In writing an article about 1975 Topps baseball, I had a lot of options: Robin Yount or George Brett’s rookie cards, the mini-cards, the colorful borders, commemorative cards, or stories about unopened products, among many other topics about this super popular 660-card set. But I’ve decided to talk about Herb Washington instead; it is his birthday (November 16th).
The 1975 Topps card, #407, lists Herb Washington as a “Pinch Runner” since that was his only role as a major leaguer; he never had an at-bat. His 1975 Topps card (and the mini and O-Pee-Chee versions) is the only baseball card that ever used “Pinch Runner” as the position label.
Washington was a talented high school runner who went on to run for Michigan State, where he was a four-time All-American in Track and Field.
In 1974, the Oakland A’s signed him as the team’s designated runner, with no expectations for developing other baseball skills. He played in 105 games without batting, pitching, or fielding. He finished his career with 31 stolen bases in 48 attempts, scoring 33 runs.
The 1975 Topps card is the only one made for him since he was released early in the 1975 season when the team signed Don Hopkins and Matt Alexander.
After his 13-month MLB career, he raced as a pro-runner until 1976.
After his running career, Washington owned as many as 27 McDonald’s franchises as a businessman. He sued McDonald’s for systemic racial discrimination and settled the lawsuit in 2021 when McDonald’s bought 13 of his restaurants for $33.5M.
His 1975 Topps baseball card is considered a rookie card and priced a bit higher than most “commons” in the set. Graded 1975 Topps cards are a bit more expensive than you’d think because of the intense popularity of its PSA Set Registry; however, PSA 8s have dipped from ~$130 in 2021 to under $100 today, but the last PSA 9 sold for $368 in August 2024 which is up slightly from 2021. In the Prices by Grade chart below, you can see that there are 3 PSA 10s (up from 2 two years ago), and one of them came up for sale in May 2023; Probstein sold it on eBay for a Set Registry premium price of $3,438!
Herb Washington’s story as a designated runner is usually overlooked when discussing the 1975 Topps Baseball set. While his reception on the team was mixed among players, he still got a World Series championship ring (despite being picked off at a critical moment in game 2).
Happy collecting!