1962 Topps #296 Ken Hamlin
About Ken Hamlin
Washington did not trade for him; it drafted him. The Angels had shipped him to Toronto in June 1961, he hit .267 in 97 games there, and the Senators took him in that November's Rule 5 draft, which is how card 296, a fourth-series number in the 1962 Topps set, comes to show him with Washington. He was the club's regular shortstop that summer: 98 games, 74 hits, a .253 average, three home runs and 22 RBI for a team that went 60-101 and finished tenth in the ten-team American League. His biggest afternoon came in the second game of a July 27 doubleheader against Boston, a grand slam and a run-scoring double adding up to five RBI.
Kenneth Lee Hamlin was born May 18, 1935, in Detroit and starred at Western Michigan, where in 1957 he hit a then-school-record seven home runs, slugged .714 and was named a second-team All-American, a year after taking second-team All-MAC honors. The Pittsburgh Pirates signed him as an amateur free agent on June 3, 1957, and he was in the majors two weeks later, debuting June 17. Five games across two short Pittsburgh stays were all he got there; a December 9, 1959, multi-player trade headlined by pitcher Dick Hall and catcher-third baseman Hal Smith sent him to the Kansas City Athletics, where he became the everyday shortstop in 1960. From there came the expansion Los Angeles Angels in 1961 and Washington, where he played in 1962 and again in 1965 and 1966. A right-handed hitter and thrower, slick in the field with a strong arm and light with the bat, he closed out seven seasons at .241 with 323 hits, 11 home runs and a .963 fielding percentage, his last game coming September 26, 1966. He later ran the Tall Timbers youth camp near Battle Creek, Michigan, and coached high school baseball there; Western Michigan put him in its athletic hall of fame in 2010.
Sources: Wikipedia · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 165 | 0 | 4 | 53 | 74 | 19 | 10 | 5 | 0 |
| SGC | 7 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
Graded population — a scarcity guide, not a price. Snapshot 2026-09-24. Half-grades fold down (8.5→8), and PSA's qualified grades are counted separately from the straight-grade rows shown here. Slabs of the three cards printed #139 are joined by description, never by number alone. PSA registers the green tints as a separate set; a tint's population is listed under that state of the card it belongs to.
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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1962 Topps #296 card?
It is card #296 of the 600-card 1962 Topps Baseball set, picturing Ken Hamlin of the Washington Senators.
How many cards are in the 1962 Topps Baseball set?
600 cards, tracked as 708 collectible states. The numbers run from 1 to 598 with no gaps, but three different cards were printed #139 - two Hal Reniff poses, catalogued 139a and 139b, and the Babe Hits 60 Babe Ruth Special, 139c - so 598 numbers make 600 cards; 93 cards carry catalogued print variations, the series-2 green tints among them, that the master set counts separately.
Sources: Baseball Almanac, Trading Card Database, PSA CardFacts, Cardboard Connection, BaseballCardPedia, The Topps Archives, 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 2026-10-03.