"Missed it by THAT much"

[YankeeFan]

If you remember the 1960's TV show "Get Smart", you've heard "Missed it by THAT much" said many times by the inept Maxwell Smart whenever he almost did something right.

That's what I thought about when I saw the photo shown below.

As collector's, most of us like to add things of some historical significance to our collections. Depending on our collecting focus and budget, that may mean different things to different people. From the things we enjoy seeing here on N54 some of you have truly amazing historical artifacts from the 19th century onward. Thankfully, there are many things which have some degree of historical significance yet are still very affordable to the average collector.

Then we have the near misses, like the one below. If you've been collecting for a while, you've probably come across memorabilia that for one reason or another is close to being significant...it just "misses by that much". Which of course makes it either insignificant or at best much less desirable.

That's what I would like see in this thread. Show us your items like someone's 499th HR stub, a scored program to some star player's 2nd game, a ticket stub to a 1-hitter, a wire photo or older re-strike of a photo you wish was a Type 1, etc. Maybe you have something that is likely to have historical significance, but is lacking solid provenance. Things that make you say "I'd really have something special here if only..."

And if you have a good story to go with your item, please share that too.

I'll start off with this recent pick-up of a press photo from the Yankees game of 4-17-1951. Mickey Mantle's debut. The only problem is that Mickey is not in the picture!

[doug.goodman]

Harmon Killebrew, career HR #2, scored program

[doug.goodman]

Hank Aaron, career HR #701, scored program

[Scott Garner]

Here is a ticket stub to Cy Young's historic 1st attempt at becoming the first and only pitcher to win 500 career games.
I love this ticket even though I missed the big milestone by a smidge...

Oh so close!

[doug.goodman]

Willie Mays hit career HR #499 in the same game that saw Ernie Banks hit career HR #401, but I don't have that one scanned.

[YankeeFan]

Nice Doug. Thanks for contributing. I knew you would have some good ones to share.

[Scott Garner]

Many of you know that I collect tickets to no-hitter games.
This thread really feeds into another collecting theme of mine which is tickets to no-hit and perfect games that were lost in the 9th inning or later. At some point along the way, I thought this might be a fun side collection. At present I have tickets to over 100 games that were oh, so close.

Perhaps the most famous of these games is the Harvey Haddix near-perfect game. Haddix is the 1st and only pitcher to carry a perfect game into the 13th inning, only to lose. Many consider this to be the greatest game ever pitched, which it probably was.

Here is a scan of a rare ticket stub to this game as well as my scored program.
Enjoy! Happy New Year to all at net54.