August 26, 2024 • 8 mins
Join us on Daily Sports History as we explore the historic first televised MLB game on August 26, 1939. Learn how this groundbreaking broadcast between the Cincinnati Reds and Brooklyn Dodgers changed the way fans experienced baseball and marked the beginning of a new era in sports media. Discover the impact of this momentous event on the future of sports broadcasting.
#DailySportsHistory, #MLBHistory, #TelevisedSports, #1939, #BaseballBroadcasting, #CincinnatiReds, #BrooklynDodgers, #SportsPodcast, #HistoricMoments, #SportsMedia
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
On August twenty sixth, nineteen ninety three, the Brooklyn Dodgers
took on the Cincinnati Reds in a National League's showdown
for a doubleheader at Dodgers Ebbottsfield. But what made this
game special was it was the first time a professional
baseball game, and specifically the Major League Baseball had ever
been televised done by the National Broadcasts Association, which we
(00:23):
now know as NBC. It changed the sporting world forever
and led to the money making machine that sports are now. Today,
we're going to dive into how this all happened today
on Daily Sports History. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm
(00:45):
Ethan Reese. Your guide will rapid deep dive into sports
history every day. And today's trivia question is how many
people did Major League Baseball stay watched that very first
televised baseball game. Now, this was not the very first
baseball game ever televised. That actually happened on May seventeenth,
(01:07):
nineteen thirty nine, when NBC televised a college baseball game
between the Columbia Lions and the Princeton Tigers. And NBC
was actually originally a radio station, and then in nineteen
thirty nine, RC RC and NBC started to develop new
technology where they could broadcast images what is now known
(01:31):
as television, and they were experimenting in all different kinds
of ways. First they experimented on April thirtieth, nineteen thirty nine,
with having the very first President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, appear
on camera, and then on May first, they actually had
the very first commercial and continue to experiment every year
as it was the wild West in broadcasting, and sports
(01:54):
was no different. As everyone knew baseball was the biggest
sport in America at the time. We had just had
Babe Ruth and we were having the Joe DiMaggio Yankees
come up into predominance. Baseball was top dog and there
were more fans than just in those cities, and they
thought this would be a great option to connect to
(02:15):
those fans. It wasn't until about nineteen thirty when television
started to really go on the market and to be sold,
and at that point only the wealthiest people could sell it,
So that first college baseball game that was broadcast was
only able to reach about four hundred receivers, meaning television units,
and as it could only be broadcast too roughly a
fifty mile radius, but that was still a success to them,
(02:38):
and we're looking to branch out and get into the
professional baseball and the Dodgers was ideal. And as we'd
done before, we've talked about the first college basketball game.
These were all done in New York because it was
a highly populated area and so you could reach more
people in New York than anywhere else at the time,
as New York was the biggest city at the time,
(03:00):
so you broadcast in that location as even though you
can only get in a fifty mile radius, you would
get more people in that radius than anywhere else in
the country. They had a great location to transmit and
to reach more people as they could transmit from the
top of the Empire State Building, the tallest building at
the time. And then at the time, this was a
(03:20):
small faction of the NBC brand as it was mainly
focused on radio at the time, and so they only
had a small unit on hand. So they had a
mobile truck, two cameras. They placed one down the third
baseline so they could capture all the infield throws and
another one placed above home plate so they could view
every pitch clearly. Now this time they didn't have our
(03:41):
TV commentators, and they selected Walter red Barber as the
commentator for that time as he had had a unique
experience as four years previously he had done the play
by play for the Cincinnati Reds and now this season
he was doing the play by play for the Dodgers,
so he knew each team very well, and on top
of this, he had to learn a new skill. Say
(04:02):
it was the first time he called a television game
as well, and he didn't have monitors like they do today.
He had to look at each camera and see which
one had a light on top to know which view
the people were getting, so he knew which commentary to provide.
And the game was broadcast just across New York and
was a key proponent of the RCA pavilion at the
(04:24):
New York World's Fair that was happening at the same time,
and Major League Baseball claims that three thousand people actually
viewed the game. Now others stayed only about four hundred viewers,
but Major League Baseball is including this RCA pavilion in
its numbers as it's different than just how many total
receivers they had, as it was four hundred receivers and
(04:46):
there was more people than just the receivers watching. Now, overall,
the broadcast was a success as people were excited to
see this new thing. The people that were able to
see it, and remember, baseball at the time was really
a middle class, working class pastime. People that were working factories,
worked with their hands, doing hard work, enjoyed going to
(05:07):
a game. You were able to afford going to a game.
That's what drew a lot of people to baseball, Like
everyone could go see it, but those people didn't have televisions,
so it didn't connect to its audience yet, only because
television hadn't gotten to where it was affordable just yet.
