It frustrates me to no end that ticket stubs have gone away. A stub is a souvenir, physical proof of participation in the entire spectacle. I have almost all of my baseball ticket stubs from the 90s and early 2000s; I’ve attended 30 games this decade and have zero.
What I’ve turned to is making my own souvenir: I keep score at almost every game I attend. When it’s with a baseball-loving friend, we trade the score sheet back and forth, creating our own keepsake; I even made my own custom scorebook in Excel. I plan to frame the page my friend and I did from the Oakland Coliseum’s last game alongside our photo.
In any case, I’m really glad you shared this. A ticket stub is trash to some people, but not me. It’s comforting to know it isn’t for you, either.
Definitely agree with your point on stubs — we should bring them back. Forget the bobbleheads with insurance logos slapped on them.
I’ve got a pretty random stub story myself. Years ago, a buddy’s dad (a longtime Patriots season ticket holder) invited me to a team scrimmage at Gillette during Training Camp. They actually printed real tickets for it — and each stub featured a photo of a player from camp.
Mine showed Brady throwing practice reps… but out of focus in the background, clear as day, was Aaron Hernandez. This was after everything had went down with Hernandez. A total oversight by the team — and honestly, kind of hilarious in hindsight.
That stub’s turned into a weird little time capsule. It’s true — ticket stubs don’t just mark a game. They capture a whole moment in time.
My major claim to life fame is that I have not missed a Dodger home opener in over 40 years except for one year when I had to have surgery. And for years, I saved the stubs in a special wood box. For the first few years of electronic tickets I printed them out and put them in with the stubs, but it just wasn’t the same. The stubs represented a lot that you touched on in this article and they just looked physically different for the different years over 40 years.
I’ll tell you what I do now that is maybe a substitute for me. If I go to a game with you, I take a selfie of you and me at the game or the you and me and whoever is with us at the game. And I save them on my phone in a little Folder album. I have photos now going back 10 years. Some of those people are gone. Others maybe I don’t hear from anymore. But I have this memento and it’s my modern version of the ticket stub.
It frustrates me to no end that ticket stubs have gone away. A stub is a souvenir, physical proof of participation in the entire spectacle. I have almost all of my baseball ticket stubs from the 90s and early 2000s; I’ve attended 30 games this decade and have zero.
What I’ve turned to is making my own souvenir: I keep score at almost every game I attend. When it’s with a baseball-loving friend, we trade the score sheet back and forth, creating our own keepsake; I even made my own custom scorebook in Excel. I plan to frame the page my friend and I did from the Oakland Coliseum’s last game alongside our photo.
In any case, I’m really glad you shared this. A ticket stub is trash to some people, but not me. It’s comforting to know it isn’t for you, either.
Definitely agree with your point on stubs — we should bring them back. Forget the bobbleheads with insurance logos slapped on them.
I’ve got a pretty random stub story myself. Years ago, a buddy’s dad (a longtime Patriots season ticket holder) invited me to a team scrimmage at Gillette during Training Camp. They actually printed real tickets for it — and each stub featured a photo of a player from camp.
Mine showed Brady throwing practice reps… but out of focus in the background, clear as day, was Aaron Hernandez. This was after everything had went down with Hernandez. A total oversight by the team — and honestly, kind of hilarious in hindsight.
That stub’s turned into a weird little time capsule. It’s true — ticket stubs don’t just mark a game. They capture a whole moment in time.
My major claim to life fame is that I have not missed a Dodger home opener in over 40 years except for one year when I had to have surgery. And for years, I saved the stubs in a special wood box. For the first few years of electronic tickets I printed them out and put them in with the stubs, but it just wasn’t the same. The stubs represented a lot that you touched on in this article and they just looked physically different for the different years over 40 years.
I’ll tell you what I do now that is maybe a substitute for me. If I go to a game with you, I take a selfie of you and me at the game or the you and me and whoever is with us at the game. And I save them on my phone in a little Folder album. I have photos now going back 10 years. Some of those people are gone. Others maybe I don’t hear from anymore. But I have this memento and it’s my modern version of the ticket stub.
I wish I’d started doing it years before.
That is a great idea! Love it!