Ticket (Stub) to Paradise
A ticket stub used to be the perfect souvenir for you to take home from a concert or sporting event that you attended, but not anymore.
As I prepare for my 29 ballpark (and wherever the Athletics are playing) trip next summer, I've started going through the mountains of crap that are currently taking up a stunning amount of space in my apartment. Most of it has to go since I'm giving up the place before I leave and it's amazing what I'm finding as I dig through it all.
The vast majority of it will either be sold, donated or just thrown in the trash. Going through it has been challenging for reasons I'll go into in another edition of Thirty Ballparks, but suffice it to say I really wish I had become a minimalist when I was younger.
However, in one box I was digging through I came across an old photo album. And yes, this is an actual photo album with actual photos inside And as I was flipping through the pages I came across all my old ticket stubs.
Now, a brief history lesson for those you who may be too young to understand what I'm talking about.
Back in the Before Times, when you purchased tickets to a baseball game or a concert, you would get a physical ticket. It was a rectangular piece of cardboard that you would give to an usher as you entered the stadium. They would usually tear a portion off and hand you back the rest, which was how you would prove that you were supposed to be there. If you lost your ticket stub, you were screwed so you always made sure you had it on you. As the years went on, tickets starting having bar codes on them and you would simply scan it as you entered, keeping the ticket whole.
For most sports fans, your ticket also served as your souvenir. Ask any baseball fan over the age of 40 and they can probably show you a box filled with ticket stubs. After all, it had all the information about the game, including the date, where you sat and who your team played. And if you were lucky, you had some special ones. Playoff games, World Series games, that kind of thing.
One of my favorite sports mementos is my ticket stub from the 2019 NHL Stadium Series hockey game. The Philadelphia Flyers played the Pittsburgh Penguins at Lincoln Financial Field in February of that year and it was one of the best times of my life. My friend was a Flyers season ticket holder so she got special commemorative tickets with the logo on it and everything. I practically cradled it during the game to make sure nothing happened to it.
That's the power a simple ticket stub can have. It's a piece of your personal history that commemorates a special moment in time and the memories that go with it. Or, for our purposes today, what MLB ballparks you've been too.
For those that try to go to as many ballparks as possible, a ticket stub was an easy way to not just keep track of where you've been but also proof that you were there. People who achieved the dream and went to each and every park would usually frame them all or figure out some way to be able to display them. But even if they didn't want to bother and just kept them in an old shoe box at the bottom of their closet, they knew they were there.
That all changed for good when the pandemic hit. Major League Baseball used it as an excuse to go all digital with their tickets and now instead of a ticket stub you have the Ballpark app. Sure, it keeps track of the games you've been to and even which teams and ballparks you've seen, but ask any older fan and they'll likely tell you it's just not the same.
Especially if, like me, you plan to make the journey to all the Major League ballparks, including wherever the Athletics are playing.
When I came up with this hair brained idea years ago, it didn't take long for me to start thinking of how I would display all the tickets. I decided I was going to buy a frame, mount them on a black piece of poster board and hang it proudly on the wall.
Of course, now that's all been flushed down the toilet. Call me old fashioned but when I tell people about the trip in the years to come, taking out my phone and showing them the Ballpark app just doesn't have the same impact.
So what is a baseball fanatic who wants something tactile from each ballpark I visit supposed to do? There are pins and scorecards, programs and baseballs but nothing really jumped out at me.
I finally settled on souvenir cups.
They're bigger than tickets and need to be washed before they can be put on display but for me, they're the closest I can get to a ticket stub. I've already started a collection over the last few years of the stadiums and ballparks I've been to including cups from Nationals Park and a couple from PNC Park. I have one from the 2024 Stadium Series game at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey and a ton from the last few Phillies seasons. And by the end of the summer of 2025, I hope to have a whole heck of a lot more.
I have heard that there are a small handful of teams that don't have souvenir cups, which boggles my mind. For those I'll have to figure out something else to commemorate the visit. But if a team has a souvenir cup, I'll be adding it to the collection.
As for all those old ticket stubs in the photo album, they will be removed from the pages and carefully gone through. I have a plethora of 76ers tickets since I used to be a season ticket holder and I don't think I need to hold onto all of them. But the one from my first Eagles game? The one from the time I got to attend the Atlantic 10 Basketball Championship semifinal at the one and only Palestra? The ticket stub from my first ever Phillies game in 1993 or the one from 2008 when the Phillies clinched the NL East? Those aren't going anywhere.
It's just a real shame that I won't be able to add anymore to the collection.
I have framed ticket stubs from the one no-hitter I witnessed (Rays' Matt Garza vs. Detroit). I hate that stubs are a relic.