First Televised Game Wasn’t a Big League Hit

So what?

That was the general reaction in New York when it was announced that Station W2XBS would televise a Dodger-Cincinnati game at Ebbets Field 60 years ago today.

At the time, there were only a handful of TV sets in New York City. But the first telecast of a major league baseball game was tied to a television exhibit at the New York World’s Fair, where many planned to watch the telecast.

A Broadway theater also announced it would show the telecast, and the attraction filled the theater.

Equipment from NBC was put in place, including one camera above the playing field behind home plate and another directly behind home plate. The images were beamed to the W2XBS tower atop the Empire State Building.

Those first pictures were unrefined. Writer Red Smith wondered why a swung bat suddenly looked like the paper of “a big Japanese fan,” and why the uniforms looked green.

The first man to call a televised big league game was Red Barber, while his radio teammate, Al Helfer, did the radio. After the Dodgers beat the Reds, 5-3, Barber went onto the field for the first-ever postgame interview, with Bucky Walters and Dolph Camilli.

Both managers, the Dodgers’ Leo Durocher and the Reds’ Bill McKechnie, also appeared in postgame interviews.

The game’s three sponsors were Wheaties, Ivory Soap and Mobilgas, and each got in one commercial during the game. No fees were charged.

Also on this date: In 1987, Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak survived another challenge. Milwaukee’s Paul Molitor was stopped after 39 games when he went 0 for 4 against Cleveland rookie John Farrell. . . . In 1993, Sean Burroughs, the son of former major leaguer Jeff Burroughs, pitched his second no-hitter of the Little League World Series and hit two home runs as defending champion Long Beach routed Bedford, N.H., 11-0, in the final of the U.S. bracket.