1966 Topps #323 Ray Barker
About Ray Barker
His 1966 Topps card, #323, is his first card as a Yankee, a fourth-series number. The 1965 breakthrough did not carry over. Barker appeared in 61 games but drew only 75 at-bats, hitting .187 with 3 home runs and 13 RBI. He had stopped hitting, which meant he stopped getting chances to hit, and in most Yankee seasons that average would have ended him. Not in 1966: New York fired Johnny Keane, brought Ralph Houk back to the dugout, and still finished last in the ten-team American League, so a cold bench bat survived the wreck.
Raymond Herrell "Buddy" Barker was a left-handed hitting, right-handed throwing first baseman from Martinsburg, West Virginia, who played parts of four major league seasons for the Baltimore Orioles, Cleveland Indians, and New York Yankees between 1960 and 1967. The Orioles signed him in 1955 out of Martinsburg High School for a $1,000 bonus, and the 6-foot, 192-pound Barker then spent a decade in the minors, never failing to reach double figures in home runs across Triple-A stops at Vancouver, Jacksonville, Rochester, Portland, and Syracuse. He debuted on September 13, 1960 with Baltimore and was sent straight back to Triple-A. Only in 1965, at 29, did he get a real major league job, and he made the most of it in New York before the bat went cold and the playing time went with it. In 192 career games he batted .214 with 68 hits, 10 home runs, and 44 RBI, his last appearance coming on May 21, 1967. Martinsburg High School put him in its first Hall of Fame class of athletes; after baseball he worked as a General Motors security officer and coached his sons' teams. He died in his hometown on May 29, 2018, at 82.
Sources: Wikipedia · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac · The Baseball Cube
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 221 | 3 | 26 | 102 | 48 | 22 | 14 | 6 | 0 |
| SGC | 11 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 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: #92 New York Yankees
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- #50 Mickey Mantle
- #68 Hal Reniff
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- #117 Jake Gibbs
- #138 Roger Repoz
- #160 Whitey Ford
- #177 Hector Lopez
- #186 Ruben Amaro
- #205 Tom Tresh
- #224 American League 1965 Pitching Leaders
- #234 Yankees 1966 Rookie Stars
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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1966 Topps #323 card?
It is card #323 of the 598-card 1966 Topps Baseball set, picturing Ray Barker of the New York Yankees.
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.