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baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...
, a rain check is a ticket issued to spectators which admits them to the ballpark at a later date at no additional cost to the ticket holder. It is issued if a game is cancelled due to
rain Rain is water droplets that have condensed from atmospheric water vapor and then fall under gravity. Rain is a major component of the water cycle and is responsible for depositing most of the fresh water on the Earth. It provides water f ...
or other inclement weather, or if a game has been started but suspended due to inclement weather prior to the point of becoming an
official game In baseball, an official game (regulation game in the Major League Baseball rulebook) is a game where nine innings have been played, except when the game is scheduled with fewer innings, extra innings are required to determine a winner, or the game ...
(five innings in regular season Major League Baseball games or at any time during the
postseason The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be eithe ...
). Depending on the home team/league policy and the rescheduling of the game, the rain check may admit the ticket holder to watch the rained out game or the continuation of a suspended game only on the rescheduled date, or it may allow the ticket holder to exchange the tickets for tickets of equal value to another game within a specified time frame. Rain checks were originally separate tickets issued by the home team to spectators as they left the ballpark following a rainout. In modern times, the ticket to the rained out game serves as the rain check. The practice has been recorded since the 1870s – though it did not become generally established until the 20th century – and today the term " rain check" is used idiomatically to refer to any deferred promise.


History

The institution of issuing tickets for games canceled due to rain dates at least to 1870, while the term ''rain check'' dates to at least 1877; in the
National League The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team s ...
it was pioneered by the : Originally a rain check for a canceled game was simply a ticket valid for a future game – in lieu of a refund – not specifically for a makeup game. Further, at the time clubs would sell reusable hard cardboard tickets, which were turned in at the admissions gate, then resold at the box office at the conclusion of the game. Originally rain checks were issued to spectators as they exited, but this resulted in severe losses to clubs, due to free-riders and fence-climbers also getting tickets. This was solved by
Abner Powell Abner Charles Powell (December 15, 1860 – August 7, 1953) was a Major League Baseball player who was a member of the Washington Nationals of the Union Association in 1884. He later played for the Baltimore Orioles and the Cincinnati Red Stockin ...
circa 1889 by using a stub on the original ticket as rain check. Powell is thus often incorrectly credited with inventing rain checks, while in fact he instead refined an existing practice.


References

{{reflist Baseball terminology