The First Televised World Series was Yankees v. Dodgers, 1947

On September 30, 1947, New York City hosted the first televised World Series between the New York Yankees and the Brooklyn Dodgers.

The Series was only transmitted to New York City, Philadelphia, Schenectady, and Washington, DC because early television stations were coaxially inter-connected, greatly limiting their range. President Truman watched parts of the series from the Oval Office shortly after making his own first television appearance on October 5.

Billboard Magazine from October of 1947 reported 3.9 million viewers, primarily watching on television sets in bars. New York City made up 5,400 of those bar sets alone. The September 30, 1947 New York Times reported:

“For the first time in history the series will be televised and this at least is a boon to the thousands who strove unsuccessfully to obtain tickets to the games. Hotels and bars throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn are planning to do a smashing business. One Flatbush bar, with an eye to caution, was reported setting up two television sets in different rooms, one for Yankee fans, the other for Dodger adherents, by way of eliminating possible emotional outbursts that might get out of hand.”

Games one and five were broadcast by NBC and games three and four were broadcast by CBS, both radio broadcasting companies venturing into the burgeoning field of television. Games two, six, and seven were broadcast by the DuMont company. The DuMont Television Network was a partner company of Paramount Pictures and poised to be a major rival to CBS and NBC. They even had their own line of television sets. The network was said to help solidify television technology but was never financially sound. To save money DuMont was forced to expand on Ultra-high frequency (UHF) channels when UHF was not standard on most home sets. By 1956 they stopped broadcasting and shut down operations.

Besides the television broadcast, this series contained other historic firsts. That season the Dodgers had signed on Jackie Robinson making them the first racially integrated team in major league baseball, which in turn made the 1947 World Series the first with an African American player in the line-up. The 1947 series also used six umpires to make calls, whereas the Series from 1918-1946 used four.

The seven-game series was played four times at Yankee Stadium and three times at Ebbets Field, featuring such Hall of Famers as the aforementioned Jackie Robinson, Bucky Harris, Joe DiMaggio, Phil Rizzuto, and famed pitcher Yankee’s Yogi Berra. The Yankees won the Series four games to three making it their first title in four years.

Both stadiums in the Series are now history themselves. Yankees Stadium in the Bronx was built in 1923 and closed in 2008. It was torn down in 2010 after the 2009 opening of the new and much larger Yankee Stadium next door. Ebbets Field was built on Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn in 1913 and demolished in 1957 when the Dodgers relocated to Los Angeles. It is now home to the Jackie Robinson Apartments named after the player when he died in 1972. It is said that the design of Citi Field’s facade in Flushing, Queens was directly influenced by Ebbets Field.

Next, check out 10 of NYC’s lost and former sporting venues and see the remnants of Ebbets Field.