Major League Baseball on television in the 1940s

Last updated

NBC television's relationship with Major League Baseball technically dates back to August 26, 1939. [1] It was on that particular date that on W2XBS (an experimental television station in New York City which would ultimately become NBC's flagship station, WNBC), the first-ever Major League Baseball game was televised. With Red Barber announcing, the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Cincinnati Reds [2] played a doubleheader at Ebbets Field. The Reds won the first game 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.

Contents

By 1947, television sets, most with five and seven-inch screens, were selling almost as fast as they could be produced. Because of this, Major League teams began televising games and attracted a whole new audience into ballparks in the process. People who had only casually followed baseball began going to the games in person. In 1948, Major League Baseball's total attendance reached a record high of 21 million.

Year-by-year breakdown

1947

Gillette, [3] which produced World Series telecasts [4] from roughly 1947-1965 (before 1966, local announcers, who were chosen by the Gillette Company, the Commissioner of Baseball, and NBC television, exclusively called the World Series), paid for airtime on DuMont's owned-and-operated Pittsburgh affiliate, WDTV (now KDKA-TV) to air the World Series. In the meantime, Gillette also bought airtime on ABC, CBS, and NBC. More to the point, in some cities, the World Series was broadcast on three different stations at once. For example, the 1947 World Series (for which DuMont only televised Games 2, 6–7 with Bill Slater on the call) [5] was only seen in four markets [6] [7] via coaxial inter-connected stations: New York City, New York; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Schenectady, New York; Washington, District of Columbia; and, environs surrounding these cities. Outside of New York, coverage was pooled.

1947 also saw the first televised World Series. [8] The games were broadcast in the New York City area by NBC's WNBT, CBS's WCBS-TV and DuMont's WABD and sponsored by Gillette and Ford. The October 1947 Billboard reported over 3.9 million viewing the games, primarily on TV sets located in bars (5,400 tavern TV sets in NYC alone). The October 13, 1947 edition of Time magazine reported that President Truman, who had just made the first Oval Office TV appearance on October 5, 1947 and received the first TV for the White House, watched parts of the Series but "skipped the last innings". In addition to New York City, live coverage of the Series was also seen on WRGB in Schenectady/Albany, WPTZ in Philadelphia, WMAR-TV in Baltimore and WTTG in Washington, D.C.

World Series yearNetwork Play-by-play announcers
1949 NBC, CBS, DuMont and ABC Jim Britt [9]
1948 NBC, CBS, DuMont and ABC Red Barber [10]
Tom Hussey (Games 1–2, 6)
Van Patrick (Games 3–5) [11]
1947 NBC [12] [13] (Games 1, 5)
CBS (Games 3–4)
DuMont (Games 2, 6–7)		 Bob Stanton [14] [15]
Bob Edge
Bill Slater

1948

On April 16, 1948, Chicago's WGN-TV (run by Jake Israel) broadcast its first big-league game, with Jack Brickhouse calling the White Sox' 4-1 defeat of the Cubs in an exhibition game at Wrigley Field. WGN televised each Cubs and White Sox home game live. According to Brickhouse,

It worked because the Cubs and White Sox weren't home at the same time. You aired the Sox at Comiskey, or Cubs at Wrigley Field. Daytime scheduling gave the Cubs a decided edge, as Wrigley didn't have lights, so kids came home from school, had a sandwich, and turned the TV on.

In 1948, the World Series would be carried on the aforementioned stations, as well as on WBZ-TV and WNAC-TV in Boston, WNHC-TV in New Haven and WTVR-TV in Richmond, Virginia.

To clarify, games in Boston were only seen in the Northeast. Meanwhile, games in Cleveland were only seen in the Midwest and Pittsburgh. The games were open to all channels with a network affiliation. [16] [17] In all, the 1948 World Series was televised to fans in seven Midwestern cities: Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, St. Louis, and Toledo.

Tom Hussey helped Red Barber call Games 1–2 and 6 in Boston, while Van Patrick assisted Barber in calling Games 3-5 in Cleveland.

1949

CBS' first ever official Major League Baseball telecast occurred on July 12, 1949. It was 16th annual All-Star Game from Ebbetts Field in Brooklyn and featured Red Barber on the play-by-play. The Major League Baseball All-Star Game wasn't truly nationally televised until 1952.

