1972 Topps #33 Billy Martin
About this card
Every club has a manager card of its own this year, separate from the 24 team cards, and every one of the 24 manager cards pictures the manager alone. Nine of them are Hall of Famers, and #510 Ted Williams manages the Texas Rangers in their first season after the move from Washington.
About Billy Martin
Both of Martin's 1972 cards come from the first series and show him with Detroit, #33 in the manager subset and #34 an In Action card. That season his Tigers went 86-70, edged Boston by a half game for the American League East title and lost to Oakland in the playoffs.
Billy Martin broke in with the New York Yankees on April 18, 1950 and became Casey Stengel's second baseman on four world championship clubs, batting .333 across five World Series. He was the hitting star of the 1953 Series, tying a record with 12 hits and breaking Babe Ruth's mark with 23 total bases. The Babe Ruth Award went to him as the best player in the Series; the World Series MVP trophy was not created until 1955. Army service cost him 1954 and most of 1955, and his lone All-Star selection came in 1956. A brawl at the Copacabana nightclub in May 1957 gave general manager George Weiss his opening, and Martin was traded to Kansas City that June. He then played for Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Milwaukee and Minnesota before retiring with a .257 average and 64 home runs over 11 seasons. He scouted and coached for the Twins, then managed Minnesota, Detroit, Texas, Oakland and, in five separate stints, the Yankees, winning the 1977 World Series. George Steinbrenner fired him after the 1979 season and again after each of his last three Yankees stints; Martin died in an automobile accident in upstate New York on Christmas night 1989.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac · BaseballCardPedia
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 516 | 7 | 47 | 198 | 79 | 56 | 54 | 75 | 0 |
| SGC | 64 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 14 | 21 | 9 | 11 | 1 |
Graded population — a scarcity guide, not a price. Data as of 2026-10-19. Half grades fold down for both graders (8.5→8); PSA qualified slabs (OC, ST, PD, MC and the like) are not counted.
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Related cards
More Billy Martin in this set: #34 In Action
Team card: #487 Detroit Tigers
More Detroit Tigers cards:
- #6 Fred Scherman
- #34 Billy Martin In Action
- #83 Dalton Jones
- #90 1971 A.L. Home Run Leaders
- #94 1971 A.L. Pitching Leaders
- #96 1971 A.L. Strikeout Leaders
- #120 Bill Freehan
- #150 Norm Cash
- #175 Tom Haller
- #176 Tom Haller In Action
- #187 Gates Brown
- #216 Joe Niekro
- #239 Tom Timmermann
- #257 Tigers 1972 Rookie Stars
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1972 Topps #33 card?
It is card #33 of the 787-card 1972 Topps Baseball set, picturing Billy Martin of the Detroit Tigers. Every club has a manager card of its own this year, separate from the 24 team cards, and every one of the 24 manager cards pictures the manager alone. Nine of them are Hall of Famers, and #510 Ted Williams manages the Texas Rangers in their first season after the move from Washington.
How many cards are in the 1972 Topps Baseball set?
787 cards, tracked as 794 collectible states. Numbers run from 1 to 787 with none skipped, in six print series (#1-132, #133-263, #264-394, #395-525, #526-656 and #657-787, the high numbers); 7 cards carry catalogued print variations that the master set counts separately - four Chicago Cubs cards with yellow or green under the "C" and "S" of the team name, the #251 and #478 checklists with smaller or larger print on the front, and the #604 checklist with its copyright line aligned right or left.
Sources: Trading Card Database, PSA CardFacts, BaseballCardPedia, 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 2026-10-25.