Back before the first World War, folks couldn't turn on the radio to follow the World Series. There wasn't TV. There wasn't an Internet. So if you weren't able to attend the game, how did you follow it?

If you had the free time, you gathered in a huge public place and watched a proto-GameDay that used telegraphed updates. That link takes you to a recently written history of the Playograph, but if you want the old-timey description, you can get it from this 1912 article.

Now you have this stuff beamed to a phone in your pants, and all you had to give up was your fertility. Worth it, I'd say.

Previous Internet Christmases

I: 1930 Spalding Base Ball Guide
II: Negro Leagues Database
III: Bob Gibson video
IV: John McGraw's Scientific Baseball
V: NBC Archive, featuring Bud Selig

VI: 1888's Base-ball: How to Become a Player
VII: Connie Mack's How To Play Base-Ball
VIII: Life Magazine's greatest baseball photos
IX: Branch Rickey's scouting report on Don Drysdale
X: 100,000+ crowd for White Autos game

XI: Thomas Edison baseball video
XII: Babe Ruth in Just Pals
XIII: Stories of the Base Ball Field
XIV: Babe Ruth swing analysis
XV: Bob Feller mechanical analysis

XVI: Vin Scully calling Hank Aaron's 715th home run
XVII: 1934 Tigers/Yankees Radio Broadcast
XIX: Bob Feller's fastball racing a motorcycle
XX: PCL Promo video from 1946
XXI: Oakland Oaks parade

XXII: Old-timey Red Sox picture collection
XXIII: A visual history of Seals Stadium
XXIV: Baseball Reliquary Online Museum
XXV: Proto-snark from 1915
XXVI: The 1924 Nationals and the Washington Post