Baseball Broadcasting Firsts

Baseball Broadcasting Firsts

The first-ever televised baseball game was on May 17, 1939, between Princeton and Columbia; Princeton beat Columbia 2–1 at Columbia's Baker Field. The contest was aired on W2XBS, an experimental station in New York City which would ultimately become WNBC-TV. The game was announced by Bill Stern

On August 26 of the same year, the first ever Major League Baseball game was televised (once again on W2XBS). With Red Barber announcing, the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Cincinnati Reds played a doubleheader at Ebbets Field. The Reds won the first, 5–2 while the Dodgers won the second, 6–1. Barber called the game without the benefit of a monitor and with only two cameras capturing the game. One camera was on Barber and the other was behind the plate. Barber had to guess from which light was on and where it pointed.

Read more about Baseball Broadcasting Firsts:  1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s

Famous quotes containing the words baseball and/or broadcasting:

    How, in one short century, has this ersatz sport so strangled the consciousness of the country in the grip of its flabby tentacles that the mention of women’s baseball gets no reaction other than blank amazement?
    Darlene Mehrer, As quoted in Women in Baseball. Ch. 6, by Gai Ingham Berlage (1994)

    We spend all day broadcasting on the radio and TV telling people back home what’s happening here. And we learn what’s happening here by spending all day monitoring the radio and TV broadcasts from back home.
    —P.J. (Patrick Jake)