1973 Topps #49 Twins Field Leaders - Frank Quilici / Vern Morgan / Bob Rodgers / Ralph Rowe / Al Worthington
On this card: Frank Quilici, Vern Morgan, Bob Rodgers, Ralph Rowe, Al Worthington
About this card
Managers appear only on the 24 Field Leaders cards, one for each club: each pictures the manager with three or four of his coaches, and there is no solo manager card. Fifteen of the 24 come in two printings. Thirteen include a Hall of Famer, among them coaches Ernie Banks (#81 Cubs), Warren Spahn (#449 Indians) and Bill Mazeroski (#517 Pirates), and the Dodgers' Walt Alston and Tom Lasorda (#569).
About Twins Field Leaders (Frank Quilici / Vern Morgan / Bob Rodgers / Ralph Rowe / Al Worthington)
Quilici replaced Bill Rigney as Twins manager with Minnesota 36-34 and 9 1/2 games behind Oakland. He went 41-43 for the rest of the season. First-series 1973 Topps #49 listed Quilici with coaches Vern Morgan, Bob Rodgers, Ralph Rowe and Al Worthington. Twins utility infielder who started all seven games of the 1965 World Series, later became the youngest manager in the majors at 33 and guided Minnesota through the mid-1970s.
Morgan coached first base on the Minnesota Twins' major league staff in 1973. The team's first-series Topps managers-and-coaches card, #49, listed him alongside manager Frank Quilici and fellow coaches Bob Rodgers, Ralph Rowe and Al Worthington. The card has 2 catalogued printings. Vern Morgan was a third baseman for the 1954-55 Cubs who spent the rest of his career in the Washington-Minnesota organization as a minor-league player and manager. He coached first base for the Twins from 1969 until kidney disease ended his work in 1975.
Rodgers coached for Minnesota in 1973, having followed Bill Rigney to the Twins in 1970. Listed as Bob Rodgers on first-series 1973 Topps #49, he shared the Twins Field Leaders card with manager Frank Quilici and coaches Vern Morgan, Ralph Rowe and Al Worthington. Before becoming the Angels' switch-hitting catcher, Buck Rodgers pitched six no-hitters at Prospect High School in Ohio. Ohio Wesleyan University converted him to catcher while he was studying for a liberal arts degree.
Rowe joined Minnesota's major league coaching staff in 1972 after managing the Portland Beavers the previous season. On first-series 1973 Topps #49, he was listed with manager Frank Quilici and fellow Twins coaches Vern Morgan, Bob Rodgers and Al Worthington. A left-handed-hitting minor league outfielder, Ralph Rowe later managed in the Senators and Twins systems before working as a major league coach and roving batting instructor.
Worthington contacted Jerry Falwell in 1973 about coaching the first baseball team at Lynchburg Baptist College, later Liberty University. His first-series 1973 Topps card, #49, listed him with Twins manager Frank Quilici and coaches Vern Morgan, Bob Rodgers and Ralph Rowe. Al Worthington, a Birmingham sinkerballer, pitched 14 big-league seasons for five clubs and walked out on the 1960 White Sox rather than win on stolen signs, then worked as Minnesota's top reliever from 1964 to 1969 before building Liberty University's baseball program from scratch.
Sources: Wikipedia (Frank Quilici) · Wikipedia (Vern Morgan) · Wikipedia (Buck Rodgers) · Wikipedia (Ralph Rowe) · Wikipedia (Al Worthington) · SABR BioProject (Frank Quilici) · SABR BioProject (Buck Rodgers) · SABR BioProject (Al Worthington) · Baseball Almanac (Bob Rodgers) · Baseball Almanac (Al Worthington) · MLB.com (1) · MLB.com (2) · BaseballCardPedia
Print variations
Two states of #49 are tracked individually: 49a - Solid Orange Background (No Trees) and 49b - Orange Background (Trees Visible). The difference is on the front of the card (photo crop).
States catalogued by the PSA master set registry and the Trading Card Database; each is tracked here individually.
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Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 49a - Solid Orange Background (No Trees) | |||||||||
| PSA | 138 | 2 | 38 | 83 | 14 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| SGC | 5 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
| 49b - Orange Background (Trees Visible) | |||||||||
| PSA | 166 | 8 | 68 | 63 | 15 | 6 | 3 | 3 | 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. Where a grader registers a variation separately its population is listed under that variation; SGC slabs whose label names no variation are counted under 49a - Solid Orange Background (No Trees).
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Related cards
Team card: #654 Minnesota Twins
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- #61 1972 Batting Leaders
- #80 Tony Oliva
- #98 Dick Woodson
- #122 Jim Strickland
- #148 Dave Goltz
- #170 Harmon Killebrew
- #199 Bert Blyleven
- #228 Bobby Darwin
- #259 Jim Holt
- #284 Glenn Borgmann
- #311 Joe Decker
- #330 Rod Carew
- #353 Steve Brye
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1973 Topps #49 card?
It is card #49 of the 660-card 1973 Topps Baseball set, picturing Frank Quilici, Vern Morgan, Bob Rodgers, Ralph Rowe and Al Worthington. Managers appear only on the 24 Field Leaders cards, one for each club: each pictures the manager with three or four of his coaches, and there is no solo manager card. Fifteen of the 24 come in two printings. Thirteen include a Hall of Famer, among them coaches Ernie Banks (#81 Cubs), Warren Spahn (#449 Indians) and Bill Mazeroski (#517 Pirates), and the Dodgers' Walt Alston and Tom Lasorda (#569).
Does 1973 Topps #49 have variations?
Yes. Two states are catalogued and tracked individually: 49a - Solid Orange Background (No Trees) (The upper two coach portraits, Vern Morgan and Bob Rodgers, have solid orange backgrounds with no trees) and 49b - Orange Background (Trees Visible) (Trees show in the natural orange backgrounds behind the upper two coaches, Vern Morgan and Bob Rodgers). Owning any one of them fills the #49 slot; the master set counts each state.
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.