The first televised World Series game occurred in 1947 — the year before I was born. But even my self-indulgent, trend-setting Grandpa Doc didn’t get to watch it, because televisions weren’t even close to becoming household appliances. He did become one of the first TV owners in town — but not until 1952, maybe ’53.

Fortunately, Series games were broadcast on the radio; unfortunately, we were in school when the games were played. Fortunately, transistor radios had been invented, so fans could listen to the games even if they weren’t home; unfortunately, transistor radios were banned at St. Michael School.

(For any millenials who might wonder whatinheck transistor radios were, they were precursors to Walkmans, using batteries instead of electricity. Oh, WAIT, for those who don’t know what Walkmans were, they were the ancestors of iPods. Suffice it to say, we had carry-around music even in the 1950s, nah-nah-nah-nah-naaaaah-nah.)

And so it was, the Dominican sisters who taught at St. Mike became radio baronesses, with confiscated transistor radios overflowing from their desk drawers. (I always suspected that S’ter Terrence, whom my dad nicknamed “Terrible Terry” because she was such a rebel, secreted one in her habit and snaked an earphone wire through her underwear to listen to games while we took a math test.)