1973 Topps #74 Billy Champion
About Billy Champion
Milwaukee was Champion's new club in 1973, and his Topps #74 from that year's first series shows him as a Brewer. He worked 37 games for the Brewers that season and went 5-8 with a 3.70 ERA. On September 9 at Yankee Stadium he pitched a complete game as Milwaukee beat Mel Stottlemyre and the Yankees, 10-3.
Bill Champion was a right-handed pitcher, 6 ft 4 in, who worked 202 major-league games for the Philadelphia Phillies and Milwaukee Brewers between 1969 and 1976. He came from Shelby, North Carolina, where he helped Shelby High win the 1964 Western North Carolina championship. The Phillies picked him in the third round, 58th overall, in 1965, and he led his minor league in ERA twice, with Huron in the Northern League in 1965 and Tidewater in the Carolina League in 1968. He debuted in June 1969. On October 31, 1972, Philadelphia sent him with Don Money and John Vukovich to Milwaukee for Jim Lonborg, Ken Brett, Ken Sanders and Earl Stephenson. He finished his career 34-50 with a 4.69 ERA, later scouted for the Cubs, coached pitchers for the Greenville Braves and died in Shelby in 2017.
Sources: Baseball-Reference · Retrosheet
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 387 | 14 | 208 | 144 | 11 | 9 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| SGC | 3 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 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: #127 Milwaukee Brewers
More Milwaukee Brewers cards:
- #45 Ellie Rodriguez
- #71 Johnny Briggs
- #92 Jerry Bell
- #152 Dave May
- #176 Chuck Taylor
- #212 Joe Lahoud
- #231 Bill Parsons
- #263 George Scott
- #286 Frank Linzy
- #308 Skip Lockwood
- #332 John Felske
- #366 Brock Davis
- #386 Don Money
- #408 Jim Colborn
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1973 Topps #74 card?
It is card #74 of the 660-card 1973 Topps Baseball set, picturing Billy Champion of the Milwaukee Brewers.
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.