James Joseph Britt (April 11, 1910 – December 31, 1980) was an American sportscaster who broadcast Major League Baseball games in Boston, Massachusetts, and Cleveland, Ohio, during the 1940s and 1950s.
[2] From 1940 through 1950, with time out for United States Navy service in World War II,[1] Britt was the voice of both the National League Boston Braves (officially the "Bees" from 1936 to 1940) and the American League Boston Red Sox, succeeding Baseball Hall of Fame second baseman and manager Frankie Frisch as play-by-play broadcaster when Frisch returned to uniform as pilot of the 1940 Pittsburgh Pirates.
At the close of the 1950 season, the teams' co-operative radio arrangement ended and each decided to air a full schedule of 154 games, home and away.
Instead, he relocated to Cleveland and joined the TV announcing crew of the Indians in 1954, working through 1957 with Ken Coleman, a native of the Boston area (and Gowdy's eventual successor, in 1966, as voice of the Red Sox).
Instead, he initiated a popular candlepin bowling show he would host until 1966, and also hosted Dateline: Boston (a nonsports predecessor to many of the modern-day magazine-style television programs) and an ABC-TV network series of hourlong 18-hole matches between two golfers called All-Star Golf featuring the best of their time including Ben Hogan, Sammy Snead, Lloyd Mangrum and Billy Casper.