The baseball World Series, the annual October contest between the champions of the National and American Leagues, came to television for the first time 60 years ago in 1947. It established a standard of exploits and thrills that has rarely been equalled.
Inaugurated in 1903, the World Series had been broadcast on radio since the 1920's, and fans from coast to coast had tuned in to the epic achievements of heroes like Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Dizzy Dean, Carl Hubbell, and Grover Cleveland Alexander. In later years, a game-by-game motion picture of Series highlights was also produced and screened widely.
Television, eagerly observed by visitors to the New York World's Fair in 1939, had been sidetracked by World War II priorities and was reaching only a few hundred thousand homes in 1947. Nevertheless, major league baseball decided to give it a try. Today's viewers would be appalled or amused to see a black-and-white transmission on seven-to-twelve inch screens and three or four camera angles. They'd have comparable reactions to the between-innings commercials that featured non-participating ball players reading scripts about razor blades or cigarettes.
But for those of us who could sit in a neighbor's living room and watch the 1947 Fall Classic, as the sportwriters called it, was an experience still savored decades later. Here were the ingredients:
- a powerful New York Yankees team led by an already immortalized Joe DiMaggio and a 19-game-winning Allie Reynolds,
- a Brooklyn Dodgers team anxious to avenge a bitter 1941 loss to the Yankees; and
- the presence on the Dodgers of Jackie Robinson, who had broken big league baseball's color line only six months before.
Game 1 set the tone with four innings of perfect pitching by Dodger 21-game-winner Ralph Branca and a dazzling display of Robinson's base-running before the Yankees settled down and rallied for the win. More typical Yankee heavy hitting behind a strong Reynolds performance the next day put the Dodgers in an 0-2 hole, but Brooklyn's one-run victory in a Game 3 slugfest set the stage for one of the oddest and most exciting Series games ever.
Bill Bevens, who had won only seven games all season, took a no-hitter into the ninth inning. However, he had already walked eight men and led by only 2-1. He proceeded to get two outs while walking two more. With only pinch hitter Cookie Lavagetto between him and an unprecedented World Series no-hit game, Bevens yielded a double high off the right field wall. Both runners scored, Bevens lost a one-hitter, and the Series was suddenly tied.
The Yankees regained the lead in Game 5 with rookie sensation Frank Shea winning a tense 2-1 duel. The game featured a home run by DiMaggio and, ironically, a strikeout by Lavagetto in an attempt to reprise his hero's role of the day before. But the Dodgers weren't through; they took an 8-6 win including a highlight that makes every World Series film anthology. Brooklyn led 8-5 in the late innings when DiMaggio came up with two men on base. His blast to the left centerfield bull pen, over 400 feet away, was barely corraled at the last minute on the run by substitute outfielder Al Gionfriddo, averting a tie.
Brooklyn's dreams ended in Game 7. The Yankees used Shea, Bevens, and finally an overpowering relief performance by Joe Page to stop the battling team from Brooklyn. The Dodgers and Yanks were to meet four more times in October before the former finally broke through to become world champions in 1955.
The technical end of televising the World Series has advanced greatly in 60 years. The thrills on the field in 1947 are still hard to beat.
