Friday, June 5, 2009

1965 World Series or "only losers use relievers"

'Tis true. The 1965 World Series, the first of which to be played in an expansion city, featured the winning pitcher in every game throwing a complete game.

In the kinescope era, there are a handful of pre-1965 World Series games available. Most of these consist of Yankee games. A few games from 1952 and 1955 vs Brooklyn. We discussed before the 1957 series Yankees vs Braves, in which most of Game 3, 4 and 7 are available with snippets of Game 6 as well.

However, 1965 marks the first World Series in which we know that the entire series is available via kinescope recordings. In fact, after 1965, 1968 is the next oldest complete series available. We will discuss that another time.

Today, I wanted to just quickly put up some information about the 1965 Series. MLB Network later this month will be broadcasting Game 7 from that series in it's entirety. That is the game that I too, have in my collection. When they show it, I'll post comparison shots to see what my seemingly 5th generation transfer looks like stacked up against what they have in their archives.


Anyways, the 1965 Series is the series in which the fabled story of Koufax refusing to pitch because of a Jewish holiday stems from. For Los Angeles, this turned out to be a blessing in disguise as even though Drysdale was roughed up and Koufax got no run support in Games 1 and 2, it allowed Koufax to come back in Game 7 with Drysdale available in relief. Outside of Bob Gibson, there was no other elite World Series pitcher better than Koufax.


The game was broadcast on NBC, like every other World Series of the era. Ray Scott and Vin Scully did the broadcasting and Gillette did the sponsoring.


This series featured various camera angles. We were treated to the behind homeplate, behind the pitcher from CF, the pressbox angle and two baseline cameras that provided close up shots of the pitchers and hitters between pitches. NBC also rolled out replay, not just instant but also canned shots from earlier plays in the series.


All screenshots are from Game 7.

Games like these, featuring a popular franchise like the Dodgers should be released officially on DVD. The entire series is available in collector's circles. I have to imagine MLB has them as well. I know they have an aversion to releasing B&W broadcasts as it appears they believe fans have the attention span of a gnat but it's a crime that the general public can't see Drysdale and Koufax pitching in all their glory.

For Twins fans, it must be a blessing to have every World Series game the franchise in Minnesota played recorded for posterity. Of course, as a bitter Cardinals fan, that's not necessarily a good thing.

6 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  2. Bob Gibson was not a better WS pitcher than Sandy Koufax if you examine the record..Each of them pitched three times with a chance to wrap up the series for their team..each won twice..however, in Gibson's three gms he gave up 11 runs..in Koufax's three gms he gave up but 2...Gibson's best game of his three he gave up two runs to Boston in 1967..that game would not have won him any of the three that Koufax had to win..Koufax's worst gm of his three..he gave up one run which would not have lost him any of the gms Gibson had to win..In Gibson's nine WS starts the Cardinals averaged five runs per gm..In Koufax's seven WS starts LA averaged 2.4 runs per gm..For good measure in four gms head to head in the reg season Koufax beat Gibson three times, twice by 1-0 scores

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  3. I love your blog.

    I don't have the 1965 Series yet, but I'm looking at getting a copy from a dealer. I'm looking into getting all 7 games, of course.

    Do you collect audio broadcasts of games? I've got a pretty large collection, ranging from the 1934 All Star Game to such games as Game 4 of the 1941 World Series and quite a few other rarities.

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  4. Not a big radio collector. I've often thought of taking the old radio broadcasts for the kinescopes that do exist and syncing up the radio audio to put them on DVD.

    I have 2 games from the 65 series. There are a few broadcasts of it coming up on MLB Network during the next few weeks. I believe Games 4 and 7 will be shown soon.

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  5. Hi,
    Great website. 1965 wasn't the first Series to feature an expansion team however. The Brooklyn Dodgers moved to LA and the Washington Senators moved to Minnesota, but both franchises are of the original 16.

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  6. i know game 7 is on i-tunes, i have it. games 2 and 7 are on mlb.com, and game 5 is on rare sports films. this would be good to see on dvd, maybe in its complete form with commercials and pre-game shows

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