Television

Tomorrow will be the 75th anniversary of the first time a Major League Baseball game was televised.

Prior to August 26, 1939, the only way you could watch Major League Baseball was by actually going to the ballpark. Radio had been around since 1921, but to actually see a game required admission to a ballpark.

The first game televised was a doubleheader between the Cincinnati Reds and Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field. Red Barber opened up by saying  "This is Red Barber speaking. Let me say hello to you all."

The Reds won the first game, 5-2, while the Dodgers took the second, 6-1.


Here's Dodgers announcer Vin Scully with some thoughts:

Take What You Need

In 1990, Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Don Carman came up with a creative way to deal with the trough of reporters who would continually ask the same repetitive questions.

He came up with a list of responses, which he posted on his locker. “You saw the game,” he told reporters. “Take what you need.”

• I’m just glad to be here. I just want to help the club any way I can.
• Baseball’s a funny game.
• I’d rather be lucky than good.
• We’re going to take the season one game at a time.
• You’re only as good as your last game (last at-bat).
• This game has really changed.
• If we stay healthy we should be right there.
• It takes 24 (25) players.
• We need two more players to take us over the top: Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.
• We have a different hero every day.
• We’ll get ‘em tomorrow.
• This team seems ready to gel.
• With a couple breaks, we win that game.
• That All-Star voting is a joke.
• The catcher and I were on the same wavelength.
• I just went right at ‘em.
• I did my best, and that’s all I can do.
• You just can’t pitch behind.
• That’s the name of the game.
• We’ve got to have fun.
• I didn’t have my good stuff, but I battled ‘em.
• Give the guy some credit; he hit a good pitch.
• Hey, we were due to catch a break or two.
• Yes.
• No.
• That’s why they pay him _____ million dollars.
• Even I could have hit that pitch.
• I know you are, but what am I?
• I was getting my off-speed stuff over so they couldn’t sit on the fastball.
• I had my at ‘em ball going today.
• I had some great plays made behind me tonight.
• I couldn’t have done it without my teammates.
• You saw it … write it.
• I just wanted to go as hard as I could as long as I could.
• I’m seeing the ball real good.
• I hit that ball good.
• I don’t get paid to hit.

Haiku

Masaoka Shiki is an esteemed member of the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame. A baseball field in Ueno, Japan bears his name in his honor; however, he wasn't inducted to the hall based on the talent he showed on the field.

Shiki was introduced to baseball at his preparatory school in 1884, just 12 years after American teacher Horace Wilson first introduced it to his students at Tokyo University. Shiki was a writer, and he composed nine baseball haiku, beginning in 1890, making him the first Japanese writer to use the game as a literary subject:

spring breeze
this grassy field makes me
want to play catch

--- 

the trick
to ball catching
the willow in a breeze 

---

under a faraway sky
the people of America
began baseball
I can watch it
forever

Throughout his career Shiki wrote many different literary works about baseball, and he made translations of baseball terms that are still in use today.

Origins

History tells us that baseball was invented by Abner Doubleday in 1839. It is now generally accepted that this is more of a myth, than a fact. So then, when and where was baseball invented? Is it really the great American pastime, or do we owe the origin of the sport to Mother England?

Well, in April 2004, Pittsfield, Massachusetts received national publicity for a 1791 bylaw, which is believed to be the earliest written reference to baseball in North America. The transcription goes:

At a legal Meeting of the Inhabitants of the Town of Pittsfield qualified to vote in Town Meetings, holden on Monday the fifth day of Sept. 1791 Voted 

The following ByeLaw, for the Preservation of the Windows in the New Meeting House in said Town ______ viz, 

Be it ordained by the said Inhabitants that no Person, an Inhabitant of said Town, shall be permitted to play at any Game called Wicket, Cricket, Baseball, Batball, Football, Cat, Fives or any other Game or Games with Balls within the Distance of Eighty Yards from said Meeting House __ and every such Person who shall play at any of the said Games or other Games with Balls within the Distance aforesaid, shall for any Instance thereof, forfeit the Sum of five schillings to be recovered by Action of Debt brought before any Justice of the Peace to the Use of the Person who shall sue and prosecute therefor _____ 

And be it further ordained that in every Instance where any Minor shall be guilty of a Breach of this Law, his Parent, Master, Mistress or Guardian shall forfeit the like Sum to be recovered in Manner and to the Use aforesaid ____

So does mean American wins? Not quite! The Oxford English Dictionary now has an example of baseball being used in written form dating from 1748: “Now, in the winter, in a large room, they divert themselves at base-ball, a play all who are, or have been, schoolboys, are well acquainted with.” This entry was written by an English person, giving more validity to the notion that “America’s game” evolved in England and was imported to the New World in the 18th century.