I don’t feature ticket stubs very often on eBay Watch but this one is special. On its face, this musty, chewed up stub from the 1943 Michigan-Michigan State game doesn’t look very valuable, does it? I’m guessing the seller had no idea and is wondering why as of Saturday afternoon it had 17 bids, the tops at $330. It was a very nice season by Fritz Crisler’s crew, going 8-1, sharing the conference title and finally beating freaking Minnesota whom they hadn’t beaten since 1932. Readers of this site might recall that this is a very rare find, so rare, in fact is that it was the final stub that local Jack Briegel needed to complete his collection of every game played at the Big House (dating back to ‘27). Thanks to a gift of this stub in 2011 from fellow collector Ken Magee, Jack got that final piece of the puzzle. It’s rare for a few reasons as I explained in an earlier post: The ticket to that September 25 game actually lists Michigan State as the opponent. But the Spartans did not field a team that season as it was common for teams to shut down their football squads that year due to obligations to the war effort. Folks seemed to have better things to do that fall…
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The Final Piece of the Puzzle (1943)….Found!
This month I submitted a piece on Ann Arbor resident Jack Briegel and his extraordinary collection. His focus is on ticket stubs and get this, of the 517 games played at Michigan Stadium to date, Briegel has a full ticket or stub from all of them but one. That's right – he's missing 1!
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Ending Early
From the official game release: This is the first Michigan football game to end before all 60 minutes of regulation have been played. Well kind of. And I’ll clarify in a minute. It’s certainly not the first Michigan football game to end before the planned allotted time. Most notably two of the most famous games in college football history ended early: The 1902 Rose Bowl (the first bowl game ever played) ended with plenty of time on the clock because Yost, Heston and crew were putting a colossal smack down on Stanford. From the Bentley: With eight minutes remaining in the game, Stanford captain Ralph Fisher approached the Wolverine bench and offered to concede; Michigan consented. While this game yielded the Little Brown Jug, the great 1903 Minnesota-Michigan battle between the Western powerhouses also ended early. The common story is that after the Gophers scored a late TD to tie the game, the Minnesota fans stormed the field and the coaches agreed to call the game. (I’ve heard other claims that approaching weather was a factor in the decision, but haven’t seen much evidence to back that up). The Sunday November 1, 1903 Minneapolis Tribune says the game ended with “but a few seconds left to play.” The Detroit Free Press from that Sunday said two minutes remained, headline: Detroit…
