The "One of My Favorite Technological Advances" Stories

It was an ordinary day. Phils are playing the Mets after having won 3 straight from their rivals in D.C. Even thought that is a real feat this year, my tale to tell today is about the first professional baseball game ever broadcast on TV. One of my happiest moments ever! I was watching Cliff Lee beat the Nationals on Sunday when Chris Wheeler, one of the Phillies announcers, happened to mention that on August 26 of 1939, the Brooklyn Dodgers hosted the Cincinnati Reds in the very first televised baseball game. There were 33,000 fans at Ebbets field in Brooklyn on that memorable day. The game was broadcast on W2XBS and only two cameras were used for that game, one high above home plate got an extensive view of the field and the other was placed down the thirdbase line to pick up infield throws to first. The camera technology wasn't anything like we have today and it was difficult to capture fast-moving plays. The

motion of the bat looked liked a paper fan and the ball being thrown and hit was just about invisible. Didn't really matter to most since very few people owned television sets. Only about 400 people in the New York area owned one and they had to squint into their black-and-white TV screens to watch that first game. Wasn't until seven years

later that regular network broadcasting became popular. And, it wasn't until the mid-50s that TV sets found their way into more homes in the U.S. Today's game between the Phils and the Nationals featured 7 manned cameras and many others in the broadcast room handling the replays and slow-motion. The announcer for that first ever TV game was Red Barber who called the entire game by himself without the benefit of a monitor. Red called play-by-play for four decades with the Reds, Dodgers and Yankees. He was later inducted into the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association. At first the baseball owners weren't sure about TV broadcasts, since they feared they would lose customers, but later realized that the revenue

that was produced by the broadcasts more than made up for the loss of customers. Oh yeah, the Reds won the first game that day and the Dodgers won the second game of the first baseball telecast. As for the game I was watching, the Phils, behind Lee won 4-1. It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy. PS - photos from the top: Red Barber, Red interviewing Dodgers manager Leo Durocher before the game in front of the

third base camera, and game shots from the third base camera.