Random Topps Card of the Day: 1990 Topps #436 Mel Hall

We reset the Topps Card Randomizer to come up with seven new cards to present for this week. Introducing the Random Topps Card of the Day for Monday, March 8, 2010:

• Official Card Set Name and Card Number: 1990 Topps #436.
• Player Name, position, team: Mel Hall, outfielder, New York Yankees.
• Major League Debut: September 3, 1981.
• Last Line of Statistics: 1989 stats (Yankees): 113 G, 361 AB, 54 R, 94 H, 9 2B, 0 3B, 17 HR, 58 RBI, 0 SB, .427 SLG, 21 BB, 37 SO, .260 AVG.
• Any special information about player: Drafted by Cubs #2nd, June 1978. Bats: left, Throws: left.
• Any special information about this specific card: Hall's tenth regular Topps card (total includes both regular and traded cards). Mel's card comes from sheet "*E", or the indigo/blue-violet borders. Did you ever look at the back of the card and see "*A," "*B," and so forth and so on? Well, that was the label for the sheet the card was printed on and cut from. Now, with most sets, it's hard to figure out, without seeing an actual sheet, whre each card appeared on said sheet. Now, cards in factory sets are sorted by what sheet the card was printed on, and in order of where they appeared on the sheet? How do I know? Because when I opened by 1990 Topps factory set, you could see a literal rainbow of colors when all the cards are on their side. And taking each series of 132 cards out, you could literally place each card side by side, and eventually you can see exactly how each card appeared on the sheet (the borders, with the two corners, really helped. And after putting all 132 cards together, you can see that each of the l-shaped corners are actually part of a square and that each "square," unless the cards are at the edge of the sheet, holds the corners of four different cards. Anyway, sheets A-F follow the colors of a rainbow. Sheet *A is red, sheet *B is orange, *C is green, *D is blue, *E is the aformentioned indigo, and *F is violet. The blurb on the back of Hall's card says that "he has become interested in the art of barbering (is barbering even a word???) and has given haircuts to teammates before games. Whether or not Mr. Hall gained his barber's license is not known.
• Lo-Hi Beckett value: $0.01-$0.05.
• How many cards of this player do I own?: 16 cards.

Tomorrow's card will be: 1980 Topps #31. Post will arrive at 1:00 PM CST. See you then.

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama