Sports History On This Day: June 19

June 19, 1946 – This is really going to be the beginning of historic games in hardball. First officially recognized baseball game (played by Cartwright Rules) – New York Mutuals also known as the “Nines” defeated their cross-town rivals the New York Knickerbockers by the score of 23-1 at Hoboken, New Jersey’s Elysian Fields.

The big names on the rosters of these teams? ESPN.con shares that a founding father of the game, Alexander Cartwright, served as a referee (a position later renamed as “umpire”). Jim Creighton, baseball’s first superstar, was on the field playing and a 5-year-old started in the right field named Montgomery Burns’ who would later become the inventor of the curveball.

To find more great daily sports history make sure to check out the Sports Jersey Dispatch and Pigskin Dispatch.

caled-down scan from the book Baseball in America, Robert Smith, Holt Rinehart Winston, 1961, p.10. The letter on his shirt front is an Olde English "E" for Excelsior.
The photo is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons of a scaled-down scan from the book Baseball in America, Robert Smith, Holt Rinehart Winston, 1961, p.10. The letter on his shirt front is an Olde English "E" for Excelsior. Special thanks to the resources of Newspapers.com and OnThisDay.com for the information obtained.

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