The hunt for TV’s lost baseball treasures
TMC
Media Report
Oct. 27, 2010, 3:36 p.m. EDT
The hunt for TV’s lost baseball treasures
Discovery of Game 7 in ’60 Series offers hope for missing classics
By David B. Wilkerson, MarketWatch
CHICAGO (MarketWatch) — Even in the earliest days of televised
baseball, the late Ernie Harwell understood that less could be more.
On Oct. 3, 1951, Harwell was working Game 3 of the National League
playoff between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants for WPIX-
TV in New York, a telecast that was seen nationwide on NBC. When
Giants third baseman Bobby Thomson hit the “Shot Heard ‘Round the
World” to win the NL pennant, Harwell simply said, “It’s gone,” and
sat silent for several moments while Giants fans at the Polo Grounds
erupted.
Fans and teams get closer
Jamie Pard of Gaga Sports talks with Rex Crum about how sports teams
such as the Los Angeles Lakers and San Francisco 49ers are using
technology and social networking to tighten their relationships with
their fans.
Harwell’s call has largely been lost to history — obscured by Russ
Hodges’s familiar radio call (”The Giants win the pennant! The Giants
win the pennant!”) — because no recording of the WPIX-NBC telecast has
ever been found.
Sure, there are filmed highlights of that game. But, to purists, the
loss of the original television broadcasts of such classics — there is
no recording of the original telecast of Super Bowl I, to name another
— creates an unsettling void in the pantheon of sports memorabilia.
“A lot of people have seen film of the Thomson home run, but to relive
the game in real time, with an announcer who didn’t know what was
going to happen, with the crowd on its toes — that’s exciting to us,”
said Nick Trotta, senior library and licensing manager for MLB
Productions, in an interview.
“This was the first baseball game broadcast live from coast to coast,
so we think that might increase the likelihood that somebody recorded
it.”
Major League Baseball’s production arm, which scours the country in
search of lost game telecasts, raised hopes when it brought one big
prize home last month: Game 7 of the 1960 World Series, a thrilling
10-9 victory for the underdog Pittsburgh Pirates over the perennial
champion New York Yankees.
The game, to be re-aired Dec. 15 on MLB Network, was discovered in the
cellar of the late singer and actor Bing Crosby, a part-owner of the
Pirates at the time who contracted a private company to record the
game for him on kinescope, a process that involved filming a TV
monitor.
The fact that the game, one of the most sought-after baseball
treasures, turned up after all these years has Trotta encouraged that
other games thought to be gone forever could be out there.
“One of the benefits of finding something so special is that it raises
awareness that we’re interested in finding more stuff,” Trotta
explained. “We [look] in every way that we can conceive of, from
contacting teams to see what they might have in storage, to TV
networks that aired the original games, to seeing what might be locked
away in an attic, to talking to former players and their families,
fans, private collectors, online auctions.”
See slide show: World Series 2010 set to open.
Watching the classics
MLB Network airs vintage broadcasts in its “All-Time Games” series. So
far, the oldest complete baseball telecast known to exist is Game 6 of
the 1952 World Series, between the Dodgers and the New York Yankees.
MLB Network has shown that game, as well as the following day’s Game
7.
Other games seen on the channel include Don Larsen’s perfect game in
Game 5 of the 1956 World Series, the 1965 All-Star Game, Games 4 and 7
of the 1965 World Series, and Game 1 of the 1968 World Series.
Game 7 of the 1960 World Series is be issued on DVD by MLB Productions
in December.
Other important DVD releases include “Impossible to Forget,” a two-
disc set honoring the 1967 Boston Red Sox that includes the complete
TV broadcast (in color) of the Sept. 30 game against the Minnesota
Twins, with a sale price of around $25, and the A&E Home Video World
Series Collector’s Editions featuring every game telecast of such Fall
Classics as those of 1975, 1977, 1979, 1985 and 1986, retailing for
about $55 each.
Why the games were lost
Videotape was invented by the Ampex Corp. in 1956, but well into the
1970s the dominant tape format was 2-inch quad, which was very
expensive and bulky to store, said Robert Bellamy, co-author of
“Center Field Shot: A History of Baseball on Television.”
“It just made more sense to reuse those tapes, so that’s why the
networks and stations would tape over sporting events and other
programs,” Bellamy said. “And remember, for most purposes, like
highlights, film was just fine. They never thought there would be any
kind of secondary market for entire game broadcasts.”
Major League Baseball has made official World Series highlight films
since 1943, Trotta pointed out, and many other games were filmed by
newsreel cameras or the teams themselves.
One likely way that important games of the 1950s and ’60s will be
found is through kinescopes made by the Armed Forces Radio and
Television Service, said James Walker, Bellamy’s co-author on “Center
Field Shot.”
“Some of those film reels almost certainly ended up in the hands of
individual soldiers and AFRTS personnel,” Walker said. “They’d make
not just one but several copies of a game to show the troops
overseas.”
There is a precedent. Naperville, Ill.-based collector Doak Ewing
obtained the 1956 World Series game from a film dealer who got it from
a man who had done military service in Hawaii. MLB later obtained that
copy of the game from Ewing.
Most-wanted games
Here are the three most sought-after games on MLB’s list, according to
Trotta :
Oct. 3, 1951 — NL Playoff, Game 3: Brooklyn Dodgers at New York Giants
(NBC transmission of WPIX-TV telecast)
A 13 1/2-game Dodger lead in August 1951 evaporated, as the Giants —
perhaps with the aid of a telescope that allowed them to steal the
signs of visiting teams — went 37-7 down the stretch to force a best-
of-three playoff for the National League pennant. The Giants won the
first game 3-1 at Ebbets Field, and then the Dodgers blitzed the
Giants 10-0 at the Polo Grounds. In the climactic third game, also at
the Polo Grounds, the Dodgers broke a 1-1 tie with three runs in the
eighth inning, and seemed headed to their third World Series in five
seasons.
