1936 08 01 Red Sox vs White Sox Vintage Baseball Radio OTR (Watson and Hal Totten)

[@shrubbunny3299]

No way could have Watson and Totten think that 88 years later i would be listening to this broadcast. I was born 28 years ather this game was played, now I'm enjoying it. Wow. Thank you Jesus

[@musicmandon1]

Hal Totten was the pioneer when it came to broadcasting regular season baseball on a regular basis. He wrote the book about score keeping--and offered it free to his listeners. He deserves the Ford C. Frick Award as much as Bob Elson or any other Chicago broadcaster because he did it first and showed them all the way to go about it. The very idea of having a full week's worth of games is amazing unless you're talking about World Series time. It would take another dozen years until the 1948 World Series was captured in its entirety. and here we have a full week's worth of games from 1936-the depths of the Great Depression, during FDR's first term in office.

[@daniellack3559]

Very well said...wonderful analysis....

[@musicmandon1]

@@daniellack3559 Thank you kindly, Daniel. Considering what little hard information he had to work with, it's amazing what a good job Hal Totten did. I know for sure he covered boxing as well as baseball, working alongside NBC's Clem McCarthy. Totten may have covered football as well. i'm less certain about that.

[@seangoodwin3046]

Hal also was the first to do player interviews before the game. I just assumed Hal was in the Hall of Fame. It's ridiculous that he's not there. Jack Graney's not there either. All of these pioneers should be there.

[@stag3t-muspsa910]

Kroner is my great uncle...how awesome I found this.

[@bobbydowns1260]

I love to listen to baseball games from earlier years.

[@timrobinson9657]

These games are great to listen to I can imagine my father being at one of these games as a kid

[@44032]

The White Sox were an 81-70 team in 1936, the Red Sox 74-80. Surprisingly, Boston had the better pitching staff, (ERA 4.39 to 5.06)) and the Chicago the higher batting averages, (team .292 vs. .276). Boston had more home runs, 86-60, (yes, those are team totals) but Jimmie Foxx had 41 of Boston's total. Luke Appling batted a career high .388 for the White Sox and had 128RBIs despite only 6 home runs, (Foxx has just 15 more than that). Foxx had 119 strike outs but nobody else on either team had more than 48. They didn't have "metrics" in those days and were probably better off for it.

[@beatlejim64]

REAL baseball...great to hear!!!

[@joeambrose3260]

Re-creation

[@44032]

@@joeambrose3260 I don't think so.

[@elizabethmcleod9815]

@@44032 Correct. These Totten broadcasts were recorded by a Chicago studio hired by the Commissioner for a specific reason -- Landis was monitoring Totten and collecting evidence that he incited the crowd against umpires, in the wake of a bottle-throwing incident at Comiskey Park. The games are recorded on 12-inch 78rpm bare aluminum discs, which was the common technology used in the 1930s, prior to the popularity of so-called "acetate" discs.

[@seangoodwin3046]

If it is a recreation why did they miss the first three pitches?

[@Yapostadodat]

Listen to that crowd! So eerie to think EVERYONE IS GONE now but they live on through this recording. Baseball is haunted by nature and these are some of the ghosts.

[@timrobinson7373]

How nice to hear Mo Berg in this game the catcher who became a spy during WW2 He had already been doing his job in 1934 when a bunch of all stars Babe Ruth Gehrig and the gang went to Japan and Berg was there taking film of what Japan was up to at that time. I always liked the one story about his baseball skills he could speak in 7 languages and could not hit in any of them.

[@shrubbunny3299]

Great. Thank you

[@timrobinson8548]

OMG Jean Sheppard was not kidding about the POPCORN GUY you can hear him in the back BUTTERED ALL OVER

[@rogerlambert9316]

The White Sox put up lights at White Sox Park in 1939. Now, White Sox Park has a sensory room. Being autistic, this is why I'd be a White Sox fan, if I lived in the Chicago area. Go, go, White Sox!⚾️

[@billcarr9902]

Hal Totten gives call letters at station identification as WCFL. WCFL was the radio station owned and operated by the Chicago branch of the American Federation of Labor. W Chicago Federation of Labor...WCFL. FRC (forerunner of FCC) kept downgrading their license, accusing them of broadcasting labor propaganda.

[@stu63]

George Watson was most likely a WCFL staff announcer.

[@teddavidson]

Any info on the announcer "Watson"? I can't find anything about him.

[@jps8080]

In the first inning, the announcer calls a Texas leaguer a "Texaco leaguer." I found a newspaper article from 1978 that says he did it because of a sponsorship. www.newspapers.com/newspage/214128762/