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June 19, 2017

Mahonri M. Young (1877-1957),

Batter-Up​, no date, ink and wash, 6 15/16 x 9 15/16 inches. Brigham Young University Museum of Art, purchase/gift of the Mahonri M. Young Estate, 1959.

On this day in 1846, the first officially recorded baseball game was played between the New York Nine and the New York Knickerbockers in Hoboken, New Jersey. The final score was 23-1, with the New York Nine as the victor. The game of baseball had been in existence in various forms since the early 1600s, and the first recorded mention of the sport in America is in the 1786 journal of a Princeton student. This ink sketch by Mahonri Young features a more developed game of baseball than the first official game in 1846. Here, the players have official baseball equipment and the grandstand in the background has many spectators in attendance.