Major League Baseball on CBS is an American presentation of Major League Baseball (MLB) games produced by CBS Sports, and televised on the CBS television network. It aired in several variations from 1947 to 1993.
History CBS has aired Major League Baseball telecasts in several variations dating back to the 1950s.
1947–1951
CBS broadcast Games 3–4 of the 1947 World Series (the first World Series to ever be televised) with Bob Edge on the call. However, the 1947 World Series was only seen in four markets via coaxial inter-connected stations: New York City; Philadelphia; Schenectady, New York; Washington, D.C.; and, environs surrounding these cities. Outside of New York, coverage was pooled, which continued through 1950. By that point, World Series games could be seen in most of the country, but not all.
On July 12, 1949, CBS broadcast the All-Star Game from Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, New York. Red Barber, who was the primary broadcaster for the Brooklyn Dodgers at the time, provided play-by-play. Barber had already, by 1946, added to his Brooklyn duties a job as sports director of the CBS Radio Network, succeeding Ted Husing and continuing through 1955. There, his greatest contribution was to conceive and host the CBS Football Roundup, which switched listeners back and forth between broadcasts of different regional college games each week.
On August 11, 1951, CBS' flagship television station WCBS-TV in New York City broadcast the first baseball game ever televised in color between the Brooklyn Dodgers and Boston Braves from Ebbets Field, in which the Braves beat the Dodgers 8–1. As were all color programs at the time, it was transmitted via a field-sequential color system developed by CBS. Signals transmitted this way could not be seen on existing black-and-white sets. Four years prior on July 21, WCBS used a prototype version of the Zoomar Lens (the first commercially successful zoom lens) to cover a Brooklyn Dodgers/Cincinnati Reds game.
Later that year, CBS televised Game 1 of the National League tie-breaker series between the Dodgers and the New York Giants. Red Barber and Connie Desmond called that particular game and John Derr served as a field reporter. The remaining two games (including the legendary "Shot Heard 'Round the World" that ended Game 3 to send the Giants to the World Series) were broadcast by NBC with Ernie Harwell and Russ Hodges on the call.
Original Major League Baseball on CBS program (1955–1965) 1955–1958 By , Dizzy Dean and the Game of the Week would move from ABC to CBS (the rights were actually set up through the Falstaff Brewing Corporation). "CBS' stakes were higher" said Buddy Blattner, who left the Mutual Broadcasting System to rejoin Dean. Ron Powers wrote about the reteaming of Dean and Blattner, "they wanted someone who'd known Diz, could bring him out." Gene Kirby, who had worked with Dean and Blattner at Mutual and ABC, produced the telecasts and also filled in on announcing duties.
Bob Finnegan, who along with Bill McColgan had called backup games for ABC, performed the same role for CBS, working with a variety of color men including future Wide World of Sports host Jim McKay and future World News Tonight anchor Frank Reynolds.
In 1956, CBS Sports director Frank Chirkinian devised an earplug called an Intercepted Feed Back (or IFB) in order to connect the announcer, director, producer and thus, smoothing on-air flow.
In , CBS added a Sunday Game of the Week. ABC's Edgar Scherick said "In '53, no one wanted us. Now teams begged for "Game"'s cash." That year, the National Football League (NFL) began a US$14.1 million revenue-sharing pact. By , Major League Baseball ended the large-market blackout, got $6.5 million for exclusivity, and split the pot.
With CBS now carrying the Game of the Week, the network's stations in Phoenix (KOOL-TV), Little Rock (KTHV) and Cedar Rapids (KGAN-TV) were finally receiving the broadcasts. Bud Blattner said "America had never had TV network ball. Now you're getting two games a week [four, counting NBC, by ]."
In , Dizzy Dean ruffled the feathers of CBS Sports head Bill MacPhail when he said "I don't know how we come off callin' this the 'Game of the Week'. There's a much better game – Dodgers–Giants – over on NBC." Dean also once refused a Falstaff ad because the date was Mother's Day. When United Airlines backed CBS' Game of the Week telecasts, Dean – who hated to fly – said "If you have to, pod-nuh, Eastern is much the best." That year, George Kell served as host for the pregame show. During one broadcast, Kell hoped to ask guest Casey Stengel about the Yankees' batting order. When asked about how it went, Kell said, "Fine. But in our 15 minutes, Casey didn't get past the leadoff batter."
1959–1963 Jack Whitaker and Frankie Frisch announced the backup games from 1959 to 1961. They usually did games that took place in Philadelphia, New York City, Washington, D.C. or Baltimore. Whitaker once said in three years, he would only broadcast three innings because CBS would not switch away from Dizzy Dean. However, he said that he learned a lot of baseball just sitting next to Frisch. CBS had other backup crews for games featuring the Chicago Cubs and White Sox, Cleveland Indians and Cincinnati Reds. In these cases, Bob Finnegan would handle the play-by-play duties with various analysts depending on the city. CBS did not have Game of the Week rights from any other ballparks in those years.
Pee Wee Reese replaced Blattner as Dean's partner in . That year, Jerry Coleman hosted the pregame show for CBS' Game of the Week broadcasts. A rather embarrassing incident for Coleman occurred when he was interviewing Cookie Lavagetto when the "Star-Spangled Banner" started. Coleman later said, "Believe me, when the Anthem starts, I stop, whether I'm taping, talking, or eating a banana."
In 1962, CBS dropped the Sunday baseball Game of the Week once the NFL season started, dropping the option clause for affiliates to carry baseball or football in place since 1957.
