The prestigious New York museum is paying homage to one of America's favorite sports with an exhibition running June 10 to Oct. 20, 2016.
Since the mid-19th century, when the New York Knickerbockers began playing matches with the same rules that still govern the sport today, the Big Apple has been home to some of the country's most well-loved and successful teams. To pay homage to the sport and its links with the city, The Metropolitan Museum of Art is holding an exhibition of almost 400 baseball cards.
The cards feature players from different teams in and around the city, such as the New York Mets (originally the Metropolitans), the Yankees, the Brooklyn Bridegrooms and the Giants. The cards are all from the museum's own collection, with some going on public display for the first time.
Show highlights include a selection of "cabinet cards," or rectangular photo portraits, similar in format to business cards, that were popular in the 19th century. Certain cards feature big names from the sport, such as an 1894 card of George Davis of the New York Giants, and a card showing Joe DiMaggio, a popular player of the inter-war years.
The majority of the cards come from the Jefferson R. Burdick Collection, one of the largest and most comprehensive collections of baseball cards ever assembled by a single person in the USA. Former electrician, Jefferson R. Burdick, gifted over 300,000 items to The Met between 1943 and 1963, including more than 30,000 baseball cards for which he developed a cataloging system that's still used today.
"The Old Ball Game: New York Baseball, 1887-1977" runs June 10 to Oct. 20, 2016, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA.