By 1949, World Series games could now be seen east of the Mississippi River. [18] The games were open to all channels with a network affiliation. [19]

The World Series was also seen live in other Northeastern and Midwestern cities (Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, Erie, Cleveland, Detroit, Columbus, Cincinnati, Dayton, Toledo, Indianapolis, Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Louis) that had been hooked up to network lines over the previous year.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Major League Baseball on television</span> Overview of coverage of American professional baseball on television

Major League Baseball (MLB) has been broadcast on American television since the 1950s, with initial broadcasts on the experimental station W2XBS, the predecessor of the modern WNBC in New York. The World Series was televised on a networked basis since 1947, with regular season games broadcast nationally since 1953. Over the forthcoming years, MLB games became major attractions for American television networks, and each of the Big Three networks would air packages of baseball games at various times until the year 2000. Fox would rise to major network status, partially on its acquisition of MLB rights in 1996; Fox has been MLB's primary broadcast television partner ever since.

Major League Baseball on NBC is the de facto branding for weekly broadcasts of Major League Baseball (MLB) games that are produced by NBC Sports, and televised on the NBC television network; and, as of 2022, as well as on its co-owned streaming service, Peacock. Major League Baseball games first aired on the network from 1947 to 1989, including The NBC Game of the Week, when CBS acquired the broadcast television rights.

<i>The Baseball Network</i> American short-lived television broadcasting joint venture

The Baseball Network was an American short-lived television broadcasting joint venture between ABC, NBC and Major League Baseball (MLB). Under the arrangement, beginning in the 1994 season, the league produced its own in-house which were then brokered to air on ABC and NBC. telecasts of games, The Baseball Network was the first television network in the United States to be owned by a professional sports league.

The Major League Baseball Game of the Week (GOTW) is the de facto title for nationally televised coverage of regular season Major League Baseball games. The Game of the Week has traditionally aired on Saturday afternoons. When the national networks began televising national games of the week, it opened the door for a national audience to see particular clubs. While most teams were broadcast, emphasis was always on the league leaders and the major market franchises that could draw the largest audience.

Jim Britt was an American sportscaster who broadcast Major League Baseball games in Boston, Massachusetts, and Cleveland, Ohio, during the 1940s and 1950s. On June 15, 1948, Britt was at the microphone on WBZ-TV for the first live telecast of a Major League game in New England, as the Boston Braves defeated the Chicago Cubs, 6–3, at Braves Field.

Major League Baseball on the radio has been a tradition for over 100 years, and still exists today. Baseball was one of the first sports to be broadcast in the United States. Every team in Major League Baseball has a flagship station, and baseball is also broadcast on national radio.

Major League Baseball games not broadcast exclusively by its media partners are televised by regional sports networks, which present sports programming of interest to their respective region. Most MLB broadcasters are members of chains such as NBC Sports Regional Networks, Bally Sports, and AT&T SportsNet, although several teams are broadcast by regional networks that are independent of these chains. Some teams own partial or majority stakes in their regional broadcaster.

Major League Baseball on Mutual was the de facto title of the Mutual Broadcasting System's (MBS) national radio coverage of Major League Baseball games. Mutual's coverage came about during the Golden Age of Radio in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. During this period, television sports broadcasting was in its infancy, and radio was still the main form of broadcasting baseball. For many years, Mutual was the national radio broadcaster for baseball's All-Star Game and World Series.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">World Series</span> Championship of Major League Baseball

The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, contested since 1903 between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winner of the World Series championship is determined through a best-of-seven playoff, and the winning team is awarded the Commissioner's Trophy.

WGN Sports was the programming division of WGN-TV, an independent television station located in Chicago, Illinois, United States—which is owned by the Nexstar Media Group—that was responsible for all sports broadcasts on the station, some of which were previously also broadcast on its former national superstation feed, WGN America.

Major League Baseball on DuMont refers to the now defunct DuMont Television Network's coverage of Major League Baseball. More specifically, DuMont broadcast the World Series from 1947-1949.

