THE LATTER-DAY LIGHTNING SLINGER.

Before long-range radio, baseball fans could get the play-by-play from a local announcer reading off the action as it was telegraphed and transcribed.  That might have been how Ronald Reagan got into show business.  Now, had the radio stations entrusted railway station agents with the call, they could have dispensed with the transcriptions ...

These days, it's possible to follow the action from anywhere with something called Game Tracker.  (I refuse to ram words together with a capital letter somewhere in the middle.)

That information, sports fans, relies on the nimble thumbs of an observer who at least doesn't have a clicking telegraph key to distract nearby fans or the local radio broadcaster (Mr Reagan, for example, doing Cubs broadcasts out of Des Moines: no clear-channel WGN on game days, and they were all game days in the era.)

That's a grab shot of the young man providing the real-time information Saturday of Western Michigan at Northern Illinois.  Northern Illinois with the ball and the lead late in the game, there are whatever we call hot keys these days to indicate turnovers or baskets made and a subroutine for free throws.

The Northern Illinois men won.  The women, a different story.