10. The first game of Professional Baseball was played in Corona

long island rail road in corona queens
The Long Island Rail Road served Corona at this location until 1964.

Corona was also the birthplace of professional baseball. While the game had taken root in the New York region by the 1840s, with the first game purportedly being played in 1845 in Hoboken, New Jersey, the first game of baseball between two professional teams took place at Corona’s Fashion Race Track in 1858. The two teams, the Brooklyn All Stars and the New York All Stars, arrived at the racetrack by train, getting off at the Long Island Rail Road’s Corona Station on National Street and 44th Avenue.

Before the 7 train would rumble through the neighborhood almost fifty years later, the New York and Flushing Railroad, which would later be incorporated as a branch of the Long Island Rail Road, spurred the first real estate development in Corona with the construction of the Fashion Race Track. Long before the construction of Ebbets Field or Shea Stadium, it was at this racetrack in 1858 that the first ticket-paying crowd would watch a game of professional baseball. The importance of this first game as the start of baseball’s long career as America’s pastime imbued the game’s trophy with tremendous value. In 2005, the original 1858 trophy sold for almost $500,000 and was reported on by the Baseball Almanac.

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