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1968 All-Star Game

2012-01-24T17:16:00.007-05:00

The 1968 All-Star Game was the first All-Star game to be played indoors. During a season in which pitching dominated baseball, the All-Star Game was no exception. Willie Mays would lead off the game with a single, promptly stole second and eventually come around to score. This would be the only offense of the game.

The game action picks up as Curt Gowdy is reading down the American League lineup. I am nearly 99% certain that the pregame exists of this broadcast. The first reel lasts only 13 minutes, while the second lasts nearly 32. On average, a game takes 5 reels to complete which fits about 25-35 minutes of action on it. So, wherever the original source material is (I’m sure by now MLB has either acquired it or made a copy), I have to believe it contains the footage.

On my copy of the game, you can clearly tell this is a DVD copy of a VHS copy of a kinescope. Throughout the DVD, there are tracking lines near the bottom that you get with most amateur VHS to DVD copies.

First is reel 1, second is reel 2, third is MLB Networks BS1968 copy of Reel 1

The first reel of the kinescope features a fair amount of static and ‘blocking’. The blocking is more than likely do to the poor transfer done by the person that made the video that eventually lead to my copy and not due to the original source material. However, when the game switches to the second reel the contrast of the kinescope becomes horrid. This screengrab is at the worst point of the recording, with the picture completely washed out.

In reel three, seen here as Killebrew injures himself doing the splits on a Curt Flood grounder, the contrast improves to a watchable level but nowhere near as strong as the first reel. Killebrew would miss most of the rest of the season and suffer from pain for more than a year due to the rupture suffered during this play.

For the first time since reel one, the contrast is strong. There are some scenes where the light and the dark blend together but for the most part the darks are dark and lights not overwashed. Unfortunately, reel four suffers from audio problems. A static, similar to what you would get if recording audio turned up too loud, persist throughout the entire reel. This was not on the original broadcast, as the overlap between reel three and four does not have it. The static continues onto reel 5 and 6.

The broadcast featured a wide variety of some of the inovations of the era. Statistical overlays, split screen, picture-in-picture and slow motion were used throughout. Seen here is the use of the overhead camera place at-top the Astrodome as NBC used an overlay to advertise the following week's broadcast.

This copy of the game features the short postgame show with an interview of Willie Mays and a booth recap by both Curt Gowdy and Sandy Koufax.

For comparison sake, here are some clips from MLB Network’s Baseball’s Seasons 1968 that showcased the All-Star Game. The footage suffers from static in some place, but the picture quality is obviously much higher.

In another MLB Network special, Studio 42, the at-bat between a young Tom Seaver and a very old Mickey Mantle highlights that the footage found on the copy widely available to the public is of a much lesser quality than what MLB has (although from the same source). Seaver and Bob Costas talk over the entire clip, not allowing for broadcast audio to be heard. The segment can be seen here.

Commercials, like on my other kinescopes of the era, are intact. Featured are Gillette Super Foamy, hangover medication and Dodge unveiling their latest lines for the new year. This kinescope could very well come from the same source that had the 1968 World Series. Like the 1968 World Series, this broadcast was recorded off of CBC signal.

One He Got at Shea

2012-01-19T21:11:00.006-05:00

If I told you to name the Top 3 triples hitters in Cardinals history, I'd imagine at least one of those 3 names would include Lou Brock. If it did, you'd be wrong. Lou actually was 4th All-Time on the Cardinals triple list and as another testiment to his greatness, Stan Musial tops the list with 36 more in his career.

But this post is only about one of Lou Brock's triples, one he hit into the spacious right centerfield gap at Shea Stadium.

This one was pretty easy, especially when dealing with something as rare as a triple. However, I'll still go through the steps. As was stated in the Carlton clip, the uniform Brock is wearing was 1971 and beyond. Brock played until 1979. So, we have a clip that spans between those years.

The pitcher is wearing #43. He is also right handed. During that span, RH pitchers for the Mets wearing that number include Jim McAndrew (1968 -1973), Paul Seibert (1977-78) and Juan Berenguer (1979). A few things on this, Seibert throws LH and Juan Berenguer is from Panama. The pitcher in this clip is lighter skinned and throws RH.

As far as triples go, Brock hit 4 triples at Shea Stadium from 1971-1979 and only 2 during McAndrew's tenure with the team. Both of those, oddly enough came off of McAndrew.

