WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Old Ballgame: Baseball on the Airwaves

Episode Date: April 11, 2024

A look at baseball's first radio broadcast.

Welcome to the old ball game, where we talk about the past of America's favorite pastime. I'm Tate Christensen. Today we talk about baseball's first appearance on the radio. The first radio broadcast of a Major League baseball game took place on August 5th, 1921, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where the Pittsburgh Pirates took on the Philadelphia Phillies at home at Forbes Field. Harold Arlen, a local radio personality, give a play-by-play of the game via the Pittsburgh radio station KDKA. He sat in a ground-level box seat using a converted telephone as a micro-reiber. phone and less than ideal equipment to get the game on the airways. In the end, the Pirates beat

the Phillies 8 to 5, but the game had more impact on baseball as a whole, as radio made baseball more accessible to the American people. More people began to follow the sport, and it took a deeper hold in American culture. Baseball on the radio grew quickly, and by the late 1930s, almost every MLB team was broadcasting each game, although in most scenarios, broadcasters would work remotely and react to each game via telegram. This has been the old ballgame on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM.