1969 Topps #251 Ron Herbel
About Ron Herbel
Card #251, a series-three base issue, is the last of the decade's Topps cards to carry Herbel. It reports a 1968 season spent almost entirely in the bullpen: 28 appearances, only two of them starts, 18 strikeouts and no decision either way, the one year in his career he finished with neither a win nor a loss. He had one season left in San Francisco after this card reached the shelves, going 4-1 in 39 games in 1969 with the last two complete games he would ever throw.
Ron Herbel was a right-handed pitcher who signed with the San Francisco Giants as an amateur free agent in 1958 out of the University of Northern Colorado, spent six seasons in the farm system, and debuted on September 10, 1963. He pitched seven seasons for San Francisco, took a regular turn in the rotation in 1964 and 1965, and worked almost entirely out of the bullpen from 1967 on. The Giants traded him with Bob Barton and Bobby Etheridge to the San Diego Padres on December 5, 1969, for Frank Reberger; San Diego dealt him to the New York Mets on September 1, 1970, and the Mets sent him to the Atlanta Braves that December for Bob Aspromonte. He finished 42-37 with a 3.83 ERA and 447 strikeouts in 331 games. Herbel is remembered today less for his pitching than his hitting: he batted .029, 6-for-206, the lowest career average in major-league history among players with at least 100 at-bats. He died January 20, 2000, in Tacoma, Washington, at 62.
Sources: Wikipedia · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac (1) · Baseball Almanac (2) · Retrosheet
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 244 | 5 | 48 | 146 | 32 | 7 | 3 | 3 | 0 |
| SGC | 7 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 0 | 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.
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Related cards
More San Francisco Giants cards:
- #4 National League 1968 RBI Leaders
- #6 National League 1968 Home Run Leaders
- #8 National League 1968 ERA Leaders
- #10 National League 1968 Pitching Leaders
- #16 Giants 1969 Rookie Stars
- #41 Bob Barton
- #64 Bill Monbouquette
- #102 Jim Davenport
- #125 Ray Sadecki
- #158 Joe Gibbon
- #190 Willie Mays
- #204 Jack Hiatt
- #227 Frank Johnson
- #274 Clyde King
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1969 Topps #251 card?
It is card #251 of the 664-card 1969 Topps Baseball set, picturing Ron Herbel of the San Francisco Giants.
How many cards are in the 1969 Topps Baseball set?
664 cards, tracked as 696 collectible states. Numbers run from 1 to 664 with none skipped and no printed number shared by two cards; 32 cards carry catalogued print variations that the master set counts separately, 23 of them the yellow- and white-letter name pairs of #440-511.
Sources: Trading Card Database, PSA CardFacts, Cardboard Connection, 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 2026-10-12.