The First Remote Control Electronic Scoreboard

 
In 1945 "Mac" McCloskey built the world’s first remote-control electronic baseball scoreboard, for  Little League.

This electronic scoreboard, using a remote control box, is thought to be the first of it's kind.  It was built in 1940 by  William "Mac" McCloskey, for the Little League Games in Williamsport.  

Interestingly, according to  1907 article in the St Louis Globe, a different McCloskey was credited with creating the first electronic score board.  John J. McCloskey, inspired by a gambling operation in Butte , perfected an electronic scoreboard in 1906.

In 1939, Carl E. Stotz created Little League, in Williamsport Pa.  Bob Stout, a Williamsport Technical Institute Student, set up an amplifier system to announce the names of the players.  Bob Stout, a parent, built a portable electronic scoreboard.

On August 20th 1940, regular score keeper  Clair Smith was unable to attend that nights game.  "Mac" McCloskey, father of one of the players, stepped in to take his place. 

 Mac not only continued to keep score at every game,  he also prepared cards with each players batting record, every year.

That winter he built what is believed to be the very first remote-control electronic scoreboard.  

"Mac was also directly involved in one of the most significant LL game improvements during the 1945 season. That was the year that Mac, at his own expense, built the world’s first remote-control electronic baseball scoreboard. From the 1998 article, “He worked all winter engineering and building a remote control system for electronically recording balls, strikes, and outs instantaneously from the press box. With the flip of a switch, he could flash the umpire’s call with red or green lights on the outfield scoreboard.”

 Mac, along with and his friend Bert Haag, would also gather various pieces of scrap from local junk yards that was then retrofitted and used for the scoreboard."

The original remote control box, currently on display at the Little League Museum, was used by the Boston Red Sox for a number of years.  It was then later returned to Stotz and was part of his archives.  It is on loan to the Little League Museum.

McCloskey also helped layout the first Little League fields, which became the blueprint for fields used all over the United States.  

 "McCloskey’s detailed scaled drawings of the playing field became the blueprints from which hundreds of Little League fields would be built all over the United States.” 

Mac's career as scorekeeper spanned 27 years, and 1,327 consecutive games.

On August 14th 1945, McCloskey noted in the score book, which he kept for every game, that the weather was fair and hot.  He also noted that the game was stopped at 7:15pm, when President Harry S. Truman announced that the Japanese had surrendered, thus ending the war.

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In Memory of William F. (Mac) McCloskey 
 May 12, 1894 – May 4, 1983 
- by Carl Stotz

Three days before the opening of our forty-fifth season, thousands of Little Leaguers, managing personnel, fans, friends, and neighbors who had known our dearly loved “Mac” were deeply touched by notice of his death. Just eight days short of age 89, his life was one of dedication to his family and his hobby activities through which he poured a constant flow of energy that quietly inspired those closest to him.

Particularly should he be reserved for the outstanding results of his twenty-eight years as a league scorer and statistician. Starting on August 40, 1940 he there-after scored 1,327 consecutive games. Using his own funds for the purchase of materials, he designed and built a remotely controlled indicator for balls, strikes and outs and installed it in the center field scoreboard; believed to be the first of its kind in the country, including professional baseball.

He adapted an amplifier, record turntable and a scoreboard located loudspeaker for announcing the team line-up and the batters as they came to the plate. Although seldom seen by those attending the games, his direction of the activities resulted in a most enjoyable time for all - players and fans alike.

The neighbors within hearing distance could set their clocks to the first notes of Sousa’s recording of the “Star Spangled Banner” at the beginning of each game with Kate Smith singing “God Bless America”.

Mac did it all; scoring the details of the game’s plays, selecting, playing and changing the band records and making whatever announcements were appropriate. Yes, Mac did it all!, and with a degree of perfection evincing his vocation as a tool designer. What untold joyous hours he brought to his community (Williamsport) during those war torn years.

He was truly an amazing man in every aspect of his life, with high Christian and moral principles worthy of emulation. Reserved in manner and not one to impose himself on others, he was nevertheless, by his example, a strong influence for good in the lives of those who knew him.

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William Fulmer McCloskey was born in 1894, the son of James and Jane [Adams] McCloskey.  He died in 1983, and is buried in Twin Hills Cemetery in Montoursville.

