Ticket Stud: Drew takes the field & gets the big save in Boston

With these Ticket Stud or Ticket Dud stories I'm turning just a tiny bit of energy just a few degrees away from cards -- we'll still have plenty of them here -- for a look at a different kind of cardboard. You know ... tickets.

This time? It's not a debate of Stud or Dud in my book. In fact, this ticket isn't even from a mystery box of tickets like the first 44 seen at the link above -- it's from 20 years ago tonight in Boston where a little extra action took place at Fenway Park.

Keep reading to see the details this time ... and, like always, you can tell me if you think it's a Ticket Stud or a Ticket Dud but what's up next is my answer.

THE DETAILS ...
The Category: Major League Baseball ... and a bit of film history as seen in the 2005 comedy Fever Pitch (see below)
The Events: Tampa Bay Devil Rays at Boston Red Sox -- Sept. 16, 2004
The Results: Red Sox 11, Rays 4 ... and, more importantly, Ben Wrightman did not sell his season tickets.
The Attendance: 35,048 at Fenway Park in Boston, Mass. ... give or take some film crew members
The Price: Free. This one, per the fine print, was ironically a comp ticket for Red Sox legend Luis Tiant who had been a team instructor around this time (Here's the approximate view.)
The Cost (for me): $30 ... but worth every penny for this Barrymore collector.

The Ticket Studs (Key Players): Lindsey Meeks (aka Drew Barrymore) takes to the field to thwart Ben Wrightman (aka Jimmy Fallon) from selling off his season tickets that he inherited from his Uncle Carl. (Scene filmed after the game.) Why? Watch the movie ... 

Others: Boston's Johnny Damon & Kevin Millar both with a homer, two hits and four RBI in the blowout, while Red Sox SP Curt Schilling went 7-plus innings with six Ks for his 20th win of the actual season in this, you know, actual game. Also, Rays OF Rocco Baldelli smacked a homer that night.

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What's Buzz-worthy: The Farrelly Brothers comedy was allowed to shoot scenes at Fenway on a dozen dates, per IMDb and other reports, and this was the first of eight in a row for the production. It began with this game against the Rays and others against the Yankees and Orioles that September as the Sox made their run to history with a World Series title. It was that run that actually forced adding to the film -- with footage done at the actual Series -- before it arrived the next April with a premiere event at Fenway. Out of curiosity for what items might exist for this movie, I happened upon some tickets and started my research for the real dates behind what was seen in the reel world. It turns out this scene -- a quick one but a sequence with a lot of cuts if you watch closely -- took place on at least two nights after the Sox faced different opponents with the on-field action spliced together. Also spliced between takes was their discussion at the infield wall after Barrymore ran across the field to make the save. (If you're a film devotee and one who watches for continuity issues, all I'll say is don't eye the scoreboard between cuts in the part that follows the video above. The rest is pretty clean considering they actually filmed against different teams both nights and used extras in some instances ... for example this take isn't Johnny Damon.) I perused publicly accessible sites for two photo providers and the two preview shots you see above backed this ticket's date. There are other tickets and days with key names attached for different trivia, but I'll talk about those once I land 'em -- that's not as easy as you might think given that it's all been 20 years ago as of today. Atop that, this history-making finish still has to rank among MLB's greatest -- meaning there will always be, to some degree, people looking for 2004 Red Sox stuff and tucking it away to never be seen again.

Stud or Dud? A big-time Stud ticket if you ask me ... and that's why I bought it. I've never graded a ticket ... but I might with this one. The Tiant twist also helps make this one even more interesting.

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