Great stories everyone! Ben, thanks for starting this thread.
Like most boys that played Little League, I began collecting baseball cards in 1967 when I was 9. (Yes Ben, I'm older than Mike! LOL). Since I grew up in the shadows of Angels Stadium, I liked cards of my hometown team the California Angels. Angels All-Star shortstop Jim Fregosi was my favorite position player (I always wore uniform # 11 for this reason).
In 1972, I was
crushed when the Angels traded Fregosi to the Mets for who ironically would become my all-time favorite player Nolan Ryan and a host of other players including Leroy Stanton and Don Rose.
I was fortunate to catch one of Nolan's early games in 1972 with the Angels from directly behind home plate. Keep in mind that the early to mid 1970's Angels teams were pretty terrible and Ryan was a breath of fresh air. The sound of one of his fastballs hitting the catcher's mitt was awesome- WHACK!!
The fact that he was also wild was also cool because it led to a lot of drama as he was developing some semblance of control with the help of catcher Jeff Torborg and pitching coach Tom Morgan.
Torborg had caught Koufax and was instrumental in helping Nolan with the pitching mechanics required to be successful in the majors. I made it my mission to catch as many Ryan pitched games as possible, because that was the best show in town.
It dawned on me in 1972 that saving tickets to games that Nolan pitched would be fun as each ticket represented a link with a hard date to a specific event. In addition to my ticket, I also picked up other tickets on the ground after the game. I suppose this is the exact moment that I became a memorabilia collector. I ended up trading tickets with other collectors that I found that did the same (not many in 1972). Through word of mouth, I eventually was able to locate other collectors in other baseball cities that collected tickets and would trade with them as well. As others on this thread have mentioned, $$ did not change hands at this point, only trading. My ticket collecting theme expanded from only Ryan tickets to also no-hitter tickets (as well as a few other themes that I have since abandoned).
Since 1972 I have collected tickets to every Ryan game (807 regular season games) that he ever pitched in regardless of outcome (win, loss or no-decision). As of today I am only 73 ticket dates away from completing this theme. It's been a long road and a lot of fun.
My no-hitter ticket collection currently stands at about 187 games dating back to 1901, BTW. Both of these are the largest of their kind in the hobby.
Here is a photo of my full ticket to Nolan's 1st game and 1st win with the Angels in 1972. Ironically it was Nolan's 30th career win (his uniform number on the Angels) and notched his 500th career strikeout (Charlie Manuel).
The best part of all this is the network of friends that I have made along the way. To me, this is really what the hobby is all about.
