Monday’s ad is entitled Saturday Football Over the Radio, and the illustration was done in 1947 by Stevan Dohanos. It’s #9 in a series entitled “Home Life in America,” also known as the Beer Belongs series of ads that the United States Brewers Foundation ran from 1945 to 1956. In this ad, it shows a scene almost none of us alive can related to anymore. In the time before big screen televisions dominated the living room, a group of men are gathered around the radio to listen to the big football game. Having missed this generation by a few years, it’s funny to see them intently staring at the radio itself, as if the sound was visible somehow. It must be a sports-oriented household, with trophies on the mantle and an otherwise out-of-place pillow with a “P” on it, which suggests that’s the team they’re rooting for you.
And the men are wearing ties. Saturday afternoon college game or a pro game after church? Definitely a different time. I listened to many a Washington Native Americans game on the radio. Washington Senators too.
I look at the radio all the time when I’m listening to ball games. And sometimes when there’s a ball in play I cock my head to one side.