1973 Topps #186 Bill Fahey
About Bill Fahey
After new Rangers manager Whitey Herzog kept Dick Billings and Ken Suarez, Fahey spent all of 1973 at Spokane in the Pacific Coast League and started at catcher for the PCL West All-Star team. On August 9 Hawaii's Chris Coletta ran into him at the plate and he spent ten days in a hospital. Two weeks later, after Spokane swept Tucson for the league title, fans named him the team's most valuable player. His #186 card, from the second series, lists him with the Texas Rangers.
Bill Fahey was a left-handed-hitting catcher who spent 11 seasons in the majors, 1971 to 1983, nearly all of them as a backup, with the Senators and Rangers, the Padres and the Tigers. A Detroit native, he played five sports at Union High in Redford, Michigan, and Washington made him the first overall pick of the January 1970 secondary draft. Ted Williams predicted he would be the American League's All-Star catcher in 1975. Instead a run of injuries, including a broken hand in 1975, slowed him while Jim Sundberg took over in Texas. In December 1978 the Rangers sent him to San Diego with Mike Hargrove and Kurt Bevacqua for Oscar Gamble and Dave Roberts. He hit .287 in 73 games for the Padres in 1979, set career highs in games and hits in 1980, and was sold to Detroit in March 1981. He finished with a .241 average, 7 home runs and 83 RBIs in 383 games, then coached for the Tigers in 1983 and the Giants from 1986 to 1991.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 132 | 2 | 37 | 70 | 16 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| SGC | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
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
Team card: #7 Texas Rangers
More Texas Rangers cards:
- #27 Bill Gogolewski
- #58 Mike Paul
- #94 Dick Billings
- #111 Dave Nelson
- #138 Horacio Pina
- #162 Pete Broberg
- #216 Toby Harrah
- #249 Larry Biittner
- #276 Joe Lovitto
- #299 Ted Ford
- #321 Rich Hinton
- #352 Don Stanhouse
- #378 Lenny Randle
- #398 Rich Hand
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1973 Topps #186 card?
It is card #186 of the 660-card 1973 Topps Baseball set, picturing Bill Fahey of the Texas Rangers.
How many cards are in the 1973 Topps Baseball set?
660 cards, tracked as 679 collectible states. Numbers run from 1 to 660 with none skipped, in five series of 132 - #1-132, #133-264, #265-396, #397-528 and the high numbers, #529-660, printed in lower quantities; 19 cards carry catalogued print variations that the master set counts separately - fifteen Field Leaders cards, the #20 Stan Bahnsen, #31 Buddy Bell and #504 Earl Williams border-gap pairs and the two #280 Al Kaline printings.
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.