But it was a great start and it was a
good game. There was thirty three thousand fans and attendance
(05:28):
in the first game, and in the first game, the
Dodgers took a two run lead early in the second
inning and held it until the eighth inning when the
Reds went on a streak and scored five runs, winning
that first game five to two, and shortly after in
the second game, the Dodgers took control, scoring six runs
in the first three innings and the Reds were not
(05:51):
able to keep up, and the Dodgers split the doubleheader,
winning six to one. Now, even though these were two
of the best teams in the league and people loved
to watch it, it didn't mean there wasn't criticism with the broadcasts,
as it was successful for NBC as they got viewers,
just as we know now, just getting viewers doesn't mean
(06:11):
you had a good product, as many movies can be
great box office hits, but not be a great movie.
It's about what it represents. As people criticized the picture
as they couldn't see the ball, which makes sense at
the time. It was black and white and very grainy
because it was a new technology and you could barely
see the ball and the players looked like flies. You
(06:32):
couldn't make out who each player was, and sometimes you
couldn't even tell by just watching whether that was the
Reds hitting or if it was the Dodgers, as it
was only two cameras that didn't move. They just went
from one camera to the other, and it was very
limited what you could actually do. But it was only
the start, as later in the year they would have
(06:53):
their first NFL game. And what's funny is at the
time baseball owners really didn't like the concept of television.
They thought it would take away from their stadium attendance
as fans would rather watch the game at home. That
is the case now, but that wasn't the case back then,
as baseball fandom continued to grow and stadium's intendants stayed
strong even while the growth of baseball continued. It wasn't
(07:16):
until more recently in the two thousands that attendants had
actually dwindled, maybe due to the baseball broadcast being as
good as it has gotten today, but also because fandom
has died down. But because they have the television rights
that they have, they were able to make more money
than they could ever have made from ticket sales, and
(07:38):
it helped boost the sport more than it had ever
gone before. Now the sport is worldwide and there's great
leagues in other countries, and we continue to see great
players come from Japan and the Dominican Republic and all
over the world. Continued to grow the sport. And that's
all because television stepped out there and was able to
(07:58):
grow the sport more than ever. This one event broke
down the barrier to television, and by nineteen fifty one,
baseball would be regularly televised and baseball fandom would grow
across the world. I want to thank you for listening
to today's Daily Sports History. I hope you enjoyed it,
and if you did, please leave us a rating review
(08:19):
wherever you're listening, and let us know a topic you
would like us to cover and we'll get that done
for you. Just leave us the topic and your name
and we'll get an episode done just for you. And
come back tomorrow for more Daily Sports History and the
answer to today's trivia question, which was how many people
did Major League Baseball say watch that very first baseball game?
(08:42):
And the answer is three thousand. Do largely in part
to the New York World's Fair in RCA Pavilion
On August twenty sixth, nineteen ninety three, the Brooklyn Dodgers
took on the Cincinnati Reds in a National League's showdown
for a doubleheader at Dodgers Ebbottsfield. But what made this
game special was it was the first time a professional
baseball game, and specifically the Major League Baseball had ever
been televised done by the National Broadcasts Association, which we
(00:23):
now know as NBC. It changed the sporting world forever
and led to the money making machine that sports are now. Today,
we're going to dive into how this all happened today
on Daily Sports History. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm
(00:45):
Ethan Reese. Your guide will rapid deep dive into sports
history every day. And today's trivia question is how many
people did Major League Baseball stay watched that very first
televised baseball game. Now, this was not the very first
baseball game ever televised. That actually happened on May seventeenth,
(01:07):
nineteen thirty nine, when NBC televised a college baseball game
between the Columbia Lions and the Princeton Tigers. And NBC
was actually originally a radio station, and then in nineteen
thirty nine, RC RC and NBC started to develop new
technology where they could broadcast images what is now known
(01:31):
as television, and they were experimenting in all different kinds
of ways. First they experimented on April thirtieth, nineteen thirty nine,
with having the very first President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, appear
on camera, and then on May first, they actually had
the very first commercial and continue to experiment every year
as it was the wild West in broadcasting, and sports
(01:54):
was no different. As everyone knew baseball was the biggest
sport in America at the time. We had just had
Babe Ruth and we were having the Joe DiMaggio Yankees
come up into predominance. Baseball was top dog and there
were more fans than just in those cities, and they
thought this would be a great option to connect to
(02:15):
those fans. It wasn't until about nineteen thirty when television
started to really go on the market and to be sold,
and at that point only the wealthiest people could sell it,
So that first college baseball game that was broadcast was
only able to reach about four hundred receivers, meaning television units,
and as it could only be broadcast too roughly a
fifty mile radius, but that was still a success to them,
(02:38):
and we're looking to branch out and get into the
professional baseball and the Dodgers was ideal. And as we'd
done before, we've talked about the first college basketball game.