In 1963 and 1964, viewers in San Francisco were unable to see certain baseball telecasts aired by CBS on KPIX-TV locally, although the games aired on stations in markets adjacent to the Bay Area. In 1963, KPIX pre-empted the July 13 game between the San Francisco Giants–Philadelphia Phillies (at 10:15 a.m.), and the Los Angeles Dodgers-Phillies game on July 14 (at 9:30 a.m.); in 1964, the station pre-empted the Kansas City Athletics–New York Yankees game on May 16 (at 10:45) and the Milwaukee Braves–St. Louis Cardinals game on May 17. All four games did air on NBC affiliate KSBW in Salinas, KXTV in Sacramento and ABC affiliate KHSL-TV in Chico (the games also aired on KOLO-TV in Reno, Nevada, however it joined the two July 1963 games in progress, at 10:25 and 9:55 a.m. on the respective dates).
1964–1965 By , CBS' Dean and Reese called games from Yankee Stadium, Wrigley Field, St. Louis, Philadelphia and Baltimore. The New York Yankees got a $550,000 share of CBS' $895,000. Six clubs that exclusively played nationally televised games on NBC were paid $1.2 million. The theme music used on the CBS telecasts during this era was a Dixieland styled rendition of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame".
In , the New York Yankees, which in the year prior played 21 Games of the Week for CBS (which had actually just purchased the Yankees), joined NBC's television package. The new package under NBC called for 28 games compared to the 123 aired across the three networks in 1960.
Announcers Play-by-play Dizzy Dean (–; (Yankee Baseball)) Bob Finnegan (–) Bill McColgan (–) Jack Whitaker (–)
Color commentators Bud Blattner (–) Frankie Frisch (–) Gabby Hartnett (–) Jim McKay (–) Pee Wee Reese (–; (Yankee Baseball)) Frank Reynolds ()
Hosts/field reporters Jerry Coleman () George Kell ()
The dark years (1966–1989) As previously alluded to, on October 19, 1965, NBC signed a three-year contract with Major League Baseball. NBC paid roughly US$6 million per year for the 25 Games of the Week, $6.1 million for the 1967 World Series and All-Star Game, and $6.5 million for the 1968 World Series and 1968 All-Star Game. In replacing CBS, NBC traded a circus for a seminar. Pee Wee Reese said "Curt Gowdy was its guy (1966–75), and didn't want Dizzy Dean – too overpowering. Curt was nice, but worried about mistakes. Diz and I just laughed." Falstaff Brewery hyped Dean as Gowdy in return said "I said, 'I can't do "Wabash Cannonball." Our styles clash --" then came Pee Wee Reese. Gowdy added by saying about the pairing between him and Reese, "They figured he was fine with me, and they'd still have their boy." To many, baseball meant CBS's 1955–64 Game of the Week thoroughbred.
In 1976, CBS Radio replaced NBC Radio as the exclusive national radio broadcaster for the World Series and All-Star Game. This came after NBC ended its radio association with baseball in order to clear space for its 24-hour "News And Information" service programming. In , CBS Radio started broadcasting a weekly Game of the Week. CBS Radio usually did two games each Saturday, one on the afternoons and another during the evenings. Typically, CBS' markets aired only the afternoon broadcasts. The games covered varied from the ones NBC-TV were offering at the time to games outside of NBC's sight.
In 1987, CBS broadcast the Pan American Games for the fourth and to date, final time. For the baseball coverage, John Dockery handled the play-by-play with Mark Marquess on color commentary. One year later, CBS broadcast the championship game for the College World Series. Brent Musburger served as the play-by-play announcer that year as well as in 1989. Joining Musburger in the booth was Rick Monday in 1988 and Joe Morgan in 1989.
1990–1993 version By the end of the 1987-88 season, CBS finished in last place and was looking to get themselves out of the slump that had begun when Laurence Tisch effectively took control of the network. They decided that sports would be a very powerful tool to put CBS back on the map. So on that end, they paid a huge sum of money to broadcast Major League Baseball.
On December 14, 1988, CBS announced the results of guidance provided by Commissioner Peter Ueberroth, Major League Baseball's broadcast director Bryan Burns, CBS Inc. CEO Tisch as well as CBS Sports executives Neal Pilson and Eddie Einhorn in making a decision. The network paid approximately US$1.8 billion (equivalent to billion in ) for exclusive over-the-air television rights for over four years (beginning in 1990). CBS paid about $265 million each year for the World Series, League Championship Series, All-Star Game, and the Saturday Game of the Week. CBS replaced ABC (which had broadcast Monday and later Thursday night baseball games from 1976 to 1989) and NBC (which had broadcast Major League Baseball in some shape or form since 1947 and the Game of the Week exclusively since 1966) as the national broadcast network television home of Major League Baseball.
It was one of the largest agreements (to date) between the sport of baseball and the business of broadcasting. The cost of the deal between CBS and Major League Baseball was about 25% more than in the previous television contract with ABC and NBC. The deal with CBS was also intended to pay each team (26 in and then, 28 by ) $10 million a year. CBS would also be paying an estimated $7.1 million per game or $790,000 per inning, and $132,000 per out; a separate cable television deal would bring each team an additional $4 million. Each team could also cut its own deal with broadcast and cable television channels and radio stations to serve as their local broadcasters (for example, the New York Yankees signed a cable deal with MSG that would pay the team $41 million annually for 12 years). Reportedly, after the huge television contracts with CBS and ESPN were signed, baseball clubs spent their excess millions on free agent players.