Random Topps Card of the Day: 1954 Topps #27 Ferris Fain

It's Retro Sunday!!! Thanks to the Topps Card Randomizer, introducing the Random Topps Card of the Day for Sunday, March 28, 2010:

• Official Card Set Name and Card Number: 1954 Topps #27.
• Player Name, position, team: Ferris Fain, first baseman, Chicago White Sox.
• Major League Debut: April 15, 1947.
• Last Line of Statistics: 1953 stats (White Sox): 128 G, 446 AB, 73 R, 114 H, 18 2B, 2 3B, 6 HR, 52 RBI, .256 AVG, 1108 Putouts, 106 Assists, 13 Errors, .989 Fielding Average.
• Any special information about player: Drafted by the Athletics from San Francisco (PCL) in Rule 5 draft, 11/01/1946. Traded by the Athletics to the White Sox 01/27/153. Bats: left, Throws: left.
• Any special information about this specific card: Fain's fourth regular Topps card. The 1954 Topps set is famous for having the first and last cards in the 250-card set with Ted Williams. But I digress. The set was unique in that it featured it was the first design that utilized three borders (the top of all the cards had the predominant colored field "break through the box"). The pictures of the player consisted of a really large headshot and a black & white colored "action shot", the player's name above (along with team affiliation and position) and a rather large team logo (even then, they knew...), and the facsimile autograph makes a return appearance in this set. Fain was already an established all-star, and batting champion, and the back of the card features a three cartoon paneled story about how a bat discarded by a bunch of kids helped him break out of his batting slump and helped him win the batting title in 1951. A great story...can somebody confirm the truth to it? The bio on the back mentions that although "Ferris hit over .300 only twice in his Major League career, he won the AL batting title both times..." and talks about his minor league exploits with the Pacific Coast League in 1947. He also led the AL in walks and was second in assists at first base in 1953 (which was another all-star season for Fain). The Number One Source in the Hobby's website indicates that there is a "GB" variation to the card. The story goes that a Canadian company printed the first 50 cards (which would include Fain's) in a gray card stock, compared to the regular cards in a white card stock.
• Lo-Hi Beckett value: $12.50-$25.00.
• How many cards of this player do I own?: 0 cards.

In case you're actually wondering, I don't own this card. And this time I was not able to get a crystal clean copy of the image from the Baseball Card Cyber Museum. However, thanks to Topps' new promotion, the Million Card Giveaway, and after figuring out how to find a card by it's numeric ID, I was able to snag the image you see above. For the record, the card in Topps' baseball card library is #886.

Well, it's back to normal on Monday. Tomorrow's card will be: 1990 Topps #453. Post will arrive at 1:00 PM CST. Come on back then to see what the Topps Card Randomizer gets us to look at then.

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama