The televising of sporting events has enabled people around the World to watch and support sports that they may otherwise have been unable to. Such events include World Series baseball, the Superbowl and the Premier League as well as multi-disciplinary sporting events such as the Olympics and Commonwealth Games. Added to this, the ability to watch events unfold live on devices such as mobiles, tablets and laptops mean that today’s sport is truly global.
Famous ‘sporting firsts’
The ability to watch sporting events as they happen means that there is a huge capacity for catching ‘sporting firsts’ such as Andy Murray’s Wimbledon victory in 2013 which ended Britain’s 77-year wait for a men’s champion or Usain Bolt’s historic achievement in 2012 of 3 gold medals at a single Olympic Games. Although these are relatively recent events, some ‘sporting firsts’ that we have since seen achieved many times, first happened on TV in the 1980s.
According to the Guardian these include the first 147 break in snooker by Steve Davis in 1982, and the first nine dart finish in darts by John Lowe in 1984. The 1980s also saw the first screening of live league football on the BBC in 1983 and the first Rugby World Cup in 1987.
In the United States, the magazine Sports Illustrated has celebrated many sporting firsts which although not televised, are considered to be historic achievements. These include British man Roger Bannister becoming the first man in history to run a mile in under 4 minutes and Jack Johnson becoming the first African-American to win the world heavyweight boxing championship in 1908.
The ‘perfect’ first
A sport not normally associated with being televised but wherein all players have the ability to achieve a ‘sporting first’ is ten-pin bowling. During an Eastern All Star league session in Newark on 4 October 1953, Grazio Castellano became the first man to score a 300 in bowling on live television. This is known as the ‘perfect game’ because 300 is the maximum score possible in a game of bowling, achieved by bowling 12 strikes in a row.
So significant was this achievement that in 1976 he was inducted into the United States Bowling Congress Hall of Fame. Since his achievement others have followed, including Briton Paul Moor who scored the first 300 live on British television in 2006.
If you enjoy bowling as a hobby and think that you too could score the ‘perfect 300’ then you will need to make sure you have the correct equipment. This includes the right shoes, wrist supports and bowling gloves such as those available from petesproshop.co.uk which will enable you to bowl better and give you more chance of that elusive ‘perfect score’.
Sporting firsts, whether televised or not, have not always been achieved by ‘professional’ sports men and women. Sometimes, amateurs happen to be in the right place at the right time, playing the right sport. This means that the achievement of a sporting first is withi
