The first televised major league baseball game was played between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Cincinnati Reds at Ebbets Field, Brooklyn, on Aug. 26, 1939. Well, there were two of them, a double-header, The Reds won the first game 5-2, the Dodgers won the second 6-1.

Experimental TV station W2XBS, which broadcast both games, later became WNBC-TV. I wouldn¡¦t have you believe that I can easily retrieve such ancient details from my rag-bag mind. What reminded me of the relatively historic occasion was an article in the New York Times on June 15. It was an interview with the oldest living former major league baseball player, Bill Werber, who, five days later, would observe his 100th birthday.

He was featured by the Times not only because of his singular longevity but also because he was the first batter in the first televised game. To which, Mr. Werber (he was Billy to us 14-year-olds those 69 years ago) says, ¡§Big deal! I don¡¦t understand all this fuss.¡¨

He was the first player televised because he was Cincinnati¡¦s ¡X the visiting team¡¦s ¡X lead-off batter. The Times and the various baseball record books I consulted didn¡¦t reveal what Billy did in that first at bat. He probably walked, which is what he often did.

He¡¦s now in a retirement home in Charlotte, N.C. He told the Times that in his 11-year major league baseball career as a third baseman with the Yankees (four games), Red Sox, Athletics, Reds and Giants, he earned no more than $13,000 a year. When he left baseball in 1942, he went into life insurance sales, making $100,000 in his first year, which prompted him to say, ¡§I was wasting my time playing baseball,¡¨ but then he said he really didn¡¦t mean that.

The play-by-play announcer of the 1939 telecast was Walter Lanier Barber. His nickname was Red, though he didn¡¦t have red hair then and never did. He was the beloved Dodger announcer and, until a few years before, had been the beloved Reds announcer. We Cincinnati kids couldn¡¦t believe he¡¦d leave us for the hated Dodgers. Many of us who had read up on the Black Sox scandal of 1919 probably cried out, ¡§Say it ain¡¦t so, Red.¡¨ But it was so.

Fifteen years later, he¡¦d leave the Dodgers and go to the Yankees, proving that baseball eventually is sure to break your heart.

This new television thing was a comer. Cincinnati¡¦s Procter & Gamble was sure of it and picked up the tab to advertise its Ivory soap on the televised double-header as it did later for years and years creating a generic name ¡X soap operas ¡X for serialized broadcast dramas.

By the way, Ivory.com says Ivory soap is now 29 years older than Bill Werber ... and still floats.

nƒÞBob Jones lives in Lewisburg. E-mail comments to rjones@opexonline.com.