Little do many realize today, but local radio broadcasts of home games for the Yankees, Dodgers and Giants were forbidden in the Big Apple prior to 1939. Yes, sad but true, even though radio waves had transmitted major-league games and World Series play as early as 1921, nary a Depression-Era New York baseball fan could tune into the local dial to hear the heroics of Ruth and Gehrig (not to mention a young DiMaggio) at Yankee Stadium. For owners across big-league baseball, radio represented a lethal threat to live attendance, yet no other franchise had the wealth, power and prestige to hold out quite as long as the Bronx Bombers, Bums and G-Men.

     As author Eldon L. Ham recounts in his 2011 book, Broadcasting Baseball: A History of the National Pastime on Radio and Television, it was the pioneering visionary Larry MacPhail who forced the hand of his fellow NY power brokers and officially brought our National Pastime into the modern age: "In 1939 Larry MacPhail stepped in as general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers and immediately shook the underpinnings of New York baseball. He not only scrapped the Dodgers’ participation in the radio cabal, MacPhail installed lights at Ebbets Field, then brazenly embraced radio. Convinced radio would increase popularity the way it had worked in Chicago and elsewhere, he immediately hedged his bet by hiring Red Barber…who proceeded to call the Dodgers game on April 18, 1939, a 7-3 loss to the crosstown Giants." Meanwhile, over at the House That Ruth Built, another legendary broadcasting voice made his Yankee radio debut—a fella by the name of Mel Allen. And thus, baseball was forever changed. In fact, the first television broadcast came later that same year!

     Presented is an original copy of the revolutionary document that forged this new path in baseball history. Dated March 1, 1939, the "Major League Broadcasting Agreement" lifted the longstanding moratorium on New York's local radio broadcasts, and set down the unified terms of baseball's future in the rapidly developing radio/TV landscape. Among the 16 signers are: Larry MacPhail (Dodgers), Powel Crosley Jr. (Reds), Horace Stoneham (Giants), Connie Mack (A's), Ed Barrow (Yankees), Tom Yawkey (Red Sox), Walter Briggs (Tigers) and Clark Griffith (Senators). A notation on the front cover suggests that 20 copies were executed, but we have never seen another example surface publicly or privately. Condition is EX to EX/MT and the signatures rate "9-10." An extraordinary museum-worthy artifact deserving of the finest memorabilia collection! LOA from PSA/DNA.

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