In 1950, the Mutual Broadcasting System acquired the television as well as radio broadcast rights to the World Series and All-Star Game for the next six years. Mutual may have been reindulging in dreams of becoming a television network or simply taking advantage of a long-standing business relationship; in either case, the broadcast rights were sold to NBC in time for the following season's games at an enormous profit.

In 1960, ABC returned to baseball broadcasting with a series of late-afternoon Saturday games. Jack Buck and Carl Erskine were the lead announcing crew for this series, which lasted one season. ABC typically did three games a week. Two of the games were always from the Eastern or Central Time Zone. The late games were usually San Francisco Giants or Los Angeles Dodgers' home games. However, the Milwaukee Braves used to start many of their Saturday home games late in the afternoon. So if the Giants and Dodgers were both the road at the same time, ABC still would be able to show a late game.

The NFL, along with boxing and professional wrestling, was a pioneer of sports broadcasting during a time when baseball and college football were more popular than professional football. Due to the NFL understanding television at an earlier time, they were able to surpass Major League Baseball in the 1960s as the most popular sport in the United States.

<i>Sunday Afternoon Baseball</i> Branding for MLB games held on Sunday afternoons

Sunday Afternoon Baseball is the de facto branding used for nationally televised live game telecasts of Major League Baseball games on Sunday afternoons during the regular season.

The following article details the history of Major League Baseball on NBC, the broadcast of Major League Baseball games on the NBC television network.

References

  1. ↑ Moore, Jack. "What's Wrong With TV Baseball? Learning From Red Barber and MLB Classics". The Hardball Times.
  2. ↑ Harasta, Cathy (July 5, 1987). "Baseball Proves As Tough To Show As It Is To Play". Dallas Morning News.
  3. ↑ Gallant, Joseph. "Channel 12: Feedback". DuMont Television Network | Historical Website.
  4. ↑ Pappas, Doug. "Summer 1997: 75 Years of National Baseball Broadcasts". Outside the Lines. Archived from the original on 2017-09-01.
  5. ↑ Fitzpatrick, Frank (21 October 2012). "A look back at first TV broadcasts of World Series in 1947". Philly.com. Archived from the original on 26 October 2013. Retrieved 13 November 2013.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  6. ↑ Lewis, David L. (1976). The Public Image of Henry Ford: An American Folk Hero and His Company . Detroit: Wayne State University Press. p.  466.
  7. ↑ Stewart, B.W. (October 5, 1947). "BASEBALL ON VIDEO; Television, Despite Some Handicaps, Scores in World Series Coverage". New York Times. p. X11.
  8. ↑ Jeff Kaye (October 14, 1989). "CBS, NBC Pinch Hitters to Go Up Against ABC's World Series Television". Los Angeles Times . Times Mirror Company. p. 1.
  9. ↑ "Mel Allen, Red Barber Named As Broadcasters". The Hartford Courant. October 5, 1949. p. 14.
  10. ↑ "Radio and Television". New York Times. October 8, 1948.
  11. ↑ Wolters, Larry (October 6, 1948). "CHICAGO TO SEE SERIES GAMES FROM CLEVELAND". Chicago Tribune. p. B3.
  12. ↑ Saunders, Dusty (October 1, 2001). "TV BUFFET: BONDS, BOATS, BRONCOS". Rocky Mountain News.
  13. ↑ Moore, Barbara; Bensman, Marvin R. (2006). Prime-time television: a concise history. Westport, Ct.: Praeger Publishers. p. 40. ISBN   9780275981426.
  14. ↑ "Searchable Network TV Broadcasts – Syndication". rec.sport.baseball. Archived from the original on 2011-01-22.
  15. ↑ "NBC presents MLB coverage". NBC Sports History Page. Archived from the original on 2017-08-06.
  16. ↑ "Will Carry Series on 5 Networks". Schenectady Gazette. Associated Press. September 24, 1948. p. 21.
  17. ↑ Wolters, Larry (September 24, 1948). "All Chains Get Offer on Series TV". Chicago Tribune. p. C4.
  18. ↑ Buttefield, C.E. (September 19, 1949). "World Series Via Video Destined for 45 Stations". The St. Petersburg Independent. Associated Press. p. 8.
  19. ↑ Drebinger, John (October 5, 1949). "Reynolds to Face Newcombe (Maybe) in Opener of Series Today". New York Times. p. 38.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.