Red Barber

Red (Walter) Barber was New York City’s first baseball radio broadcaster and the first baseball telecaster anywhere. He chronicled the rise of the Dodgers with phrases like “tearin’ up the pea patch” and “the bases are FOB” – full of Brooklyn. The Mississippi-born Barber said, “(I) didn’t broadcast with a Brooklyn accent, but I did broadcast with a Brooklyn’s heart.” When fired by the Yankees, he ended his farewell interview by blowing a kiss to Brooklyn.

Red Barber broadcasted Jackie Robinson’s first season with the Dodgers recalled that, as a boy in Sanford, Florida, “I saw black men tarred and feathered by the Ku Klux Klan and forced to walk the streets. I had grown up in a completely segregated world.” Red Barber confessed that when he learned the Dodgers would field a black player, his first reaction was to quit his job. Read more: https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/red-barber/

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March 2, 1909

Mel Ott is born listen to his World Series At Bats vs Lefty Gomez

April 5, 1934

Reds president Larry MacPhail hires 26 year-old Red Barber to broadcast the team games on WSAL

April 17, 1934

On Opening Day at the newly-named Crosley Field, Reds’ announcer Red Barber calls his first play-by-play for a major league team. The 26 year-old future Hall of Fame broadcaster had never attended a major league game before today’s 6-0 loss to Chicago.

January 19, 1938

Larry MacPhail is coaxed back into baseball by the Dodgers

April 18, 1939

The five-year ban on broadcasting games played by the New York major league teams ends when Red Barber, hired away from the Reds by Larry McPhail, calls Brooklyn’s 7-3 loss to the Giants at Ebbets Field. In 1934, the two National League teams and the Yankees agreed not to air their games on the radio, fearing the exposure would reduce the number of fans attending games.

August 26, 1939

At Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field, NBC televises the first major league game in history on experimental station W2XBS

August 24, 1941

During a double-header against the Cardinals, a ragtag group of five ‘musicians’, dubbed the Dodger SymPhony by announcer Red Barber, makes their Ebbets Field’s debut. This band, in which none of the members can read music, performs their zany antics at all evening and weekend games.

August 4, 1948

Ernie Harwell, filling in for Red Barber, who is recovering from a bleeding ulcer, calls his first major league game as the Dodgers beat the Cubs at Ebbets Field, 5-4. To obtain the future Hall of Fame broadcaster, Brooklyn general manager Branch Rickey trades minor league catcher Cliff Daper to the Atlanta Crackers.

May 20, 1950

1950 Radio Broadcast At Ebbets Field Red Barber brings you the Brooklyn Dodgers vs Pittsburgh Pirates

October 28, 1953

Red Barber resigns as a Brooklyn Dodger broadcaster and will take the ‘catbird’ seat with the rival New York Yankees

September 22, 1966

With only 413 patrons in attendance to see New York’s 4-1 loss to the White Sox, the team’s head of media relations denies Red Barber’s request for a camera to scan the empty stands. The veteran broadcaster will reportedly lose his job when he continues to tell his audience, “I don’t know what the paid attendance is today, but whatever it is, it is the smallest crowd in the history of Yankee Stadium, and this crowd is the story, not the game.”

October 22, 1992

legendary broadcaster Red Barber dies at the age of 84

July 6, 2000

The American Sportscasters Association names Dodgers legend Vin Scully as the No. 1 sportscaster of the 20th century

August 28, 2019

Daily Rewind Season 3, Episode 5 Jackie Robinson meets Branch Rickey

Other Resources & Links

Baseball-Reference Box Score