On May 17, 1939, when there were barely 400 working tele- vision sets in the United States, station W2XBS of New York produced the first live telecast of a sporting contest-the Columbia-Princeton baseball contest for fourth place in the Ivy League. The quality of broadcast was poor; a New York Times reviewer wrote, "The players were best described by observers as appearing 'like white flies' running across the screen." The sportscaster, Bill Stern, didn't know when to keep his mouth...