Don Hopkins (baseball), Date of Birth, Place of Birth
TweetDon Hopkins (baseball)
American baseball player
Date of Birth: 09-Jan-1952
Place of Birth: West Point, Mississippi, United States
Profession: baseball player
Zodiac Sign: Capricorn 
About Don Hopkins (baseball)
- Donald Hopkins (born January 9, 1952) is an American former professional baseball player.
- An outfielder during his minor league baseball career, he was used almost exclusively as a pinch runner by the 1975 American League West Division champion Oakland Athletics.
- He stood 6 feet (1.8 m) tall and weighed 170 pounds (77 kg), batted left-handed and threw right-handed. Although a native of West Point, Mississippi, Hopkins attended Benton Harbor High School in Michigan and was signed as an undrafted free agent by the Montreal Expos in 1970.
- A speedy baserunner, Hopkins stole over 40 bases four times in his minor league career, and was acquired the Athletics from Montreal just prior to the 1975 campaign.
- At the time, Oakland owner Charlie Finley — one of the early proponents of the designated hitter rule, adopted in the American League in 1973 — was also advocating the creation of the "designated runner" in baseball, and he regularly employed fast players on his 25-man roster to specialize in pinch running.
- Hopkins fulfilled that role during the 1975 season.
- He appeared in 82 games, largely pinch-running for future Baseball Hall of Fame member and veteran Billy Williams, who was Oakland's designated hitter.
- Hopkins stole 21 bases and scored 25 runs, but had only eight plate appearances.
- He drew two bases on balls and collected one hit, a single, off the Detroit Tigers' Fernando Arroyo in a lopsided, 16–4 Oakland win on July 22.Hopkins spent much of 1976 in the minor leagues, although he made three more pinch-running appearances for Oakland during September 1976.
- He retired after the 1977 minor-league season.
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