On August 26, 1939, the first televised Major League baseball game
was broadcast on station W2XBS, the station that was to become
WNBC-TV. Announcer Red Barber called the game between the Cincinnati Reds and the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field in
Brooklyn, New York.

At the time, television was still in its infancy. Regular programming
did not yet exist, and very few people owned television sets—there
were only about 400 in the New York area. Not until 1946 did regular network broadcasting catch on in the United States, and only in the
mid-1950s did TV sets become more common in the American household.

Walter Lanier "Red" Barber
(February 17, 1908 – October 22, 1992)

Barber was nicknamed "The Ol’ Redhead".
     

1939 RCA Model TT-5, 5" screen, 5 channel, NO SOUND (Sold for $199.50)

Of the 600 of these manufactured, only a dozen are known to exist
today, and only a handful of those are still working. The set had to
be connected to a special TV-sound equipped radio, in order to
hear the television sound for each channel.