- Sun Gazette Article, 1998
-The Cultural Encyclopedia of Baseball, 2d Ed.
Volume 2
By Jonathan Fraser Light · 2016
-Play Ball!: The Story of Little League Baseball¨
By Lance Van Auken
- The Little League World Series Website

The Williamsport Roundhouse

 

The Roundhouse, Turn Table, At Walnut Street, Williamsport Pa

Information from fb comments, from those who know much more than I do about the railroad:

A new turn table and round house were being built in 1906.  Scroll down to the bottom under "Read more" for an 1880 article about an accident at a round house in Williamsport. The 1861 map also shows a round house.  

Roundhouse on the left.  Little League Boulevard now runs where the train tracks are in this photo.

The PRR Roundhouse in Williamsport
The left of the photo is Erie [Now Memorial] Avenue
Walnut Street runs along the bottom of the photo.
To the right would be present day Little League Blvd
Just east of the roundhouse is the boiler house
The Ash Pit is on the second track to the right

Not an aerial view like the photo above, but the best I could do.  from the ground.    the train tracks were on the right, where the road is. The round table was to the left, where "Roundhouse Field" is today.

 In this aerial view of the round house, look at the bottom, to the right of the tracks.  The Park Home (originally Herdic's Hotel) is the square building with the hold in the middle.  That hole was a courtyard.  Note the train station behind the Park building.

A view of the park home (originally the  Herdic Hotel) and train station.

See more about the Herdic / Park Hotel, here:

https://susquehannavalley.blogspot.com/2022/04/herdics-hotel-at-park-place.html

The three bay roundhouse at Walnut Street, Williamsport

Part of the turn table visible, in this 1956 photo.

Turn Table, Walnut St, Williamsport Pa

Turn table at Walnut Street, Williamsport

 "Taken in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, on 2 December 1956. Shown here (L to R) are four Pennsylvania Railroad steam locomotives poised for action: #4249, #4293, #6734, and #1496. #4249 and #4293 are I-1SA (2-10-0) "Decapods" built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works: #4249 was constructed in June of 1923 and retired in August of 1957, while #4293 was built in July of 1923 and retired in October of 1959. #6734 is an M-1B (4-8-2) "Mountain" built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works as an M-1A in June of 1930, rebuilt in Juniata as an M-1B in August of 1948, and retired in September of 1959. #1496 is a B-6SB (0-6-0) switcher built in Juniata in January of 1916 and retired in December of 1957. 

All that smoke and steam means it's really, really cold! This photo comes from a color slide set entitled "Steam on the Pennsy's Elmira and Shamokin Branches" that's produced and distributed by Blackhawk Films of Davenport, Iowa"

In this photo, the Park Home on the right (large white square) and the train station is still standing behind it. The station  was destroyed by fire on August 31 1979. It was torn down a week later. 

A cropped version of the above photo - train station on the right, behind the Park building.  Little League Boulevard it partially built, but train cars still appear to be sitting here in the middle of the photo.  

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Round House Field

Photos From August 2026

Gated and locked.

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Map Views

1861

Williamsport & Elmira Railroad

Work Shop, Machine Shop, Round House, Freight house, and Office

Sunbury & Erie Railroad Depot Grounds 

Cropped from the 1879 Bailey Map

These maps did not typically over exaggerate

1889 Map - also showing a larger roundhouse.  Combined with the 1880 article below and 1906 article at the top - I suspect there was a larger roundhouse here, and then a new one build in 1906.  I have not yet searched through newspapers for more information.

1911

Sanborn Map.  Maybe 1912?  The Williamsport Sanborn Maps are not clearly dated, I have three sets all from "1912", and these two maps are too different to both be from the same year.  Need to look online to confirm dates.

Modern Aerial View on Google Maps - outline still visible.

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More Photos of Trains at Walnut Street in Williamsport:

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READ MORE

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The previous article is from 1906, but this 1880 article mentions a previous round house.

"Greetings From" - About Those Large Letter Postcards

 Curt Teich Large Letter Postcard for Williamsport Pa

"Large-letter", or "Greetings From", postcards began popping up in the U.S. in the late 1920s and became really popular from the 1930s through the 1950s.  These postcards featuring photos inside large letters spelling out the location, where a popular way, before the advent of computers and social media, to show off their travels to loved ones back home. 

