1969 Topps #69 Steve Hamilton
About Steve Hamilton
Card #69 is an early series-1 number, and behind it is Hamilton's one turn as the Yankee closer: 2-2 with a 2.13 ERA and eleven saves in 40 games in 1968, the only double-digit save total of his career, with 24 of those 40 games finished. Runs were so scarce across the sport that summer that the rules makers answered by cutting the pitcher's mound from fifteen inches to ten and squeezing the strike zone down to armpits-to-knees. The Yankees, for their part, had climbed back to fifth at 83-79.
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 · Baseball Almanac (1) · Baseball Almanac (2)
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 315 | 0 | 21 | 71 | 89 | 93 | 29 | 11 | 1 |
| SGC | 9 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 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.
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- #114 Yankees 1969 Rookie Stars
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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1969 Topps #69 card?
It is card #69 of the 664-card 1969 Topps Baseball set, picturing Steve Hamilton of the New York Yankees.
How many cards are in the 1969 Topps Baseball set?
664 cards, tracked as 696 collectible states. Numbers run from 1 to 664 with none skipped and no printed number shared by two cards; 32 cards carry catalogued print variations that the master set counts separately, 23 of them the yellow- and white-letter name pairs of #440-511.
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 2026-10-12.