Description
Book SynopsisProvides a balanced, nuanced, and carefully documented look at radio and baseball over the past one hundred years, focusing on the interaction between team owners, local and national media, and government and business interests, with extensive coverage of the television and Internet ages, when baseball on the radio had to make critical adjustments to stay viable.
Trade Review"
Crack of the Bat will give you insight into the nostalgic power of baseball on the radio, and make you realize what you missed."—Hunter M. Hampton,
Sport in American History"[
Crack of the Bat is] a valuable resource for sport and media scholars alike that should encourage more work on sports radio's woefully under examined history."—Travis Vogan,
Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television"Informed by the literature on the subject and the beneficiary of deep research in archival sources and oral histories, this book is based on sound scholarship, engages the general reader's interest, and will enlighten scholars in their study of the symbiotic relationship between radio and baseball."—John E. Miller,
Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society"Well researched, and equally well written and footnoted,
Crack of the Bat is not only a welcome addition to electronic media research but would make an excellent addition to a history of sports in the media classroom."—Roger Heinrich,
American Journalism"
Crack of the Bat deserves to be on the reading list for courses in broadcast history and mass communication history."—Dave Ogden,
Journalism & Mass Communication Educator“Once upon a time you had to go to a ballpark to experience a ball game. Today most of us enjoy baseball across several media, and almost always alone. A game on radio—or via television or Internet or news account—is not as good as being part of the crowd at the ballpark, but what is? This book. James Walker traces the history of baseball on the radio with unmatched love and erudition.”
—John Thorn, official historian of Major League Baseball and author of Baseball in the Garden of Eden
Table of ContentsForeword
Acknowledgments
Introduction: A Game in Words and Sound
Part I. The Formative Years, 1920–36
1. Early World Series Coverage
2. The Local Game Begins
3. Inventing a New Craft
4. The Baseball-Radio War
5. The World Series Triggers a National Obsession
6. Advertisers Expand Baseball Coverage
Part II. The Age of Acceptance, 1937–60
7. Re-Creating Baseball
8. Baseball Reluctantly Embraces Radio
9. An Explosion in National Coverage
Part III. The Television Years, 1961–Present
10. Radio in the Age of Television
11. The Modern Baseball Announcer
12. Baseball Broadcasts in the Digital Era
Epilogue
Appendix: Number of Team Radio Stations by Year, 1936–2001
Notes
Index
