Cal Ripken Jr. White Whale Harpooned!

Ironmanfan · January 18, 2020 12:00PM

Actually, I think the term "White Whale" gets thrown around the hobby a little too freely these days however I recently picked up something that's as close as a "White Whale" I'll ever see.

For well over 20 years, I've been looking for a ticket from May 6, 1984 in which Cal Ripken Jr. became only the 2nd Oriole in history to hit for the cycle (Brooksie was the other). The game was played on a Sunday afternoon in Arlington in front of only 13,224 fans.

I finally was able to pick this ticket up (a full ticket no less) from an eBay seller in France (of all places), who worded the auction awkwardly (thus avoiding attention):

IMF

mrmopar · January 18, 2020 12:16PM

I understand your excitement over a specific game ticket, as I have a list I have been chasing for a long time as well. There is no "standard" format for ticket stub listings, so it is easy to miss something if the date is not included or is in a different format that you'd typically search for. Even tougher when the event is for someone playing in an opposing park, as the visitor team is often left off stub listings for some reason.

I also agree with the white whale comment and other descriptions such as rare or scarce being overused. I don't think the knowledgable collectors necessarily overuse them, but sellers on ebay, for example, toss in "rare" like it is a conjunction. Nothing like seeing something like a rare 1984 slurpee coin or 1988 Score card.