Rain delay at a Chicago Cubs game, 18 August 2015
4 December 2023
A rain check is a promise, originally and often in the form of a written ticket, to provide at a later date goods and services that have been paid for. The first rain checks were issued at baseball games that were halted in mid-game because of rain. (The rules of baseball state that a game is not official until the visiting team has made 15 outs and the home team is either ahead or has also made 15 outs. Games stopped, for any reason, before that are not considered valid.)
The first record of rain checks being issued dates to 21 June 1883 when the St. Louis Brown Stockings (now the St. Louis Cardinals) made it a policy to issue rain checks to fans who paid for a game that was rained out. From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch of that date:
Christ. Von der Ahe, the president of the St. Louis base-ball club, was at down town headquarters this morning, and had a word to say about the action of the club on yesterday, in refusing to refund money or tickets at the gate after the game was called: “The clubs of the American association,” said President Von der Ahe, “have a rule which entitles the visiting team to its guarantee the moment the game is called. The moment the game is called, too, the salary of the umpire and all employes [sic] becomes due. This was the reason that all the clubs of the American have adopted the rule of refunding no money after the game is called. Several times this year games have been stopped after the first inning in the association cities without any money being refunded. At Philadelphia nearly 10,000 people in one game paid toll to see one inning played and made no demand for the return of the money, for the reason the notice was up, as at our park, ‘No money refunded after the game is called.’ At Louisville our club in one game played one inning and then rain spoiled the sport. We got our guarantee, but there was no demand at the gate for the return of money or tickets by those who had paid admission. Since yesterday, however, I have come to the conclusion that the rule is a poor one, and from this time forward it will not be enforced by the St. Louis club. While we will be compelled to pay the guarantee to the visiting club and all employes after the game is called, we will give rain-checks in every game where less than five innings are played. In other words, the St. Louis club will not make its patrons pay for what they don’t see, as is the case in all other association cities. The system to be inaugurated is to give everyone buying a ticket, on days where rain is apprehended, a rain-check which will admit them to the game on the following fair day. Where it looks fair, with no prospects of rain, no checks will be given; but should rain come up, rain-checks will be furnished to every one who has paid admission, on application at the box-office.”
The earliest use of rain check in a non-baseball context that I have found is from a few years later. The following appeared in Baton Rouge’s Daily Capitolian-Advocate of 13 July 1887. That paper credits the Detroit Free Press for penning the piece, but I have been unable to find it in that paper:
A reporter dropped into a prominent hotel to have his boots polished. The weather was decidedly threatening at the time, and as he left the chair, he said:
“It is almost certain to rain, and I shall lose my elegant ten cent shine.”
“Oh, we’ll fix that all right,” said the frescoer. “I’ll give you a rain check, and if you lose your shine come back this afternoon and I’ll give you another.”—Detroit Free Press.
Sources:
Daily Capitolian-Advocate (Baton Rouge, Louisiana), 13 July 1887, 3/4. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
Dickson, Paul. The Dickson Baseball Dictionary, third edition, 2009, s.v. rain check, 686–87.
“No Game, No Money.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch (St. Louis, Missouri), 21 June 1883, 8/3. Newspapers.com.
Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, June 2008, s.v. rain check, n.
Photo credit: Victor Grigas, 2015. Wikimedia Commons. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.