The retro transistor radio shown above has been a staple at Dodger Stadium since 1962. Indeed, when the franchise first moved west, SoCal fans, unfamiliar with the players on the team, depended upon the radio play-by-play of Vin Scully and Jerry Doggett for their daily indoctrination.
I have heard that, in the early days of Chavez Ravine, there were so many transistor radios during a Dodger game that it seemed like the radio broadcasts were piped in over the loud speakers. Of course, this was the pre-head phone or ear piece generation.
I still see people tuned into the broadcasts even today. But, there has been a complication, sports fans. You see, Dodger games are currently being broadcast on KFWB, which is one of the two all-news stations in the market. Both of those radio outlets are owned by CBS, which has imposed a stipulation that all such formatted stations must now impose at least a seven second delay on all live broadcasts. This is all a by-product of the paranoia that started when Janet Jackson's buttons didn't work correctly during the Super Bowl a few years back.
Of course, this delay presents a huge problem for Dodger fans listening on their radios while at the ballpark. One guy near me on Sunday had the radio up loud and the radio transmission was at least 10 seconds behind. It might have been more. I can swear I heard Vin Scully say "two and two to Harvey Kuenn" as if it was September, 1965. I saw most of the fans around me give up on the radios within two innings. If you check e-Bay today, you can probably score a good deal on one of them.
Now it's really important for Dodger games to be featuring a ten second delay. Just in case Vin Scully is going to say something totally inappropriate about Rachel Robinson's breasts.
K F W Bonehead.
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