Curt Teich , an immigrant and pioneer of the offset printing process, began his postcard company as early as 1898.  But it was in the 1930s that the firm took off with a new process, producing what would become a wildly successful design trend of bright, graphically illustrated linen postcards.

In Teich's Chicago studio, professionally taken, but somewhat dull black & white photos would be  retouched, usi everything from mechanical airbrushes to precision sable-tipped brushes.  The images were cleaned up, colorized, and details were sharpened.  They process made a nondescript or unattractive business look clean and bright, and small towns look perfect with dazzling skies in colorful hues.

Soon Teich added "Large Letter" postcards.   "So-called large-letter postcards weren’t new when a German immigrant named Curt Teich began producing colorful linen-textured versions in the early 1930s, but he “was kind of a genius,” said Will Hansen, curator of Americana at the Newberry Library in Chicago, home to largest public collection of Teich postcards in the United States.

Teich was not the only manufacturer of the large letter design, but he is one of the best known.   "Just as Henry Ford revolutionized automobile production, Teich’s company perfected a system of mass producing large-letter postcards based on the idea that no town was too small to include."

Although the idea was that "no town was too small", in reality, many small towns were featured only in a line of text above the letters of the state. Danville and Bloomsburg are an example of cards using the same text over the Large Letter Pennsylvania.

These postcards’ popularity in the 1940s, 50s and 60s was fueled by an obsession with the automobile and the adventure of road travel. Teich and his imitators used saturated colors and simplified scenes to paint an enticing view of mid-20th-century America.

His linen-style postcards depicted an optimistic view of America, creating a unique record of national tourism and documenting the U.S. landscape from its smallest towns to its grandest natural wonders. The cards—and Teich’s runaway success selling them—also reflect an era when a boom in highway construction and an uptick in auto sales were changing the way Americans worked, played, vacationed, and communicated with one another.

For non-collectors, sending the postcards to friends and family was an inexpensive way to show off their travel. Today, travelers pose in front of murals around the country that mimic the vintage postcards and share photos on social media. 

By the mid-1950s, the Teich aesthetic began to fade and was replaced with hyperrealist, photographic postcards.

Links to Large Letter Post Card Collections:

• https://www.pinterest.com/libraryofva/greetings-from
• https://vintagraph.com/collections/1940s-50s-greetings-postcards
• https://archives.newberry.org/repositories/2/resources/1282

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READ MORE

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Sources:

• Quotes taken from - Part of a recurring Ap Press series, “American Objects,” marking the 250th anniversary of the United States.
• Library Of Virginia
• https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/immigrant-story-behind-classic-greetings-from-postcards-180970894/

Curt Teich Postcards

Established in 1898, the Curt Teich Co. was best known for its wide range of advertising and postcards of North America. By the 1920s, it was producing so many postcards with borders that they became recognized as a type dubbed “White Border Cards,” creating an “era.” Later, Curt Teich’s innovations in this printing technique directly led to the production of what we now call “linens” by the early 1930s.

History

Curt Teich emigrated to Chicago in 1895. He had worked as a lithographer in Lobenstein, Germany. In 1898, he founded the Curt Teich Company, concentrating on newspaper and magazine printing. He was an early publisher of postcards, but he didn’t begin printing them himself until 1908.

The company, which operated until 1978, was renowned for its production of postcards featuring various subjects, including North American scenic views, landmarks, events, and advertising. By the 1920s, it was producing so many postcards with borders that they became recognized as a type dubbed “White Border Cards,” creating an “era.”

Their U.S. factories produced a vast quantity of cards, making them the leading printer in the industry. Curt Teich Company pioneered the use of offset lithography, leading to the development of the popular linen-type postcard. The company aided the war effort during World War II by printing many military maps.

In 1974, the Teich Company was sold to Regensteiner Publishers, but it continued printing Teich postcards until its closure in 1978. Curt Teich’s contributions significantly impacted the postcard industry, leaving behind a rich legacy of artistic and historical significance. The Teich Company continued to operate in the same building and continued printing Teich postcards until 1978 when the rights to the company name and processes were sold to the Irish company, John Hinde Ltd. Their California subsidiary now prints postcards under the name John Hinde Curteich, Inc.