Extras carried late-breaking news, sports

The following is excerpted from a 1976 story by Colin J. “Mac” McDonald, a Journal reporter and editor from 1927-66.

“Shh! Is that an extra?” Parents and children would look up from their reading or games and someone would hastily turn down the volume on the radio.

Soon the sound would be unmistakable: “Extra! Extra!”

Then a newsboy would come into view, walking in the middle of the street and waving a folded newspaper above his head.

Porch lights would go on and front doors open, signals to the boy that householders were waiting to trade coins for one of his papers.

People expected extras on nights when elections were decided, heavyweight championship fights were held, or a declaration of war or an armistice was imminent. Other times the news might be the death of a president, a transoceanic flight, a major crime, a disaster, the capture of a murderer or arrests of officials.

I got a job as a part-time reporter in 1927, just in time to observe the handling of the extras issued after each World Series game.

At that time, part of the Associated Press report came by teletype — sort of an automated typewriter — and the rest by Morse wire. The Morse operator, Rex Benedict, sat at his typewriter taking down the words coming in by way of his chattering receiver.

Harry Dayton, the sports editor, and a printer worked together in the cubbyhole of a wire room. It was a little like the old times when all type was set by hand. As a game progressed, Harry and the printer, who used tweezers to take type from a tray, put together a box score. Minutes after the game ended, while the story was coming in and being sent to the printer, the box score was ready to be slid into its hole in the form for the front page.

During the game, a staff member stood at an open window with a megaphone through which he shouted the play-by-play account coming on the Morse wire to fans gathered on E. First Street, two floors below.