21x20 Media presents
Why Is It Called a Rain Check?
Why is it called a rain check? A soggy ticket stub from 1880s baseball explains, and he would rather not talk about the fence.
Good for another day.
It was a real check. In the 1880s, when rain stopped a ball game, some clubs handed out checks good for another day instead of refunds. The oldest one in print is from St. Louis on June 21, 1883, when the club promised one for any game stopped before five innings. The checks went to everyone leaving, including people who had climbed in over the fence, so around 1889 Abner Powell in New Orleans put the check on the ticket itself, as a stub you tore off. Now a rain check means not today, but I mean it.
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