Tonight is game one of the World Series that practically everyone in the world can watch on TV if they want. However, that wasn’t the case up until September 30, 1947 when three networks shared the broadcast of the very first World Series featuring the Yankees and Brooklyn Dodgers. NBC televised games 1 and 5, CBS games 3 and 4, and DuMont games, 2,6, & 7. It was the first racially integrated series with Jackie Robinson going 7-27 and getting his first hit in game 2 to tie the score. Although it was televised, games were only seen on a small number of Eastern markets with stations connected via coaxial cable.

Sherm Lollar started game 3 at catcher for the Yankees wearing #29. He was a right-handed hitter and went 2-3 with two doubles, an RBI, and two runs scored. When the Dodgers brought in right-hander Ralph Branca in the 7th, manager Bucky Harris sent Lollar to the bench in favor of lefty Yogi Berra, who then proceeded to hit the very first pinch-hit home run in World Series history. The Dodgers still won 9-8, claiming their first victory in the series. Incidentally, four years later, Branca, pitching for the New York Giants, made unwelcome history again by giving up the 1951 Bobby Thomson “Shot heard round the world.”

Lollar did not play again until game 6 when he shared the catching duties with Aaron Robinson, the game 5 starter with Berra in right field. Sherm had another single and scored another run, going 3-4 in the series overall and earning his first World Series ring. His Yankees won it all in Game 7, but Robinson did the catching and Berra played right field. Neither of them had a hit. It’s the only time, so far, that the New York Yankees have won a Game 7 at home. In my collection, I have a piece of Sherm Lollar’s uniform from that series. He was traded to the St. Louis Browns in 1949 and finished his career with the Chicago White Sox starting in 1952.

Lollar’s next World Series was in 1959 with the Sox, losing to the Dodgers. He went 5-22 in that series. In 1966, he was a coach with the World Champion Baltimore Orioles.