Why would the Chicago White Sox have an affiliate radio station located in the Deep South back in 1960’s? I have for several years been trying to uncover a mystery that has plagued me most of my adult life. For a number of years, Chicago White Sox baseball games were broadcast on the small radio station WMRB-1490AM, located in upstate South Carolina in my hometown of Greenville.
As a small kid near the age of 10, I would listen to White Sox games regularly with my grandfather. He had an old tube style radio cabinet in the living room, and also owned a small transistor radio which he would use when sitting in the front yard. Grandpa would do most of the listening and I would do the pestering oftentimes asking him the score. Occasionally, we would be treated with a White Sox game on TV on Saturday afternoons. I would marvel at the exploding scoreboard of Comiskey Park. Comiskey also had automatic baseball supplier that would feed the umpire new baseballs from a basket that would pop out of the ground. (My memory isn’t 100% on the pop-up basket being at Comiskey, but I did see it).
My grandfather died of a sudden stroke in 1964, but I would continue following the Sox on WMRB until 1966. It was in 1966 that the Milwaukee Braves moved to Atlanta. In 1967, my allegiance was split between the Sox and Braves, and eventually I became exclusively a Braves fan. I don’t know when WMRB stopped carrying the Sox, but at some point after I left Greenville, the Braves began broadcasting on WMRB. It was in 1980 that WMRB was sold and became WPCI.
In 2006 with the purchase of and relocation of Shoeless Joe Jackson’s house on 119 East Wilburn Street, Greenville, my interest was rekindled. Jackson’s house became the Shoeless Joe Jackson Museum and is now located downtown adjacent to the new stadium built to host the Greenville Drive. Unbeknownst to me at the time, but while I attended Crestone Elementary School as a youngster in 1958, Jackson’s house was located just 2 blocks on the other side of the highway from the school . Moreover, my grandpa and I lived less than one mile from East Wilburn Street. Of course, since Jackson died of a heart attack in 1951, I had no knowledge of his house and probably would not have particularly cared anyway. My grandpa never did mention it.
My interest continued to build in trying to authenticate the broadcasts of the White Sox games and I eventually contacted the curator of the museum, Arlene Marcley. Arlene gave me some ideas on how to pursue my investigation. I contacted WPCI and attempted to contact the previous owners of WMRB. Although WPCI was friendly and responsive to my queries, they were unable to substantiate the broadcasts. Letters to the former owners of the radio station and Chicago White Sox went unanswered. I did find a research paper on the history of WPCI written by some Furman students. The paper was helpful in providing a general history of the station but it did not mention the Chicago White Sox baseball games.
I created a poster requesting information on the White Sox broadcasts and Arlene Marcley was kind enough to place it in the museum. I have hope that someone will visit the Jackson Museum, read the poster, and remember listening to the Sox some 50 years ago.
Author Resource:-
Johnny Kicklighter is a contributor to the Shoeless Joe Jackson Museum located in Greenville, South Carolina.
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