1962 World Series Game 7: Newsreel or broadcast?

The biggest thing that comes along when doing this 'investigative' work is trying to decipher what you're really seeing. When it comes to game footage, in general, you can tell if something is a kinescope because of the way the image will be lit (coming off the TV screen), or you can tell something is more likely game film because of camera angles and old MLB Productions 'effects'. With videotape, it's also very obvious because of the saturation and framerate.

However, when it comes to this footage, I honestly can't figure it out.

MLB Networks showed this clip for the first time I'd ever seen back in the spring. I saved it for a future article, in fact, I've written this article on 2 separate occasions but deleted it because I honestly can't tell if this is broadcast footage or a news reel.

Thus, I turn to you, the readers for your help. What you'll need first is a link to the video.

Facebook Share Added

Allowing you to link to the blog posts on your Facebook walls, should you chose. Only problem right now is trying to find way to get descriptions to NOT be the first comment by a commenter.

Anyone with HTML knowledge, feel free to help.

Share away!

We're off on the road to Morro---er, Pittsburgh

By now, I'm sure all of you have heard the story. But it is worth retelling on this, the 50th anniversary of 'The Game'. Some say this game alone is what got the sure-handed Bill Mazeroski into the HOF. On this date, 50 years ago at 3:36 pm, the 2nd basemen did what few men could do: Brought the powerhouse Yankees to their knees.

Last month it was reported that the curator of the Bing Crosby estate had contacted MLB about a rare print he had found in the basement. Robert Bader told them that he had found a print that when projected seemed to show the complete broadcast of the 1960 World Series. As he tells it, they replied back to him "You must be mistaken..." Yet, there is was, in the basement/wine cellar/film vault of the old crooner.





What makes this story remarkable is that no one ever thought to look or for that matter no Pirates historian never even thought of it. The closest we came to that was a lead Doak Ewing once had, per a 2006 USA Today article:

Redundancy and some such....

In this hobby, loss of material is a constant battle we face. For years, we've been fighting against the elements: fire, water, dust in the destruction of rare prints or footage of game broadcasts. Once we lose these precious resources, they are gone forever.

However, in today's world of technology, we face a new adversary: data loss. In that battle, I lost. A little personal backstory: Since 2006, I've been a nearly rabid collector of St. Louis Cardinals complete game broadcast. There were, up until a few weeks ago, only a handful of games from the 2006-2010 seasons that I didn't have. With this being a hobby and not the entirety of my life, recordings don't get edited right away, drives get filled, things don't always get done in a timely fashion. Not to mention, my collecting/recording was not limited to the Cardinals. Some NFL, PGA and the Cleveland Cavaliers also kept the personal collection going year round.

Then data loss hits. A combination of Cavaliers games, Cardinals games (2009-2010) and the reason this blog hasn't been updated: my classic game recordings all were lost. Now, that doesn't mean all my classic game material is gone. Hard copies were made, some games and footage were already transferred to portable drives.

None of this is an excuse for going dark. It just sucked the joy out of the hobby. A lot of stress and work went into maintaining free space and manipulating a personal schedule to acquire those games only to see them disappear in a nanosecond. Anytime I even thought about writing, it was a reminder of the games I lost that I doubted I'd ever get back. It was also a reminder of my own personal failings in falling behind in my editing and cataloging of materials. With that, the totality of the data loss will never be truly known.

Hopefully, with a return to some normalcy I'll begin to try to go out into the community and fill in the missing holes I have from my collection. For someone that was very specific in how he recorded the games and how he maintained quality on them, that will be a challenge. With that, though, I will hopefully begin to update this blog again as the off-season clip shows and rebroadcasts begin to pop-up on schedules.

To those who have contacted me over the last few weeks, I appreciate the words and the interest. Those who I had arrangements with, those will be coming soon.

Thanks to all for your patience and BACK UP YOUR DATA!!!!

