UPPER EAST SIDE — Four hundred baseballs cards featuring many of baseball's greats from New York teams like the Brooklyn Bridegrooms, New York Giants, Dodgers, Yankees and Mets, are on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art now through Oct. 20.
The exhibition called "The Old Ball Game: New York Baseball, 1887-1977," is giving sports fans a chance to gander at cards featuring Earle Combs, Mark Koenig, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Bob Meusel and Tony Lazzeri, the first six hitters in the Yankees' famed 1927 lineup, also known as "Murderers' Row," published in the 1920s and 1930s by the American Caramel Company and Big League Goudey Gum, according to museum officials.
Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Jackie Robinson, Reggie Jackson and others on cards published in the 1950s through the 1970s will also be on view in conjunction with a 1952 Bowman Gum picture card, showing the "Shot Heard 'Round the World" by outfielder Bobby Thomson, who led the New York Giants to win the National League pennant against the Brooklyn Dodgers, with his home run in 1951.
Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Photos from the late 1800s will also be shown for the very first time, including one from 1894 picturing Hall-of-Famer George Davis, who was the shortstop for the New York Giants.
The cards are part of the Met's collection and are drawn from the Jefferson R. Burdick Collection, which is the most comprehensive collection of American trade cards in the U.S.
Burdick, an electrician who died in 1963, donated more than 300,000 items to the Met over the course of two decades, including more than 30,000 baseball cards.
Another exhibition "Printing a Child's World," featuring the painting "Boy with a Baseball" by George Luks and other baseball themed pieces will be on display nearby in the museum, for those who want more.
