1973 Topps #282 Steve Hovley
About Steve Hovley
Hovley collected 59 hits in 232 at-bats for the 1973 Royals, a .254 average. He appeared in 104 games, 79 of them in the outfield, and his last major league game came on September 28. Card #282, from the third series, lists him with Kansas City.
Steve Hovley was a left-handed-hitting outfielder who played in the majors from 1969 to 1973 for the Seattle Pilots, Milwaukee Brewers, Oakland Athletics and Kansas City Royals. Born in Ventura, California, he attended Stanford, was drafted by the California Angels in the 35th round in 1966, and went to the Pilots in the 1968 expansion draft. He hit .277 with 3 home runs in 91 games as a 1969 Pilots rookie and roomed with pitcher Jim Bouton, whose diary of that season, Ball Four, became a national sensation a year later. Other players called him Orbie, short for Orbit, because his behavior seemed so spacey, and Hovley said he liked the name. After Oakland, the Royals took him in the 1971 Rule 5 draft and he spent two seasons as their fourth outfielder. He finished with 263 hits and a .258 average in 436 games.
Sources: Wikipedia · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 132 | 2 | 47 | 64 | 12 | 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
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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1973 Topps #282 card?
It is card #282 of the 660-card 1973 Topps Baseball set, picturing Steve Hovley of the Kansas City Royals.
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.