Baseball Learns to Talk

Baseball Learns to Talk (1921)

Harold Arlin was a 25-year-old Westinghouse engineer, not a broadcaster, because in 1921 there was no such job. KDKA handed him a telephone rewired into a microphone and sat him in a box seat at Forbes Field to describe the Pirates and Phillies to whoever was listening. Pittsburgh rallied to win 8 to 5. Nobody in the park knew they were watching an industry get born.

Stargell Leaves the Building (1969)

Dodger Stadium had been open seven years and nobody had hit a ball out of it. In the seventh, with the score tied, Alan Foster threw Willie Stargell a curveball, and Stargell put it over the right field pavilion and into the parking lot. Writers at the park could not agree on how far it went, and nobody has since. All anyone agreed on was that it left. The Dodgers starter that night was Don Drysdale, pitching on a torn rotator cuff. He took a no-decision and never pitched again.

The Dog Nobody Invited (1974)

Nobody would look at Alex Stein's whippet. Wham-O passed. Agents passed. So he smuggled Ashley into Dodger Stadium during a nationally televised Dodgers and Reds game, went over the rail, and started throwing. Ashley ran discs down near 35 miles an hour and left the ground like he had been fired out of something. Security moved in and the crowd booed them back. NBC stayed on the field and Joe Garagiola called the dog instead of the game. Eight minutes later Stein was arrested.

Sunny Jim Does It Again (1931)

Jim Bottomley went 6 for 6 in the nightcap against Pittsburgh in a 16 to 2 Cardinals win. It was the second six-hit game of his career. The first, in 1924, came with 12 runs batted in, still the major league record. The six hits pushed his average up 27 points, which turned out to matter. The batting race that year finished with Chick Hafey at .3489, Bill Terry at .3486, and Bottomley at .3482. Three men, seven ten-thousandths of a point, and Sunny Jim finished third.