The first of those came on September 28th, 1971. McAndrew relieved Nolan Ryan in the first inning following a 4 walk, 1 hit and no out performance. Brock would triple to RF in the 2nd.

The 2nd of those is our actual game on August 5th, 1973. In the 3rd inning, Brock stepped in following previous KSH subject Rick Wise's solo shot and ripped a liner into RCF gap for a triple. What makes this the clip is the CF. From 1971 through 1974, Don Hahn wore #25 for the Mets. In the 1971 game, Hahn actually PH for McAndrew and never saw the field where as in the 1973 game, he started in CF and played the whole game.

There is no game audio on this clip. The source is a Cardinals highlight film called "St. Louis Cardinals: The Movie" by Philo Films.

Sat down on 714

2012-01-15T11:04:00.005-05:00

In order for Milo Hamilton to famously state that Hank was "sittin' on 714", Aaron would have to hit his 714th career homerun. He ended the 1973 season with 713 homeruns after taking Jerry Reuss deep on the second-to-last day of the season.

Henry wasted no time in 1974 in tying The Babe, blasting his first homerun of the season on Opening Day in his first at-bat. In Riverfront Stadium on April 4, 1974 Hank Aaron tied Babe Ruth on the career homerun list.

Following the homerun, the game was stopped and Commissioner Kuhn and Vice President Gerald Ford (after a dispute with the groundscrew) stepped onto the field and presented Hank with an award for reaching the top of baseball's homerun list.

I have seen the video clip of the homerun in two places now. In MLBNetwork's Baseball Seasons: 1974 and in Ken Burn's 'Baseball'. Both featured the homerun, with Baseball Seasons filling out the surrounding at-bat and the post-homerun ceremony.

The BS: 1974 clip features the Milo Hamilton radio call, which is widely available in trading circles. The source of this color footage is not known despite my best efforts to narrow down between NBC, WLWT or WTCG.

As always, any help or information on the broadcast would be appreciated. As far as archiving goes, there could be two schools of thought on this game. First being, they stopped recording the game after Aaron hit his 714th during the first inning. The second, and what I think is more likely, is that the rest of the game was also recorded because each at-bat had the potential to be the record breaking 715th homerun. From there, however, whether this first inning footage was clipped and the rest destroyed, I do not know and only the people at MLBAM know how much of this broadcast they have.

The REAL Tony C Comeback video

2011-04-28T11:18:00.009-04:00

Thanks to my favorite tipster, the actual footage of Tony C's game was stumbled upon. The screengrabs shown have been cropped to protect the actual source.

I can tell you that this footage existed for over 20 years. After that, I have no knowledge if the original source footage is still there. As I said before, MLB appears to have hodge-podged the clip in their special together. That doesn't mean they DON'T have this footage, as in the past they've used poor quality footage or no clips at all to talk about games or events that they actually have broadcast footage for. What I do know is that this clip, which is part of another broadcast, still exists and is out there.

The clip is over 20 seconds long. It starts with the crowd applauding Tony C as he comes to bat and then shows him standing in the box waiting on the pitch. It DOES NOT show the footage that I showed in the last post of upclose on his face:

The quality this time is of broadcast quality. All the way down to the rounded edges on the image and the actual framerate speed.

Here we see Tony C touching homeplate for REAL this time, which is not remotely close to what we saw in the other footage used by MLBNetwork.

Finally, Tony C is congratulated by #40 Ken 'The Hawk' Harrelson (who was the Opening Day 1B) and we see him go into the dugout and receive a kiss on the check from his manager.

Once again, thanks to my favorite tipster for uncovering this serendipitous discovery!

Tony C's comeback game

2011-04-24T17:20:00.005-04:00

In the 4th inning of an August 18, 1967 game, Boston RF Tony Conigliaro was struck in the eye by a Jack Hamilton pitch. Conigliaro was having, what would have been, his best pro season on a team that would eventually find it's way into a 7 game World Series defeat.

Not for a season and a half later would Tony C play in a Major League Baseball game. His first game back would be Opening Day 1969 in Baltimore. Until now, I had not seen any footage of this game. What we have, though, is color broadcast footage thanks to MLB Network.

All footage comes from a 15 second clip of MLB Network's 50 Most Memorable Opening Acts, a show about Opening Day performances. In the clip is the 1969 Opening Day game.

