Babe Ruth?

[Scott Garner]

Originally Posted by jgmp123

Chris,

What was Huggins response? I'd be hard pressed to believe that the stub is even real..

James and all,
Interesting...

FWIW, I would not trust this to be a real Ruth 700th HR ticket.

I personally have not seen vintage Tigers tickets that have been stamped with a date. In fact, as a baseball ticket collector of over 40 years, I will tell you that I do not recall EVER seeing a Tigers stamped date ticket prior to 1969. I have, however, seen lots of emergency tickets like the one featured in this auction with designations like Game X, Game K, etc.

I do recall seeing a genuine printed date ticket to Ruth's 700th HR. At least one exists in the hobby. As I recall it has an uneven tear at the perforation, almost appearing to have a "fang" shaped tear....

[hugginsandscott]

Originally Posted by Scott Garner

James and all,
Interesting...

FWIW, I would not trust this to be a real Ruth 700th HR ticket.

I personally have not seen vintage Tigers tickets that have been stamped with a date. In fact, as a baseball ticket collector of over 40 years, I will tell you that I do not recall EVER seeing a Tigers stamped date ticket prior to 1969. I have, however, seen lots of emergency tickets like the one featured in this auction with designations like Game X, Game K, etc.

I do recall seeing a genuine printed date ticket to Ruth's 700th HR. At least one exists in the hobby. As I recall it has an uneven tear at the perforation, almost appearing to have a "fang" shaped tear....

Here is a listing of other Tigers ticket stubs. You can see there are a couple of stamp-dated 1934 Tigers ticket stubs in this lot.

[Scott Garner]

Originally Posted by hugginsandscott

Here is a listing of other Tigers ticket stubs. You can see there are a couple of stamp-dated 1934 Tigers ticket stubs in this lot.

Hi Josh,
Thanks for posting your responses!

Very interesting...
I'm curious where the photo of all the tickets came from?
I see that it says eBay on the screen shot, but I'm intrigued how this image shows a ticket issued only one day apart (wow!) from the alleged Ruth 700 HR ticket. That's an amazing coincidence! They obviously are stamped identically, at the same angle, yet the Emergency Tickets are "A" tickets one day, and "Z" the following day- in July, no less (half way through the season)!

FWIW, about 22,000 were in attendance for Ruth's 700th HR. Did this require that the Tigers issue emergency tickets? I looked at all the surrounding games at DET on the 1934 schedule and they all appear to have similar attendance, especially with the Yankees in town. I saw attendances ranging from 20,000-26,000 during this homestand. I would also note that at least 4 games at DET prior to the NY series that featured Ruth's HR drew at least as many fans. One of the games drew 30,000 fans and the game on July 4th drew 40,000 fans for a twinbill. Would Ruth's 700th HR be Emergency ticket "Z" if it was at a minimum the 6th high attended game in DET in 1934?
I don't know, and I'm quite certain that no one knows for sure. It just seems odd to me, FWIW...

I certainly can be wrong, but I stand by my assertion that I have not seen other earlier vintage Tigers tickets stamped in this fashion prior to the screen shot that you posted.

Please note that I am not attempting to make any comments about the authenticity of the Babe Ruth signature on the ticket as this is admittedly not my expertise.

[thecatspajamas]

Originally Posted by Scott Garner

I'm curious where the photo of all the tickets came from?

Scott,
They were sold on eBay in March 2009 for $1482 for a lot of 90 1930's Detroit Tigers tickets (seems like a pretty good deal for any Tigers fan). The photo is from Worthpoint, a subscription website that indexes old eBay listings. Here's the rest of the description, just so nobody jumps to the conclusion that this Ruth ticket was in the lot.

[Scott Garner]

Originally Posted by thecatspajamas

Scott,
They were sold on eBay in March 2009 for $1482 for a lot of 90 1930's Detroit Tigers tickets (seems like a pretty good deal for any Tigers fan). The photo is from Worthpoint, a subscription website that indexes old eBay listings. Here's the rest of the description, just so nobody jumps to the conclusion that this Ruth ticket was in the lot.

Hi Lance,
Thanks for posting the description. I would have to agree with you that the buyer got an excellent deal on this vintage Tigers ticket lot. $15 a ticket- very nice!

Certainly this provides some support to the theory that the stamped Emergency Ticket could be an actual ticket from the game played on 7/13/34, Babe Ruth's 700th HR.

Looking at this from only the ticket portion of the equation, as a baseball ticket collector, I am still bothered by three things:

Would the game played on 7/13/34 (Ruth 700th HR) have been the 1st game in the Detroit Tiger's 1934 home schedule to have required the issuance of an Emergency Ticket? I know that I am repeating a portion of my previous post here, but we know that very few games in 1934 have "high" reported attendance according to retrosheet.org.

Of the home games that did have reported attendance, the Ruth 700 HR game was the 6th game with enough attendance to require an Emergency ticket. Wouldn't it make plausible sense that the 1st big attendance game would be the Emergency "A" ticket and not the 5th game?
I don't know...

Secondly, does it make plausible sense that the next game in the home schedule to require an emergency ticket (the 6th reported high attendance game in the DET home schedule) would be Emergency Ticket Z? That's interesting (odd). Extremely random, but possible....

Thirdly, both sets of Emergency tickets appear to be stamped by precisely the same hand. The same stamp appears to be used, as well as the same angle of stamp applied, in the same location on the ticket. No randomness to this at all, FWIW.

All this, in of itself, does not prove or disprove that this ticket is legit. Unless we were a fly on the ticket office wall, we will never know.

Now, back to the real question: does the Babe Ruth signature hold up as far as being a legitimate example of his 1930's signature? I will leave this up to the experts to figure out. I have no horse in this race...

For sure, this is an interesting puzzle to ponder over....

[thetruthisoutthere]

I have sent Josh a message requesting the contact info of the consignor.

[hugginsandscott]

Originally Posted by thetruthisoutthere

I have sent Josh a message requesting the contact info of the consignor.

I have responded to your email with the consignors name and contact phone number.

[thetruthisoutthere]

Originally Posted by Scott Garner

James and all,
Interesting...

FWIW, I would not trust this to be a real Ruth 700th HR ticket.

I personally have not seen vintage Tigers tickets that have been stamped with a date. In fact, as a baseball ticket collector of over 40 years, I will tell you that I do not recall EVER seeing a Tigers stamped date ticket prior to 1969. I have, however, seen lots of emergency tickets like the one featured in this auction with designations like Game X, Game K, etc.

I do recall seeing a genuine printed date ticket to Ruth's 700th HR. At least one exists in the hobby. As I recall it has an uneven tear at the perforation, almost appearing to have a "fang" shaped tear....

+1 and more......