Anyone heard of a Waner/Collins/Speaker… 3k hit ticket

[GDoggy]

Anyone seen or heard of a Waner/Collins/Speaker/Cobb/Lajoie/Wagner 3k hit ticket?

I have seen, online/auctions/shows, a total of five - Musial 3,000th hit tickets, which seems to be the oldest 3,000th hit ticket out there. I have never seen or even heard of a Paul Waner 3,000th hit ticket or from any of those prior to him.

I find the PSA weight (difficulty) on tickets interesting (and in great need of updating). PSA rates the difficulty of finding the Waner ticket as 7 - http://www.psacard.com/psasetregistr...on.aspx?c=5270, the same as a Clemente, (which I have cateloged there being 32 Clemente 3,000ths). Why is Collins and Speaker rated an 8, does that mean that someone has seen one, same with Lajoie being a 9? Lastly, why is Kaline rated a 3 (lower att, away game, and many less have been offered [I have seen less than 10]) than Clemente.

What would a Anson 3000th go for, if one was found? Does anyone have a ticket (or seen one) that Anson has even played in, and if so what did it go for? Please post a photo if you have one.

Info on the difficult 3,000ths
Lou Brock - August 13, 1979 Att: 44,457 Home (PSA weight 3)
Pete Rose - May 5, 1978 Att: 37,823 Home (PSA weight 3)
Al Kaline - September 24, 1974 Att: 11,492 Away (PSA weight 3)
Roberto Clemente - September 30, 1972 Att: 13,117 Home (PSA weight 7)
Willie Mays - July 18, 1970 Att: 28,879 Home (PSA weight 4)
Hank Aaron - May 17, 1970 Att: 33,217 Away at Reds (PSA weight 4)
Stan Musial - May 13, 1958 Att: 5,692 Away at Cubs (PSA weight 5)
Paul Waner - June 19, 1942 Att: 3,304 Home (PSA weight 7)
Eddie Collins - June 3, 1925 Away at Det (PSA weight 8)
Tris Speaker - May 17, 1925 Home (PSA weight 8)
Ty Cobb - August 19, 1921 Home (PSA weight 10)
Nap Lajoie - September 27, 1914 Att: 3,100 Home (PSA weight 9)
Honus Wagner - June 9, 1914 at Phillies (PSA weight 10)
Cap Anson (PSA weight 10)

[Scott Garner]

Hi Jeff,
Good question!
I have collected baseball tickets for over 43 years.
At one time I owned a Tris Speaker 3,000th hit ticket which is still in the hobby. I collected the 3,000 hit theme for many years before narrowing my collection focus which is related to power pitching (no-hitters, high strikeouts, 200 & 300 win) tickets.

The ticket was discovered perhaps 20-25 years ago in a frame along with 2-3 Cleveland Indians World Series tickets from the 1920's by a close hobby friend in the Cleveland area that specializes in ephemera. The ticket stub did not have a printed date, but did have the date written on the back in pencil. All of the tickets in the frame had pencil date inscriptions on the back written by the same patron.

I have never heard of the other 3,000 hit tickets that you inquired about existing in the hobby. I hope this helps!

[GDoggy]

Scott, thanks for the info.

Is there anything else you can state about the ticket? Do you have a pic of it or can you get one? Does your friend still have it, if not what did it sell/trade for?

I know a lot of questions, but I find it interesting that there is nothing out there about the pre-Musial tickets on what I would view as probably the 4th or 5th most collectible set of tickets (After: World Series, Superbowl, All-Star and maybe 500 HR).

Does anyone have a Musial 3000th ticket that they can post a pic of?

[Scott Garner]

Hi Jeff,
Sorry, no pictures of either the Tris Speaker or the Stan Musial 3,000th hit to show you. I did own a beautiful Musial 3,000th stub as well, but these have been gone for many years.

The collector that I sold the Tris Speaker ticket did sell it to another collector that has what I believe to be the best 3,000th hit registry.

