1975 Topps, Herb Washington

#407 Herb Washington

Here is the last of the '75 Topps that I have to show for now. I was hoping to get a couple of minis signed at Royals Fanfest yesterday, but that didn't pan out. I'll go into more detail about Fanfest at the end of the post.

This card is the only card ever made that lists the position as pinch runner. I have had this card in my collection for about four years and had been waiting to find a good address to send it to get signed. I bought this card at my local card shop and even the owner was unaware of the pinch runner designation. He apparently doesn't read card blogs.

I finally came across a good address in September and I sent it out. It came back signed in just nine days. It got a little mangled on its trip, but there is not much I can do about that now. I need to invest in some index cards, but I am either too cheap or lazy or both.

I could tell you more about this player or this card, but our good friend Night Owl has already done a sufficient job of that. Just check out this Cardboard Appreciation post on this card to learn more.

As for Royals Fanfest, it was another disappointing one. This year was supposed to be more geared for autographs because that was what the fans mainly went there for. To help that process, they were going to have continuous autograph signings. That would have been nice.

I appears that continuous means that players sign for thirty minutes and then take a thirty minute break. Rather than having the lines go non-stop with a regular changing of the people signing, each line was restricted to having 150 fans in it. If you didn't get in line in time, you then had to get in the line for the signing that starts an hour later. Early on, you could get through a line and then get in line for the next one right after that. But, during the peak hours, that was not possible and you ended up getting in a line where the signing was not going to start for almost two hours.

As a result, my family of four came home with about 35 signatures after standing in lines eight of the nine hours the gates were open. That may sound OK to some, but I got about 60 items signed at the first Royals Fanfest with just me and another person. For someone that just goes for the autographs, I was more than a little disappointing.

To make matters worse, they would text who would be signing at which stations about fifteen minutes before the signing started. The problem with them waiting so long was that all of the lines were full when that time came. If you got out of line to go to the one you wanted, you would just have to get in line for the next signing where you, of course, had no idea who would be signing there. Because of that, my girlfriend's son came home disappointed that he did not get to meet his favorite player, Bruce Chen.

I was hoping that the Royals were taking notes at All Star Fanfest this summer where all of the autograph lines went for a specified amount of time and not a set number of fans. They obviously were not and I may have attended my last Royals Fanfest.

The one bright spot to the day is that I came home with a game used Sean O'Sullivan and Irving Falu jersey for ten dollars each. I also got five All Star Game picture frames for a buck. If anyone needs one, let me know and I am sure we can work out a trade.