22 home runs and 108 runs batted in over 421 games, spent one more year in Triple-A, and walked away at 27. He worked as a union meatcutter in St. Louis and later sold cars, and he died on January 2, 2019 in Springfield, Missouri, at 76.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 276 | 15 | 73 | 121 | 37 | 13 | 12 | 5 | 0 |
| SGC | 22 | 0 | 6 | 11 | 4 | 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. Slabs of the yellow team-letter #49 and #66 are 1968 Milton Bradley game cards and are not counted here.
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Related cards
Team card: #401 New York Mets
More New York Mets cards:
- #27 Gil Hodges
- #45 Tom Seaver
- #63 Dick Kenworthy
- #92 Ed Kranepool
- #114 Ron Swoboda
- #132 Bud Harrelson
- #177 Mets 1968 Rookie Stars
- #191 Dan Frisella
- #211 J.C. Martin
- #236 Tug McGraw
- #254 Cleon Jones
- #292 Art Shamsky
- #313 Al Weis
- #345 Bob Hendley
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1968 Topps #277 card?
It is card #277 of the 598-card 1968 Topps Baseball set, picturing Jerry Buchek of the New York Mets.
How many cards are in the 1968 Topps Baseball set?
598 cards, tracked as 606 collectible states. The numbers run from 1 to 598 without a gap and no printed number carries two different cards; eight cards - six of the seven checklists, #10 AL Pitching Leaders and #400 Mike McCormick - carry a catalogued print variation that the master set counts separately.
Sources: Trading Card Database, PSA CardFacts, Cardboard Connection, BaseballCardPedia, Baseball Almanac, Beckett, 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 2026-10-12.