Hildebrandt: First use of center-field camera on a local telecast happened 57 years ago

From SABR member Chuck Hildebrandt at MediaSABR.org on June 15, 2015:

SABR member James Braswell shared a brief piece that ran in the Chicago Tribune 57 years ago today.

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This isn’t the first time a televised baseball game featured the now common shot of the plate from a camera in center field over well 400 feet away, but the 1958 tilt between the hometown Chicago Cubs and the visiting Cincinnati Redlegs is believed to be the first local game to do so. NBC, after “weeks of experimenting by engineers at [Milwaukee NBC affiliate] WTMJ-TV”, had successfully aired the first game to feature a center field camera during the previous year’s World Series.

Read the full article here: http://sabrmedia.org/2015/06/15/the-first-use-of-the-center-field-camera-on-a-local-telecast-happened-57-years-ago/



Originally published: June 15, 2015. Last Updated: June 15, 2015.