Sports History On This Day: July 20

July 20, 1858 – The very first charged admission to see a baseball game occurred for a New York All-Star team against a Star-studded lineup of Brooklyn ball players. The National Association of Base Ball Players was organized earlier in this year in recognition of the potential profits that baseball could provide.

The first admission fee of half of a dollar was charged that year for the All-Star game between the Brooklyn and New York clubs. You see until that point in time baseball players joined a dues-paying club in order to rent the fields to play their games on.

Typically these were amateur teams in name, but almost always featured a few players who were covertly paid. That $0.50 admission was not a small fee. Many unskilled workers at that time would only make $2-3 per week in earnings.