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Beyond the Box Office: Panic on the Air (1936), baseball over the radio

Related Topics: Baseball, Radio, History of film

A continuing series designed to look a little closer at the intersections of baseball and film history. You can read last week's entry here.

On the afternoon of August 5th, 1921, the first broadcast of a live baseball game was aired from the tower of the nation's "first" radio station, Pittsburgh's KDKA. Major League baseball was 53 years old. Babe Ruth was 26, and had just one year prior, starred in the five-reel comedy Headin' Home, thrown together by the Kessel and Baumann production company in an attempt to cash in on baseball's first truly profitable mega celebrity.