The game would go into the 10th inning, which is where it appears we pick up here. In the 10th of this game, Tony C hit a HR, to give the Red Sox a brief lead. The game would be tied again and eventually won in the 12th.

More than likely what we are seeing here is news footage from a local station either in Boston or Baltimore. First, we see Tony C stepping into the box in what has the look of broadcast footage.

The clips of the ball in flight appear to be from something much grainer and less 'broadcast' polished, as if it was MLB Film footage. It could also be recorded footage for the news broadcast as opposed to the other clips being from the actual game broadcast.

It cuts back to a much better frame quality and rate of Tony C touching home. You can see George Scott waiting to hit after him.

Keeping in the broadcast footage, we see postgame handshakes of the pitcher coming off the field. Here is the interesting part. The footage shows a pitcher with #30 coming off the field. The number belongs to Jose Santiago according to Baseball Almanac.com. Jose Santiago, who might not even be the guy pictured, didn't pitch for the 1969 Red Sox until August.

Also in the mix is #1. One would think that it would be Billy Conigliaro, who wore that number ath the start of the 1969 season. However, the player is African American, which would lead you to believe it is Joe Azcue. Azcue didn't join the team until April 23rd and was traded by the beginning of June.

In all honesty, I have absolutely no idea what this is a clip of. The final parts of the clip are dark, which even though the game went 12 innings, it also only went 3 hours and 40 some minutes which would leave it at around 6 pm. Early in the year, it is possible to be that dark.

What I am also seeing is that Tony C stepping to the plate appears to have blue seats in the background, like those you'd see at Yankee Stadium. He has longer sleeves, which he doesn't have when he touches home. If I had to bet, I'd wager that the footage of him coming to bat is that from April 14, 1967 and Billy Rohr's near no-hitter (which I have seen footage of). Either way, I'm thoroughly confused. The only real broadcast footage which I believe is Tony C from Opening Day is him touching homeplate.

Hey! Hey! The Ken Holtzman no-hitter

2011-01-27T14:41:00.003-05:00

With the death of Ron Santo, MLB.tv released a brief highlight video of the 3rd baseman's playing days. Included in it were clips from many games over the 1969-1972 seasons. One clip that stood out was a part of the Ken Holtzman no-hitter that I had never seen.

A big hat tip goes out to twib77 for bringing these clips to my attention.

In the past, I had seen clips of the 9th inning. We will get to that later. What I hadn't seen until a few months ago was the footage from the 7th inning. On top of that, what I hadn't seen until 3 days ago was the clip from the FIRST inning of that game.

All of this footage is WGN COLOR broadcast footage. I'll break it down after the jump.

First things first, here is the boxscore for the August 19th, 1969 game. What could have been a preview of the first ever NLCS, the Cubs stood 8 games ahead of 2nd place for the last time following this game. From this point on, they went into a tailspin that actually had them finishing 8 games OUT of first place.

The newest clip first of all is this, the Ron Santo at-bat vs Phil Niekro. With 2 on and 1 out, Santo hit a ball over the ivy in LF for a 3-run HR. That was the 3rd hit of the inning for the Cubs, on a day where they only had 5.

Jump ahead to the 7th inning. We get a fateful at-bat between Hank Aaron and Holtzman. Aaron jumps on a pitch in the general direction Santo blasted his HR to, in which Jack Brickhouse exclaims "There goes the no-hitter" only to have the Wrigley wind bring the ball into the nook in LF to be caught for the first out.

In the closing 9th inning, Santo gobbles up a groundball to 3B for a bang-bang play preserving the no hitter with 2 outs in the 9th.

To close out the ining, Aaron takes aim at Holtzman again with a long at-bat that finally ends with a groundout to 2B.

The Cubs, Santo included, mob the pitcher on the mound.

Some of these clips come from the Santo montage, others come from a source I'm not at liberty to share at the moment. They are a highlight film, which can put some doubt on whether a full broadcast exists. However, all of these not only include broadcast audio but are extended enough to make it seem that large chunks of the game atleast exists.

Above all having those highlight clips and now this Santo footage makes it more of a possibility today than it was a month ago that this game exists in the massive WGN archives in it's entirity.