In the bottom of the ninth, exhausted Dodger hurler Don Newcombe ran
into trouble, giving up three straight hits, including a double by
Giant first baseman Whitey Lockman that cut the Dodgers’ lead to 4-2.
With one out and two men on, Bobby Thomson stood at the plate,
representing the winning run. Dodger manager Charlie Dressen made the
fateful decision to bring in right-hander Ralph Branca to relieve
Newcombe, though Branca had given up a home run to Thomson in the
first game of the playoff. On an 0-1 pitch, Thomson took the swing
that would change his life — and Branca’s — forever.
Oct. 16, 1962 — World Series Game 7: New York Yankees at San Francisco
Giants (NBC)
Pitcher Ralph Terry and the Yankees took a 1-0 lead into the bottom of
the ninth at Candlestick Park, against a Giants team that had led all
of baseball in scoring. With the pitcher’s spot leading off the
inning, Giants manager Alvin Dark sent up pinch hitter Matty Alou, who
got on base with a perfect bunt. It looked as if he would be stranded
there, however, when Terry struck out Matty’s brother Felipe and then
second baseman Chuck Hiller. With two outs, Giants immortal Willie
Mays stepped in and smashed a double to right. To this day, Mays
insists that Matty Alou should have scored on the hit, but Alou held
up at third after Yankee right fielder Roger Maris broke off a strong
throw to cut-off man Bobby Richardson at second base.
Still, the Giants now had Alou at third with the potential tying run,
and Mays at second with the winning run, with slugger Willie McCovey
at the plate. An intentional walk might’ve been in order, with first
base open, but after McCovey, Orlando Cepeda, another formidable power
hitter, was due up. The Yankees opted to pitch to McCovey.
McCovey scalded a line drive toward second, but Richardson snagged the
ball for the final out.
July 2, 1963 — Milwaukee Braves at San Francisco Giants
Braves veteran Warren Spahn and Giants star Juan Marichal hook up in a
16-inning marathon. Each pitcher goes the distance in a night game at
Candlestick that ends with a Willie Mays homer.
Authors Walker and Bellamy have a number of “white whales” they’d like
to see found and rebroadcast, as well:
Oct. 4, 1955 — World Series Game 7: Brooklyn Dodgers at New York
Yankees (NBC)
The Dodgers get their only World Championship in Brooklyn, overcoming
a 2-0 World Series deficit. The seventh game is highlighted by Dodger
left fielder Sandy Amoros’ brilliant catch of a Yogi Berra drive down
the left-field line in the bottom of the sixth inning with two men on.
Amoros not only made the grab for the first out of the inning, but his
throw to Pee Wee Reese began a relay that doubled off Gil McDougald at
first base.
Oct. 15, 1964 — World Series Game 7: New York Yankees at St. Louis
Cardinals (NBC)
Bob Gibson gets his second win of the series, as the Cardinals take
their first championship since 1946. St. Louis leads 7-3 in the top of
the ninth, but things get hairy for the Cardinals after Clete Boyer
and Phil Linz homer for the Yanks, but Gibson gets Bobby Richardson to
pop up for the final out.
May 30, 1966 — Los Angeles Dodgers at Atlanta Braves (NBC)
July 4, 1966 — Minnesota Twins at Cleveland Indians (NBC)
Sept. 5, 1966 — San Francisco Giants at Los Angeles Dodgers (NBC)
As part of its exclusive national MLB television contract that began
in 1966, NBC aired three regular-season Monday-night games that first
summer. Walker points out that the prime-time experiment proved to be
successful, especially the Labor Day Dodgers-Giants game, which drew
what was then the highest Nielsen rating for a regular-season matchup:
15.8.
Big football games missing as well
When it comes to lost NFL telecasts, the holy grail is Super Bowl I,
the Jan. 15, 1967, battle between the NFL Champion Green Bay Backers
and the AFL Champion Kansas City Chiefs. The two warring leagues had
agreed to a merger, and one of the terms was an annual championship
game.
The game was shown on both CBS and NBC, but no copy of the videotape
is known to exist, said Jeremy Swarbrick, director of media services
for NFL Films, which acquires such telecasts for airing on NFL Network
or DVD release.
“Prior to 1967, we have nothing in terms of complete game telecasts,”
Swarbrick said. “We’d love to have any of the NFL or AFL Championship
games before that.”
Also missing:
*
Jan. 11, 1970 — Super Bowl IV (CBS): Minnesota Vikings vs.
Kansas City Chiefs
*
Jan. 17, 1971 — Super Bowl V (NBC): Dallas Cowboys vs. Baltimore
Colts
*
Jan. 16, 1972 — Super Bowl VI (CBS): Dallas Cowboys vs. Miami
Dolphins
*
Jan. 15, 1978 — Super Bowl XII (CBS): Dallas Cowboys vs. Denver
Broncos
Interestingly, the CBS telecast of Super Bowl II, a 33-14 Green Bay
win over the Oakland Raiders, was preserved and is stored safely in
NFL Films vaults, along with the first of ABC’s “Monday Night
Football” tilts, which saw the Cleveland Browns defeat the New York
Jets 31-21.
Complete telecasts can be found in the “NFL Greatest Games” series,
which includes network telecasts featuring the Pittsburgh Steelers,
Green Bay Packers, Dallas Cowboys, New York Giants, Minnesota Vikings
and other teams, for around $25 each.