How do you determain what date a card was made?

In general, the stats shown on the back are from the year before, so add one and you've got the year of the card. If you've got a card showing stats for the year 1952, then its a 1953 card. The copyright date also usually works, too, but not always, especially for more recent sets. In the case of your Ted Williams card, yes, wallst is correct. Does it look like the card in this auction? If so, then the value is about a buck or so. It's from the 1993 Topps Archives set which reprinted almost every card in the 1953 Topps set, and added some players who weren't included in it, such as Teddy Ballgame. It's not a rare set by any means, and not very popular either, so the price is low, even for an elite player.

You named your son Loan? With a cool surname like Shark, I would've gone with Tiger, or Mako, or something along those lines.