August 1921: The First Baseball Broadcast

In August 1921, a 25-year-old baseball fan named Harold Arlin forever changed America’s pastime. Arlin, using a microphone and a makeshift transmitter converted from the parts of a phone, sat in a seat near home plate and called the game as the Pittsburgh Pirates battled the Philadelphia Phillies. Arlin’s call was broadcast over KDKA, one of the first major commercial radio stations in the United States. At the time, Arlin confessed that the broadcast was an experiment, and his co-workers at KDKA didn’t expect the trend of baseball on the radio to catch on.

Later the same year, KDKA broadcast the World Series final game live on the air — but only sort of. The game callers — Grantland Rice and Tommy Cowan — weren’t actually present at the game; rather, they reported the events of the game as they received them via telegraph.

The next year, station WJZ of Newark broadcast the entire championship series, again with Rice calling play-by-play. However, during the fourth inning of the third game, Rice turned over the calling responsibility to Graham McNamee, jumpstarting the latter’s career. McNamee was the first real color commentator in American sports, supplying the listening audience with fascinating trivia and statistics, as well as visceral reactions to the action on the field. Some critics would point up that McNamee was no baseball expert, but he was fun to listen to, giving his listeners plenty of detail with verve and enthusiasm. Ultimately McNamee would help make baseball appealing and accessible to the entire country.

Attending an actual game live was expensive, and could require travel. Public transport was just getting underway in most major cities, as was the regular use of the automobile. Radio broadcasts allowed major league baseball into the homes of Americans everywhere.

Baseball and radio have formed a bond ever since. More and more teams allowed their games to air — the New York teams would refuse the longest, not allowing their games to air until 1938. Team owners and managers were worried that airing games would cause a drop in ticket sales and game attendance. However, the opposite happened: radio helped to raise interest and popularize baseball, and attendance and fan participation swelled.

Baseball broadcasts were hugely popular through the 1940s and 1950s. That popularity wouldn't really wind down until the 1960s, when television came to prominence. And though the majority of games started being televised, NBC Radio continued to cover the World Series through 1975, when CBS took over, the latter broadcasting the championship series until 1997. Today, weekend games are still broadcast on ESPN Radio and XM Satellite Radio. XM’s program MLB Home Plate has broadcast every major league game since 2005. Now you can use apps on your smartphone, tablet, or set-top box (e.g., Roku, Amazon Fire TV, or Apple TV) to catch up with the latest baseball action.

As for that 1921 game in Pittsburgh… The Pirates pulled it out and beat the Phillies 8-5.