As a response to your comment about the scarcity of earlier 3,000th hit tickets, I would like to pass along some interesting info that I have learned along the way and you might find interesting:

3,000 hits and 3,000 strikeouts were not newsworthy at the time that these events occurred. When I owned the Speaker ticket I recall looking up archived microfilm (it has been a long time LOL) box scores and write up about the game. Not a single newspaper that I looked at commented on the 3,000 hit milestone! At the time it wasn't apparently something that the sports writers of the day even talked about. The fact that Speaker was only the 2nd batsman to accomplish it at the time in the modern era (Cobb being the other), you would think it would be worth mentioning, but no!

Along the same lines, Walter Johnson reached 3,000 K's and I'm not sure that he received much press on this as well at the time.
Perhaps this is why tickets were not saved; these milestones were not celebrated...

Also consider that a perfect game was not called a "perfect game" until CWS hurler Charlie Robertson hurled his in 1922 against Ty Cobb's Detroit Tigers. In the modern era (Post 1900), two pitchers had already hurled what we call a perfect game today: Cy Young and Addie Joss, not to mention the pitchers that accomplished it at the 50' mound distance, not the current 60' 6" standard.

[GDoggy]

These are the Stan Musial 3000th hit tickets that I have seen online auctions/shows

Seat Number - info
17-1-3 - Sold from Chicago Tix
39-1-1 - PSA graded: PR 1
79-7-6 - Pen writing on back. Sold on ebay 2013
79-7-8 - Pen writing on back (Stan Musial 3000 hits), staple holes and indentation. Sold on ebay 2013
87-1-7 - PSA graded 4MK, small stub (http://www.psacard.com/psasetregistr...te.aspx?c=5270)

[Scott Garner]

Jeff,
I also know of 4 of these stubs (adjoining seats) that were in EXMT-NM condition that all came from a large collection from Chicago. My Stan Musial 3,000 hit ticket that I once owned came out of this collection. Remember that many (perhaps most) tickets do not get PSA graded by ticket collectors. I know several collectors that don't slab tickets including myself...

A very close hobby friend of mine Joe DeMattio (RIP) in about 1999 or 2000 bought this HUGE collection of several thousand sports tickets (mostly baseball, but other sports as well) that were all attended by one sports loving family in Chicago. The overall condition of these tickets was also exceptional!

The tickets that were part of this collection were truly amazing. Mantles 1st HR, several no-hitters (including Bob Feller's Opening Day no-hitter), Banks 500th HR, Musial 3,000th hit, etc. etc., etc.
Truly an epic pickup!

[mr2686]

I thought Pete Rose's 3000th hit ticket was not the easiest to find, but not scarce either. His Cobb breaking hit ticket was very easy, but the one that surprised me was the ticket for his last hit. I mean, I haven't seen one and nobody talks about it. It is the record hit ticket so you would think it should have some interest.

[ngrow9]

Originally Posted by Scott Garner

3,000 hits and 3,000 strikeouts were not newsworthy at the time that these events occurred. When I owned the Speaker ticket I recall looking up archived microfilm (it has been a long time LOL) box scores and write up about the game. Not a single newspaper that I looked at commented on the 3,000 hit milestone! At the time it wasn't apparently something that the sports writers of the day even talked about. The fact that Speaker was only the 2nd batsman to accomplish it at the time in the modern era (Cobb being the other), you would think it would be worth mentioning, but no!

Along the same lines, Walter Johnson reached 3,000 K's and I'm not sure that he received much press on this as well at the time.
Perhaps this is why tickets were not saved; these milestones were not celebrated...

I just finished reading The Numbers Game by Alan Schwartz, which is an excellent history of statistics in baseball. It turns out that the record keeping was so shoddy back during the pre-war era that no one would have known at the time that a particular hit was a player's 3,000th. MLB's record keeping wasn't formalized to the point that such data would have been available until years later.

[Scott Garner]

Originally Posted by ngrow9

I just finished reading The Numbers Game by Alan Schwartz, which is an excellent history of statistics in baseball. It turns out that the record keeping was so shoddy back during the pre-war era that no one would have known at the time that a particular hit was a player's 3,000th. MLB's record keeping wasn't formalized to the point that such data would have been available until years later.

Nathanial (Nate),
I think you are totally correct, FWIW.