TICKER TAPE

TICKER TAPE

I heard that they are having a ticker tape parade today in Chicago to honor the White Sox. Say what? Ticker tape?
I don't think there has been any ticker tape made or used in 25 years. Ticker tape comes from stock ticker machines or news ticker machines. Stock prices and news events were wired to these machines. It was state of the art prior to computers. Wall Street in New York had plenty of the machines and people saved the paper for special parades. It came off of the machines like the tape came off of old adding machines. I'm pretty sure that the paper tossed out of office buildings today comes from their paper shredders.
Ticker tape reminds me of old Cincinnati Red's radio broadcasts. The radio announcers never traveled with the team. Instead, for road games, they used news tickers in the studio. You could hear the ticker going in the background. Waite Hoyt, the great ex-Yankee pitcher, did the games that way. He would have to make up things in between messages on the ticker. The ticker would say for instance "ball one" and he would make up whether it was high or low or the batter started to swing and stopped. It was quite a talent. I sat and listened many nights. I also remember prize fights being broadcast over the radio by ticker tape. Horse races were broadcast over news tickers, too. You can see them in action in the movie "The Sting". The delay in receiving the ticker information tempted many a con man to make a killing. It all seems so dark ages now.