Baseball As America

From the Tour: On the Road With Baseball As America

Taking it to the Streets: “Seeing” the World Series Outside of the Park

by Kristen Mueller,
Baseball As America Lead Curator

(Article originally published in Memories and Dreams — Summer 2003)

Taking in the “action” of Game One of the 1929 World Series, a traffic-stopping crowd gathers in front of the Herald and Examiner “Play-o-graph” in Chicago’s Loop District. Photo: National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, Cooperstown, New York.

With millions tuning in on television, the World Series has become a communal event, uniting both faithful and casual viewers in the great moments we all remember—Larsen’s perfect game, Mays’ catch, Fisk’s home run. Even before live radio and television were able to reach millions of people simultaneously, fans in the small western Pennsylvania town of Waynesburg anticipated every pitch, cheered every run, and grimaced with every out, almost in unison with Pirates fans sitting in Forbes Field during the 1927 World Series.

Mechanisms ranging from the simple to the splendid were positioned in public areas such as street corners or parks, or sometimes indoors for paying audiences at an armory or theater. Oftentimes, newspapers sponsored scoreboards at, or adjacent to, their offices, which received game reports over telegraph lines that were then passed to scoreboard operators. In major cities, as well as throughout the American hinterlands, scoreboards allowed those who could not get tickets, those who were otherwise unable to attend games for reasons such as work or distance, or even those passersby, to enjoy, as a advertisement stated, “… every pitch, every foul and every detail.”

Although baseball coverage in major newspapers and magazines was firmly established by the 1903 World Series, and radio later brought the Fall Classic into a limited number of American living rooms by the 1920s, for many years those not fortunate enough to witness the action live were able to “see” games portrayed graphically on temporary scoreboards. The earliest devices emerged some years before the first World Series, such as the “Electrical Base Ball Bulletin,” featured in an 1891 issue of Scientific American.

Scoreboards, often with the help of emcees announcing the plays, aided far-flung fans in creating a vivid mental drama of the exploits on the field. During the Reds run at the infamous 1919 Series, an ad in the Cincinnati Enquirer persuaded fans as to the merits of the scoreboard: “If you cannot journey out to the ballpark, come … see the Game, play by play, on the marvelous score board, using a real ball, showing every strike, foul, ball, hit and run. Nothing like it in the city.” The “Play-o-graph” scoreboard set up in Amarillo, Texas, for the 1931 Series was touted as “second only to seeing the game in actuality.”

Scoreboards in large cities such as New York and Chicago were often relatively sophisticated patented devices, such as the “Star Ball Player,” “Nokes Electrascore,” and “Play-o-graph,” while smaller locales such as Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, captivated fans with ingenious homemade contraptions.

Local fans “watched” the 1925 through 1927 World Series from the street on this temporary scoreboard erected in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, now on display in Baseball As America. Photo: Field Museum.

The Waynesburg scoreboard, which stands 10 feet tall by six feet wide, was constructed just before the 1925 Series by two hometown electricians to allow fans to “see” the local favorites, the Pittsburgh Pirates, take on the Washington Senators. Suspended from the front balcony of the Blair Hotel, the scoreboard rested some 50 miles from Forbes Field, but with a baseball diamond featuring movable “runners,” a “ball” that could be transported around the field, and cards indicating each team’s lineup, it attracted hundreds of spectators. There was also a bell rung to celebrate home runs, and space for remarks such as “rain delay,” “man injured” and “stolen base.” Sitting behind the apparatus, an operator or two listened to game accounts broadcast over a shortwave radio, updating the score every inning and using a system of pulleys to change the position of the figures on the diamond. Used during the ‘26 Fall Classic as well, the Waynesburg scoreboard was last employed to recreate the action of the ‘27 World Series, when the Pirates were defeated by the New York Yankees and their legendary Murderers’ Row lineup.

The late 1920s and early 1930s marked the heyday of the temporary scoreboard. Where traffic-stopping crowds had once gathered to “watch” the action, by the end of the 1930s most temporary scoreboards had disappeared, leaving corners and streets to automobile hustle and bustle. The demise of the temporary scoreboard was hastened by the rapid expansion of radio. By decade’s end, almost 90 percent of American households had receiving sets that could bring the World Series home.

Following the ‘27 Series, the Waynesburg scoreboard was stored in the basement of the Blair Hotel, where it remained until the early 1990s. Though the piece sustained water damage, it has since been stabilized and partially restored. The names frozen on the lineup cards of the scoreboard — Ruth, Gehrig, Waner and others — hearken back to baseball’s bygone era, and serve as a reminder that World Series past would mean little to us today had it not been for advances in communication technologies.

The Hall of Fame was fortunate to receive the Waynesburg scoreboard as a donation to its permanent collections. We are delighted to be able to share this important piece of baseball history with fans across the country as the scoreboard tours with Baseball As America, the Hall of Fame’s nationally traveling exhibition.