These were all done in New York because it was
a highly populated area and so you could reach more
people in New York than anywhere else at the time,
as New York was the biggest city at the time,
(03:00):
so you broadcast in that location as even though you
can only get in a fifty mile radius, you would
get more people in that radius than anywhere else in
the country. They had a great location to transmit and
to reach more people as they could transmit from the
top of the Empire State Building, the tallest building at
the time. And then at the time, this was a
(03:20):
small faction of the NBC brand as it was mainly
focused on radio at the time, and so they only
had a small unit on hand. So they had a
mobile truck, two cameras. They placed one down the third
baseline so they could capture all the infield throws and
another one placed above home plate so they could view
every pitch clearly. Now this time they didn't have our
(03:41):
TV commentators, and they selected Walter red Barber as the
commentator for that time as he had had a unique
experience as four years previously he had done the play
by play for the Cincinnati Reds and now this season
he was doing the play by play for the Dodgers,
so he knew each team very well, and on top
of this, he had to learn a new skill. Say
(04:02):
it was the first time he called a television game
as well, and he didn't have monitors like they do today.
He had to look at each camera and see which
one had a light on top to know which view
the people were getting, so he knew which commentary to provide.
And the game was broadcast just across New York and
was a key proponent of the RCA pavilion at the
(04:24):
New York World's Fair that was happening at the same time,
and Major League Baseball claims that three thousand people actually
viewed the game. Now others stayed only about four hundred viewers,
but Major League Baseball is including this RCA pavilion in
its numbers as it's different than just how many total
receivers they had, as it was four hundred receivers and
(04:46):
there was more people than just the receivers watching. Now, overall,
the broadcast was a success as people were excited to
see this new thing. The people that were able to
see it, and remember, baseball at the time was really
a middle class, working class pastime. People that were working factories,
worked with their hands, doing hard work, enjoyed going to
(05:07):
a game. You were able to afford going to a game.
That's what drew a lot of people to baseball, Like
everyone could go see it, but those people didn't have televisions,
so it didn't connect to its audience yet, only because
television hadn't gotten to where it was affordable just yet.
But it was a great start and it was a
good game. There was thirty three thousand fans and attendance
(05:28):
in the first game, and in the first game, the
Dodgers took a two run lead early in the second
inning and held it until the eighth inning when the
Reds went on a streak and scored five runs, winning
that first game five to two, and shortly after in
the second game, the Dodgers took control, scoring six runs
in the first three innings and the Reds were not
(05:51):
able to keep up, and the Dodgers split the doubleheader,
winning six to one. Now, even though these were two
of the best teams in the league and people loved
to watch it, it didn't mean there wasn't criticism with the broadcasts,
as it was successful for NBC as they got viewers,
just as we know now, just getting viewers doesn't mean
(06:11):
you had a good product, as many movies can be
great box office hits, but not be a great movie.
It's about what it represents. As people criticized the picture
as they couldn't see the ball, which makes sense at
the time. It was black and white and very grainy
because it was a new technology and you could barely
see the ball and the players looked like flies. You
(06:32):
couldn't make out who each player was, and sometimes you
couldn't even tell by just watching whether that was the
Reds hitting or if it was the Dodgers, as it
was only two cameras that didn't move. They just went
from one camera to the other, and it was very
limited what you could actually do. But it was only
the start, as later in the year they would have
(06:53):
their first NFL game. And what's funny is at the
time baseball owners really didn't like the concept of television.
They thought it would take away from their stadium attendance
as fans would rather watch the game at home. That
is the case now, but that wasn't the case back then,
as baseball fandom continued to grow and stadium's intendants stayed
strong even while the growth of baseball continued. It wasn't
(07:16):
until more recently in the two thousands that attendants had
actually dwindled, maybe due to the baseball broadcast being as
good as it has gotten today, but also because fandom
has died down. But because they have the television rights
that they have, they were able to make more money
than they could ever have made from ticket sales, and
(07:38):
it helped boost the sport more than it had ever
gone before. Now the sport is worldwide and there's great
leagues in other countries, and we continue to see great
players come from Japan and the Dominican Republic and all
over the world. Continued to grow the sport. And that's
all because television stepped out there and was able to
(07:58):
grow the sport more than ever. This one event broke
down the barrier to television, and by nineteen fifty one,
baseball would be regularly televised and baseball fandom would grow
across the world. I want to thank you for listening
to today's Daily Sports History. I hope you enjoyed it,
and if you did, please leave us a rating review
(08:19):
wherever you're listening, and let us know a topic you
would like us to cover and we'll get that done
for you. Just leave us the topic and your name
and we'll get an episode done just for you. And
come back tomorrow for more Daily Sports History and the
answer to today's trivia question, which was how many people
did Major League Baseball say watch that very first baseball game?
(08:42):
And the answer is three thousand. Do largely in part
to the New York World's Fair in RCA Pavilion
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