1973: The Year of Nolan Ryan

Annoyingly enough, the media has dubbed this season the 'Year of the Pitcher' because of the rash of no-hitters being thrown. This is just foolishness, as this season doesn't have more no-hitters than more than a handful of other seasons.

With Garza throwing the 5th no-hitter of the season last night, it brought this season into a tie with 1973. In that season, Nolan Ryan had arguably his best season as a pitcher. Becoming only the 4th player in Major League history, and the last to do so, to throw 2 no-hitters in a a single season, Ryan finished his highest in the Cy Young voting that year. He lost to Jim Palmer, despite having a mind boggling 383 strikeouts.

For a player bemoaned as over-rated by some, it is fascinating to look at Nolan Ryan's statistic and wonder how anyone could come up with that idea. If the objective of a pitcher is to give his team the best chance to win each day he takes the mound, Nolan Ryan did that. Not only did he throw 7 no-hitters in his career, when none of his contemporaries even threw 3, he took 24 games into the 7th inning with a chance for a no-hitter only to have them broken.

Above that, Ryan holds the record for most strikeouts in a 9 inning no-hitter with 17, on July 15, 1973.

And that's the game we are going to talk about today.

The 1965 All-Star Game Review

"They invented the All-Star Game for Willie Mays." – Ted Williams

With this broadcast, we have the lone full game that features a Willie Mays homerun. Willie didn’t waste any time as he took the second pitch he saw deep into the left-center stands. Mays, wearing Billy Williams batting helmet, batted lead off in this game. Mays batted leadoff in 8 All-Star Games, something he rarely did in the regular season.

A pledge, of sorts...

I'd like to thank all that have shown great interest in the blog. I recently added the email tab and had no idea that there was this kind of following to the writing. I thought, in large part, that a great deal of this was just me writing to myself.

So, with that in mind, starting next Tuesday I pledge to finish out the baseball season with a post every week. Next Tuesday will obviously cover a review of the broadcast and film quality of the 1965 MLB All-Star Game that just aired. After that, there are a few clips I still haven't brought up and I will begin to catalogue for those who aren't in the 'trading community' which full game broadcast we DO know we have and what quality they are.

Again, thank you all for your support and hopefully we will have a lot more to talk about in the coming weeks.

Where the 1965 Recording came from

Despite not hearing back from MLB directly, The New York Post was able to shed some light on where the broadcast came from:

The black and white film's arrival at MLB Network makes for a good story, too. The only known recording of the game came to Secaucus, N.J., eventually, starting from an Alaskan TV station. Years ago, the biggest televised sports and news events wound up in film reel boxes in Alaska and Hawaii for viewing by U.S. servicemen, then shipment to our servicemen stationed further into the Far East.

The 1965 All-Star Game reels made it, somehow, from Minnesota to Alaska, to the Sports Museum of New England, then to MLB Productions. There is still an Alaska, August, 1965, postmark on the packaging containing the three reels.

I almost wonder if our pointing out that MLB acquired prints from the SMNE in the article from a few years ago jogged MLB's memory that they did in fact acquire some prints.

Doubtful.

Still very grateful this is seeing the light of day.

New Game Alert: 1965 All-Star Game

On July 11th, at 8 pm ET MLB Network has listed that they will be airing the 1965 MLB All-Star Game. This will be the first airing of the game that I know of since the original broadcast. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail as I will save that for when the broadcast actually happens but needless to say I've got some feelers out to try and find where this broadcast popped up from.

I just wanted to throw this up to give people a heads-up of the coming broadcast.

36th MLB All-Star Game (1965)
July 11th, 2010 @ 8 pm ET on MLB NETWORK

(Bob) Moose hunting

This now marks the THIRD reference to Bob Moose on this blog. When we reached the 2nd reference, I remarked how improbable even that instance was.

Bob Moose, who tragically died in an automobile accident on his 29th birthday, authored the 2nd No Hitter in Shea Stadium history. This achievement came on September 20, 1969.

I really didn't think any footage from this game existed, however I was watching a Pirates/Cubs game on Memorial Day when this clip was shown during a commercial break.