Watching the World Series Before Radio and Television

No one can say olden times baseball fans weren't dedicated.

Tacoma baseball fans gather outside the News Tribune and Daily Ledger building to “watch” the World Series on October 5, 1930.

In the early 20th century, baseball fans in non-major league cities didn’t have many options for following the big leagues. The first radio broadcast of a baseball game wasn’t until 1921, and sporadic national broadcasts followed about a decade later. Still, local newspapers dedicated just as much space to coverage of the major leagues as they did to covering local teams. Far flung fans occasionally got the opportunity to see their baseball heroes in the flesh when the players went on barnstorming tours during the offseason. For the most part, though, the major leagues lived in the words written in newspapers.

Despite all that, major league baseball was still a really big deal everywhere in the country. This was particularly true during the World Series. Fans all over followed pennant races in the newspapers, so they were fired up for the series that determined the champion. They were so fired up, they gathered in huge numbers to “watch” the games.

Seattle Daily Times, October 16, 1917

Newspapers put large scoreboards up on the sides of their buildings and, using the magic of the telegraph, they updated the scoreboard with each wire that came across. Sometimes it was only updated at the end of each half inning. Other times it was updated with every single pitch, like a low-tech Gameday. Wearing what I can only imagine were wildly uncomfortable shoes, throngs of fans gathered to stand and watch those scoreboards while the games were contested.

The earliest mention I found of this in Seattle was before the 1916 World Series. The Seattle Daily Times ran an article on the first page announcing the new contraption:

While they are putting up from 50 cents to $5 “a throw” to get a look at the world’s series in Brooklyn and in Boston—and, lucky at that if they get a seat—out here in Seattle, 3,000 and some odd miles from the actual scene of the strife, every play made in the series is going to be duplicated to the moment it happens. In a word, The Times is going to play those games on Times Square.

It won’t cost a single “jitney,” all seats are box seats, and any number of fans, up to as many thousands as wish to have a look can be accommodated—all are welcome.

The Times is going to bring this all about with the use of a remarkable mechanical ballplayer, the most advanced thing in mechanical aids to bringing the world’s series plays right down to one’s front door. So, it’s pretty soft for Seattle folks.¹

Seattle Daily Times, October 6, 1916.

The new scoreboard was a big hit with Seattle baseball fans. One report from the 1916 World Series read:

…5,000 fans, just as rabid and just as partisan as those that infested the bleachers at Braves Field, rooted their way through nine innings of delirious baseball at Times Square yesterday afternoon.

Almost as though echoing the raucous shouts of the Boston bleacherites, The Times crowd cheered as a nervous white baseball gamboled about the diamond in reproduction of the plays that made up the first World’s Series game between the Robins and the Carriganites. Roars of “Smite it, Stengel,” “Come on, you Long Shore,” and “Atta boy, Duffy,” were none the less real because the fans that emitted them were 3,000 miles from the field of battle.²

The scoreboards varied quite a bit. Here’s one, from a building on the Puyallup Fairgrounds during the 1922 World Series:

It’s just a line score, but these fellows seem pretty proud of their operation. In contrast, some had far more detail, like the News Tribune scoreboard from the 1930 World Series:

This sort of scoreboard watching didn’t just happen on the west coast though. I’ve found many pictures from major league cities with the same set ups, and some really elaborate scoreboards. The scoreboards were big business too, according to a Bloomberg article:

By the 1890s, electric-powered simulators dominated the scene, with each new invention inspiring another one. There was the Compton Electric Base Ball Game Impersonator, the The Nokes Electrascore, the Play-O-Graph, and the Jackson Manikin Baseball Indicator, among dozens of others. Between 1899 and 1927, at least 44 U.S. patents were issued for various viewing systems, according to Schubin.³

Seattle Times scoreboard from the 1917 World Series.

The Seattle Times ran their scoreboard outside their building on Times Square through the 1937 World Series. Newspaper scoreboards faded into history as fans began listening on the radio, then watching on television, and public gatherings to take in sporting events moved from the streets into sports bars.

Tonight, we will watch (or not watch, based on the ratings…) on televisions. And maybe 100 or some odd years from now, someone will write about how quaint we are, watching on a rectangular screen instead of having the game projected inside our brains.

There is something quite lovely, though, about the images of baseball fans coming together to share the World Series and feeling the community around baseball.

Oh, you call yourself a baseball fan? Would you stand outside in October weather for hours just to follow the World Series?

Extra credit reading:

How Fans Followed Baseball Games Before TV or Radio

Watching Baseball at the Opera House

The humble (ad-free!) origins of the first World Series broadcasts

1. ‘World Series To Be Seen In Times Square.” Seattle Daily Times (Seattle, Washington), October 4, 1916: 1.

2. “Thousands Assembled in Times Square to Witness Remarkable Play-By-Play Reproduction of First Game Between Dodgers and Red Sox.” Seattle Daily Times (Seattle, Washington), October 8, 1916: 11

3. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-10-24/how-did-baseball-fans-watch-the-world-series-before-tv