This edition of This Day in History comes to you courtesy of NPR, which this morning noted that today is the 70th anniversary of the first televised baseball game. The Cincinnati Reds and the Brooklyn Dodgers played in this historic game, and about 3,000 viewers are estimated to have watched on  W2XBS (now WNBC-TV). Many more spectators watched from the stands.

The significance of this broadcast is outlined in Centerfield Shot: A History of Baseball on Television by James R. Walker and Robert V. Bellamy Jr. In this book the authors explain why the game’s arrival on the small screen was is considered one of the most significant things to happen to baseball during the 20th century. Center Field Shot is the winner of the 2008 Society for American Baseball Research Sporting News Award.