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Estimate: $ 5,000 - $ 7,500
THE FIRST PRINTED BASEBALL SCORECARD (SPORTS--BASEBALL.) The Great Game for the Championship of the United States, Athletic vs. Atlantic. Letterpress scorecard, 5 1/2 x 4 inches, completed in pencil for part of the first inning. [Philadelphia], 1 October 1866
This important early baseball artifact dates from the days before organized leagues and before overt professionalism, though top-level players such as these were already sharing gate receipts. By October 1866, the Athletic Club of Philadelphia and the Atlantic Club of Brooklyn had earned the right to contest the national championship. A crowd of 30,000 was in attendance, far more than the primitive accommodations could handle. The Athletics scored two runs in the top of the first inning, but the surging crowd caused the game to be cancelled in the bottom half of the inning, as reflected on this card. Featured in the Philadelphia lineup are future sporting goods mogul Al Reach, Jewish baseball pioneer Lipman Pike, and pitcher Dick McBride. Appearing for Brooklyn are early stars such as Joe Start, Dickey Pearce, and Bob "Death to Flying Things" Ferguson. Another example of this scorecard is illustrated in The National Pastime 3:1 (Spring 1984), page 15, an authoritative publication by the Society for American Baseball Research which declared it "the earliest printed scorecard."
