1963 Topps #171 Steve Hamilton
About Steve Hamilton
Card #171 is Hamilton's first Topps issue and his recognized rookie card, a series-2 Senator printed in the year Washington shipped him out. It reports 1962, his first full season: 3-8 with a 3.77 ERA over 41 games for a last-place club that went 60-101, and not pure bullpen work either, since ten of those outings were starts and one went the distance. On April 21, 1963, Washington traded him to the Yankees for pitcher Jim Coates.
Steve Hamilton was born November 30, 1934, in Columbia, Kentucky, and died in Morehead, Kentucky, on December 2, 1997. A 1957 basketball All-American at Morehead State, which reached the NCAA tournament in 1956 and 1957, he went to the Minneapolis Lakers eighth overall, in the second round of the 1958 NBA draft, and lost the 1959 Finals to Boston in two NBA seasons. He pitched twelve major league seasons, 1961-1972, for Cleveland, Washington, the Yankees, the White Sox, San Francisco and the Cubs, chiefly as a left-handed Yankee reliever from 1963 through 1970, finishing 40-31 with a 3.05 ERA and 42 saves and working the 1963 and 1964 World Series. Late in his career he threw the 'Folly Floater,' a high, slow lob in the tradition of Rip Sewell's eephus. He is one of only two men to play in both a World Series and an NBA Finals; Gene Conley is the other. He coached for the Detroit Tigers in 1975, then ran Morehead State baseball for ten seasons and served as the school's athletic director until his death. Morehead State's athletics hall of fame took him in 1985, and he is a Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame member as well.
Sources: Wikipedia · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 413 | 1 | 43 | 206 | 127 | 26 | 7 | 3 | 0 |
| SGC | 24 | 0 | 0 | 13 | 7 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 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.
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Related cards
Team card: #131 Washington Senators
More Washington Senators cards:
- #2 1962 American League Batting Leaders
- #47 Don Lock
- #69 Bud Zipfel
- #94 Bob Schmidt
- #121 Jim Hannan
- #149 Marv Breeding
- #158 1963 Rookie Stars
- #176 Jim King
- #219 Chuck Cottier
- #243 Don Leppert
- #263 Dave Stenhouse
- #276 Barry Shetrone
- #291 Don Rudolph
- #311 Joe McClain
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1963 Topps #171 card?
It is card #171 of the 576-card 1963 Topps Baseball set, picturing Steve Hamilton of the Washington Senators.
Is 1963 Topps #171 a rookie card?
Yes - #171 is the 1963 Topps rookie card of Steve Hamilton.
How many cards are in the 1963 Topps Baseball set?
576 cards, tracked as 583 collectible states. The numbers run from 1 to 576 with no gaps and no number used twice, and seven cards carry a catalogued print variation - three checklists, the two Rookie Stars cards also printed with a "1962" heading, and the #341 Jack Baldschun and #454 Art Fowler print states - that the master set counts separately.
Sources: 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.