1965 Topps #38 Jim King
About Jim King
Card #38 falls early in the first series, on the back of the best two weeks of King's career. On May 26, 1964 at Fenway Park he hit for the cycle, finishing it with two outs in the eighth on a drive off the center-field wall - his only triple of the season - and driving in both Washington runs in a 3-2 loss. Those two runs remain the fewest any team has scored in a game with a cycle. Thirteen days later he homered three times against Kansas City, all solo shots in a 5-4 defeat. The full season read .241 with 18 home runs, 56 RBIs and exactly 100 hits in 134 games.
James Hubert King, a left-handed hitter born August 27, 1932 in Elkins, Arkansas, broke in with the Chicago Cubs in 1955 and later played for the Cardinals and the Giants, starting in left field in the first major league game played in California on April 15, 1958. Two seasons with Toronto of the International League followed, the second of them good enough - 24 home runs, 86 RBIs, a .384 on-base percentage - to win him the 1960 league Most Valuable Player award. Cleveland bought him and then left him unprotected, and the expansion Washington Senators took him in the December 1960 draft. He outlasted all 27 other original Senators draftees, staying in Washington until June 1967. His best season was 1963: career highs of 24 home runs and 62 RBIs. The next May he hit for the cycle at Fenway Park, the only cycle in that Washington franchise's eleven seasons. Teammates called him "Sky" King, for the television series and his dread of flying. His last game came September 24, 1967, closing 11 major league seasons at .240 with 117 home runs and 401 RBIs in 1,125 games. He went home to Elkins, spent 24 years with the local telephone company while raising cattle on his farm, and never boarded an airplane again.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · SABR Games Project · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 260 | 6 | 44 | 133 | 54 | 10 | 9 | 4 | 0 |
| SGC | 7 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Graded population — a scarcity guide, not a price. Data as of 2026-09-04. Half grades fold down for both graders (8.5→8); PSA qualified slabs (OC, ST, PD, MC and the like) are not counted. The two checklist variations, #79 and #508, are listed under the wording PSA uses for each state.
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Related cards
Team card: #267 Washington Senators
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- #99 Gil Hodges
- #129 Bennie Daniels
- #148 Willie Kirkland
- #152 Phil Ortega
- #181 Senators 1965 Rookie Stars
- #211 Steve Ridzik
- #224 Bob Chance
- #233 Don Zimmer
- #252 Pete Richert
- #284 Nick Willhite
- #304 Dave Stenhouse
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1965 Topps #38 card?
It is card #38 of the 598-card 1965 Topps Baseball set, picturing Jim King of the Washington Senators.
How many cards are in the 1965 Topps Baseball set?
598 cards, tracked as 600 collectible states. Numbers run from 1 to 598 with no gaps and no printed-number collisions, and two checklist cards - #79 and #508 - carry catalogued print variations that the master set counts separately.
Sources: Trading Card Database, PSA CardFacts, Cardboard Connection, BaseballCardPedia, Baseball Almanac, Baseball-Reference, the SABR BioProject and the National Baseball Hall of Fame, PSA & SGC population reports. Card data compiled and maintained by T206Cards.com. Page last updated 2026-10-11.