Random Topps Card of the Day: 1986 Topps #223 Atlee Hammaker

Thanks to the Topps Card Randomizer, introducing the Random Topps Card of the Day for Saturday, August 14, 2010:

• Official Card Set Name and Card Number: 1986 Topps #223.
• Player Name, position, team: Atlee Hammaker, pitcher, San Francisco Giants.
• Major League Debut: August 13, 1981.
• Last Line of Statistics: 1985 stats (Giants): 29 G, 170.2 IP, 5-12, 81 R, 71 ER, 100 SO, 47 BB, 29 GS, 1 CG, 1 SHO, 0 SV, 3.74 ERA.
• Any special information about players: Drafted by the Royals #1st June, 1979. Traded by the Royals to the Giants 03/30/1982. Bats: both, Throws: left.
• Any special information about this specific card: Hammaker's fifth regular Topps (total includes regular and traded cards only, not including his 1991 MLB '90 Debut card). The 1986 set was the first complete set that I bought when I started getting interested in cards older than 1987. Let me explain. So by 1997, or was it...yes, it was 1997, I had every Topps regular and set from 1988 to 1996. But for me, something was missing. In ten years time, I amassed a decent collection, most of it before I actually had a job. But now that I was working, and had a bit of free time, I thought why not start collecting cards from earlier years. Of course, I thought there was no better way to do so than to buy complete Topps sets. But where to start. Of course, I knew what 1987 Topps cards looked like, but never found a complete set of it anywhere. So I went through the phone book (before the internet, they had this book with Yellow Pages...), and found a place in the area that did a mail order business for selling cards. They used to have a shop in a mall, but that mall was demolished a couple of years earlier, and the owners decided to continue the business through mail order/phone order (before the internet...you get the idea). I visited the shop (more like an office), and saw the 1987 Topps set "hand-collated." For 10 bucks, I could have that and she'd throw in the 1987 Topps Traded set too. What a deal!!! But wait, there's more...she said for an extra 15 dollars, she would sell to me a 1986 Topps "hand-collated" set AND the 1986 Topps Traded set too. Basically, for less than $30.00, I'd be in the possession of both 1986 AND 1987 Topps sets and their accompanying Traded sets (in the factory box!!!). How could I say no? So that started my quest for collecting sets from earlier than 1987. Okay, on to the player. Before asking the question "How cool is the name Cole Hamels?" there had to be kids (and some adults) asking "How cool is the name Atlee Hammaker?" Does anybody know anyone else named Atlee? What an incredibly original name. And what an incredible pitcher he was to boot, although his 1985 year is probably one he'd rather forget (with the 5-12 record and all). The back of Hammaker's card lists the dates of his first MLB win (09/15/1981) and his first MLB shutout (06/29/1982). The "Talkin' Baseball" box (with the baseball faced 'thing' wearing a cap and shrugging its shoulders...no, this is NOT Mr. Met or the Reds guy...) has a note stating that the "first player in SF Giants history to be acquired via the trade route was Jim Finigan from Detroit Tigers 01/28/1958). The two players the Giants received for Finigan and $25,000 were Gail Harris and Ozzie Virgil.
• Lo-Hi Beckett value: $0.02-$0.10.
• How many cards of each player do I own?: 16 cards.

Tomorrow is Retro Sunday, the one day of the week that we feature a card from 1951-1975. The card we will feature tomorrow is: 1965 Topps #170. Come back at 1:00 PM CST to see who (or what) it is.

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama