Leo And Jackie

Leo And Jackie

In 1965, ABC provided the first-ever nationwide baseball coverage with weekly Saturday broadcasts on a regional basis. Each Saturday, ABC would broadcast two 2 p.m. games and one 5 p.m. game for the Pacific Time Zone. Merle Harmon, Chris Schenkel, Keith Jackson, and on occasion, Ken Coleman served as ABC’s principal play-by-play voices for this series. Also on the network’s announcing team were pregame host Howard Cosell and color commentators Leo Durocher, Tommy Henrich, Warren Spahn, and Hall of Fame Brooklyn Dodger great Jackie Robinson, who, on April 17, 1965, became the first black network broadcaster for Major League Baseball. This photo is from September 6, 1965 in Los Angeles as the Dodgers prepare to take on San Francisco.

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One Comment

  1. Albert J. McGilvray August 26, 2013

    This really surprises me. I always thought NBC had been doing Saturday baseball since the dawn of time (1939).