We look at the 25th birthday of Route 66 and some of baseball’s all-time great broadcasters at the middle of the 20th century.

Route 66 turned 25 years old in 1951. In his book 1939 book The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck called it “The Mother Road” and the moniker stuck. It ran through baseball cities large and small. It was immortalized in the song “Get Your Kicks on Route 66”.

Route 66 is a long road, and the 1951 National League season was one of those special longer seasons, longer by three games thanks to the playoff between the Dodgers and the Giants.

Some of the all-time greats were at the microphone broadcasting baseball games through car radios on roads like Route 66 in 1951. We can still listen to the voices and the heroics of bygone times today.

There are also stories about the other extended MLB seasons from 1946 to 1962, Sugar Ray Robinson, and Randy Turpin.