1966 Topps #262 Jack Hamilton
About Jack Hamilton
Card #262, a series-3 issue, is Hamilton's first Topps card in a Mets uniform, and its stat line is nearly empty: four games, 4.1 innings, a 1-1 record and a 14.54 ERA for Detroit in 1965. The card also exists in the scarce Venezuelan issue Topps produced that year, a printing collectors track separately from the domestic version. Mets first baseman Ed Kranepool remembered him as 'Spitball Jack, a card shark' who beat the young players at poker.
Jack Edwin Hamilton was a hard-throwing right-hander who worked parts of eight major league seasons, 1962-1969, for the Philadelphia Phillies, Detroit Tigers, New York Mets, California Angels, Cleveland Indians and Chicago White Sox, finishing 32-40 with a 4.53 ERA, 20 saves and 357 strikeouts over 611.2 innings. He walked 348, nearly as many as he struck out. Born in Burlington, Iowa, he signed with the St. Louis Cardinals at a 1957 tryout camp and spent four wild years in their farm system before Philadelphia took him in the November 1960 minor league draft. He debuted on April 13, 1962, threw a one-hitter for the Mets in 1966, and hit a grand slam on May 20, 1967 for his only home run. He is remembered for one pitch: on August 18, 1967 at Fenway Park he struck Red Sox outfielder Tony Conigliaro on the left cheekbone, fracturing it and badly damaging the retina; Conigliaro missed the rest of that season and all of 1968. He later ran restaurants in Iowa and Branson, Missouri, and died February 22, 2018, at 79.
Sources: Wikipedia · Baseball-Reference · SABR Games Project · Baseball Almanac (1) · Baseball Almanac (2) · Retrosheet
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 207 | 1 | 34 | 96 | 55 | 12 | 8 | 1 | 0 |
| SGC | 7 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
Graded population — a scarcity guide, not a price. Data as of 2026-09-04. Half grades fold down for both graders (8.5→8); PSA qualified slabs (OC, ST, PD, MC and the like) are not counted. Where SGC registers no separate row for a variation state, its slabs of that card are listed under the base state.
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Related cards
Team card: #172 New York Mets
More New York Mets cards:
- #17 Johnny Stephenson
- #35 Ron Swoboda
- #51 Gordon Richardson
- #67 Mets 1966 Rookie Stars
- #87 Dan Napoleon
- #108 Bobby Klaus
- #124 Tug McGraw
- #154 Chuck Hiller
- #188 Al Luplow
- #191 Darrell Sutherland
- #212 Ed Kranepool
- #241 Dennis Ribant
- #282 Johnny Lewis
- #302 Ernie Bowman
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1966 Topps #262 card?
It is card #262 of the 598-card 1966 Topps Baseball set, picturing Jack Hamilton of the New York Mets.
How many cards are in the 1966 Topps Baseball set?
598 cards, tracked as 613 collectible states. Numbers run from 1 to 598 with no gaps and no number used twice, and 14 cards carry catalogued print variations - five checklists, the trade and sold statement backs, the three-state #43 Don Landrum, three team-card dot pairs and the #161 Jerry Lumpe white streak - that the master set counts separately.
Sources: Trading Card Database, PSA CardFacts, 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 2026-10-11.