Baltimore Orioles fan Rick Taylor is eight tickets away from completing a 2,632-game collection representing every game of Cal Ripken Jr.’s "Iron Man" streak. Taylor, a 69-year-old retired food industry salesman, has spent 28 years amassing the stubs, which correspond to the consecutive games Ripken played between 1982 and 1998. The collection currently fills 16 boxes at Taylor’s home in Reisterstown, Maryland.
The pursuit began with Taylor seeking a ticket for each game in which Ripken hit one of his 431 career home runs before he expanded the goal to the full streak. To find the items, Taylor placed advertisements in The Baltimore Sun, searched eBay, attended card shows, and joined a Facebook group called "Booger’s Ticket Stubs." He reported paying $4,400 in 1999 for the May 30, 1982, ticket that marked the first game of the record-setting run.
The remaining eight tickets are from road games played in the 1980s: four against the Minnesota Twins, three against the Texas Rangers, and one against the Kansas City Royals. Specifically, Taylor is missing stubs from June 4, 1982, August 21, 1982, and April 25, 1984. He is currently offering $100 per ticket to locate the final pieces of the collection. Experts from Heritage Auctions and PSA (Professional Sports Authenticator) described the effort as a significant feat of perseverance in the field of hobby collecting.
The scale of the collection involves 2,632 individual tickets spanning 17 seasons of daily play. For a dedicated collector, this represents years of searching and thousands of dollars in acquisition costs, including the $4,400 single-ticket purchase mentioned by Taylor. The challenge of finding the final eight stubs is heightened by the low attendance at mid-1980s Twins and Rangers games, which reduced the initial supply of paper tickets preserved by the public. A person attempting to replicate this today would notice a total absence of physical materials for games played after the industry-wide move to digital ticketing.
The knock-on effect of the digital transition is a potential change in how future sports milestones are commemorated. While Taylor continues his search for the final eight stubs, the collection already stands as one of the most comprehensive archives of a single player's career milestones. What happens next depends on whether the missing stubs are located in private scrapbooks or desk drawers; Taylor has increased his public outreach to identify potential sellers and reach his goal of a complete set.