Back before the internet was ubiquitous, before television was in every home, and before FDR’s fireside chats, there was the Play-o-Graph.  Between 1905 and 1921 (and for several years after), eager fans across the county would huddle around their local newspaper buildings to “watch” the World Series games, play-by-play information coming in over the telegraph wires and be displayed to the waiting crowds on a specialized electronic scoreboard.

If you liked this episode check out our last video tracking down the missing historian Diedrich Knickerbocker, and on the way discovering how New York City came to develop a huge part of its identity:

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