Another bit of information from my Page-a-Day Trivia Calendar: "What was the first sports game to be televised in the United States?" I guessed the sport correctly, baseball, but the date surprised me. A baseball game between Columbia and Princeton, at Baker Field, aired in May of 1939. It was used to demonstrate that athletic events could be successfully televised. 1939??? My family didn't own a TV until 1956. We did, however, occasionally go to my Aunt Ida's house to watch their television. This would have been in the early '50s. What I remember most was that the reception was often very snowy and the small screen was almost round.
My father, who was a little skeptical of new inventions, decided that we would not have a television until Fort Wayne had at least three TV stations. And so, in 1956, he brought home our first TV. It's good that he was strong because that 13 inch black and white Zenith 'portable' (meaning it wasn't built into a cabinet) weighed a ton. Once it was hooked up, with cables running from the tv to the butterfly antenna on the roof, we actually got good reception; pretty amazing because we lived 20+ miles from Fort Wayne.
Since he brought it home and hooked it up in the late afternoon the first shows we watched were Howdy Doody and Buck Rogers. You can't imagine how excited we were. Or perhaps you can if you're of a certain age.
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