Flashback: The Beginning of Philly and NYC Baseball

"Baseball as it was -- second championship game between the Atlantics of Brooklyn and Athletics of Philadelphia in 1866"

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The New York Public Library is pitting Philly and NYC against each other in this fantastic catalog of old baseball images they put online. They say: "The 2009 World Series brings together two cities uncommonly rich in baseball history. Some of the game's earliest years are chronicled in over 500 photographs, prints, drawings, caricatures, and printed illustrations donated in 1921 to the New York Public Library by early baseball player and sporting-goods tycoon A. G. Spalding (whose name to this day is printed across every ball used in the National League)."

From the Brooklyn Bridegrooms to the Philadelphia Quakers — the photos show what the teams, and the game was like before A-Rods and high paying salaries and corporately sponsored luxury ballparks. Check out some more old photos from the Great American Pastime here.