Old-Time Baseball Radio Broadcasts (a la late 1940's)

(From an email to a friend)

I am sending you a recently published book by my friend Don Zminda, about Harry Carey.  Book should arrive next week. Don was born in Chicago, and worked for about 20 years for STATs, a sports statistics company. He is now working on a book about the Black Sox scandal.

On page 22 of the book, he describes a scene right out of my childhood memory.  I'm guessing you are about half-a-generation younger than I am, so I don’t know if you experienced this in person.

In the summers in Philly, after my dad came back from WWII, on Sunday afternoons we would wash the car, a Pontiac sedan (he was a GM man), in the driveway, right next to the house. He would place a radio in the dining room window, and we would listen to the Phillies game be announced on the radio.  If the game was local, of course the announcer would be watching and broadcasting live from Shibe Park.

But if the game was out of town, the announcer would be reading an on-going teletype stream from the other city (only Eastern and MidWest time zones in those days).  He would then add his own color and patter to make it seem that he was seeing the game in person.  As his voice went into the mic, the mic was also picking up the noise of the teletype in the background.  Even over his voice, you could very distinctly hear the teletype clack-click-clack in the background.

When I read this part of Don’s book, these memories of those late 40’s Sunday summer afternoons returned.

Hope you enjoy the book.  I am still enjoying your history lessons.