Center Field Shot 

                                             The First Major League Game

Like the first college game, the first Major League Baseball TV games were telecast by NBC’s experimental station W2XBS.  As part of the push for its television standard, RCA created its first remote television facility in 1937, allowing the station to telecast events in the New York area.  At a cost of $125,000, the facility consisted of two buses: one for the transmitting and one for the production equipment. 

RCA’s ally in this first Major League broadcast was Red Barber, who brought the idea to Larry MacPhail, General Manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers.  NBC’s Alfred “Doc” Morton approached Barber and the Dodgers only after the Yankees and Giants turned NBC down.  But MacPhail always believed in the power of radio to promote baseball and he saw television as baseball’s newest salesman.  Before the arrival of MacPhail, the three New York teams had a five-year ban on radio broadcasts, but MacPhail ended the radio embargo and the other teams followed quickly.  According to Barber, when asked if he would like the honor of the first Major League telecast, MacPhail said, “I’d love it.”

         For the cost of a new television receiver placed in the pressroom and price of admission for the crew, RCA secured the right to telecast the August 26, 1939 doubleheader between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Cincinnati Reds from Ebbets Field and to use the Dodgers chief radio announcer. Barber recalls only the first game being telecast, but other sources indicate both games were carried.  RCA advertised the game in the August 24th Brooklyn Eagle, urging Dodger fans to “See Big League Baseball for the first time by Television at any RCA Victor Television Dealer’s Store.” Dodger fans were partially disappointed in what they saw on the dealer’s tube.  The Reds, who would take home their first pennant in 20 years that Fall, won the first game 5 to 2, while the Dodgers rebounded in the nightcap for a 6 to 1 victory.  Many more fans watched the game in the stands (33,535) than on the estimated four hundred sets in the New York area.

For the players, the new medium was hardly noticed.  In 1987, a Penn State University graduate student asked players and officials at the game to write him with their recollections.  Most could not remember much about the first televised MLB contest.  Gabe Paul, Reds publicity director at the time, reported, “there was very little reaction by the players to the event.”  However one player, Reds outfielder Harry Craft, reported seeing some of the game with other players: 

The screen was full of snow and the players were silhouettes.  We recognized them by their mannerisms, batting stance, swing, running, fielding, and throwing. We wondered if they would ever, ever be able to clear up the picture, and see all the action on the field—-but I for one, never dreamed of anyone walking on the moon but Buck Rogers.”