On This Date: Grace Goulson

Americans love watching baseball. They also love watching television. And Americans really love watching baseball ON the television. So it was a big deal when, on September 30, 1947, the first World Series game was televised. The game was between the Yankees and the Dodgers, and the Yankees ended up winning the series. Side note-- the Dodger's roster included Jackie Robinson, who in that year became the first African-American to play in Major League Baseball. (The movie 42 is all about the 1947 season and Jackie Robinson- excellent film.) Anyway, this was a pretty big deal, considering the series brought a TV audience of 3.9 million people. Though only a relatively small portion of the population was able to view the games, this set the stage for mass viewing of all kinds of things on television- popular TV shows, sports, award shows, and lots of other stuff, as we all know. This event had a profound (and good, I think) impact on the nation and I guess the whole world too. Sports viewing would never be the same and the whole country would all be united around their television sets to experience the world together. Baseball is the most attended sporting event in the US, so the fact that most games are televised nowadays obviously doesn't mean that people still don't enjoy America's past time the way it was originally meant to be.