Happy New Year and 1971 Cardinals

2011-01-05T13:31:00.005-05:00

Happy New Year to all. This week, I'll be posting a few clips of 1971 St. Louis Cardinals broadcast footage. I will preface this as saying that MLB has already informed me that these come from highlight videos and that actual full game broadcasts do not exist. That's their official statement, take it for what it's worth.

First up, we have a clip of "Lefty" Steve Carlton at Wrigley Field. Before we get into other stuff, let's nail down a few parameters. First off, the two Cardinals in this clip are Joe Torre and Steve Carlton. Both were on the team together from 1969-1971. Furthemore, per uniwatch, the St. Louis Cardinals switched to the pullover tops that Torre and Carlton are both wearing for the first time in the 1971 season. So while Torre was with the Cardinals through the 1974 Season, Steve Carlton painfully was not.

With that in mind, let's get into the action.

Steve Carlton faced the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field in 1971 on 3 occasions. Those games were April 7, June 17, and September 17 . Joe Torre played 3B in all of them.

The hitter for the Cubs, #18 is Glenn Beckert. Beckert did not play in the September game, leaving us with April 7 and June 17. As you can tell (if you see the video), the first base umpire signals that Beckert is safe on his bunt to 3B attempt. The only successful bunt Beckert had against Carlton to Torre that season at Wrigley Field happened in the 2nd inning of the June 17th game. Cardinals went on to lose that game in the 10th inning, 7-6.

Next time up, Joe Torre and the longball.

1960 World Series Game 7 Live-Blog

2010-12-15T00:33:00.002-05:00

Schedule:
Wednesday
7:30 EST - Bing and Baseball
8:00 - 11:00 EST - 1960 World Series Game 7
Thursday
12:30 EST - Bing and Baseball
1:00 - 4 am EST - 1960 World Series Game 7
2:30 EST - Bing and Baseball
3:00 - 6:00 EST - 1960 World Series Game 7

Thought lost forever, tonight the world (those who didn't order the DVD from Amazon.com) gets to see the game broadcast for only the second time in history. This broadcast marks the 2nd time in only a handful of years that one of the most significant games in baseball history was unearthed from oblivion.

Years ago when I started getting serious about really old classic baseball broadcast, there were only a handful of games to be known out there. The widely circulated ones like the 1952 World Series, 1965 and 1968 World Series, as well as the 1969 Fall Classic. Most of the content was scattered over a multitude of private collector's who feared confiscation, regional sports networks/broadcast partners who feared losing their claim to copyrighted content or was hidden away in the various team/MLB vaults never to be seen by fans.

With the advent of MLB Network, it seemed MLB became more focused on filling their network with content as well as doubling down on their efforts to catalog all their existing footage. Likewise, this brought more collectors out of the woodwork and made visable to non-collectors who had footage that there was someone out there looking for it.

Not to continue on from this little history jaunt, this 1960 World Series game ranks up there with 1962 World Series Game 7, 1951 NL Playoff Game 3 and Aaron's 715 game as defining moments in MLB history. And tonight, for those of us not alive when Bill Mazeroski punched his HOF ticket with a 9th inning shot over the brick wall at beautiful Forbes Field, we get to experience what it must have felt like seeing it live.

In this game, we get to see in live motion, not edited to only show their great feats some truely legendary figures. Maris, Mantle, Groat, The Great One, and Yogi.

I only have 1 major groundrule for tonight, if you normally don't post or even if you do, make sure you use a unique username. It makes it easier to put words to one particular poster. If it is a thread of anonymous, it'll seem like all one person.

If you've just been a fan in the past and never posted, jump in tonight. You might not get another chance to chat with fellow classic broadcast fans during one of the greatest events we could possibly have.

Announcement: MLB Network Presents 1960 World Series Game 7

2010-12-13T19:35:00.002-05:00

Tomorrow night, I plan on live blogging the 1960 Rebroadcast. It won't be anything official in nature, more of a laid back dialogue between commenter and fans alike. Hopefully it will allow us more of a 'community' feel.

It is rare that a night like tomorrow night comes along. A year ago, if you asked me to come up with a top 5 Holy Grail baseball broadcast list, this game would be on it everytime. So, let's try to make the most of it.

Just drop by a little before 8 pm EST when the broadcast actually begins. At 7:30, MLB Network is airing a special on Bing Crosby and the discovery of this print.

So, I'll put up a post tomorrow afternoon and drop by during the broadcast and give a running commentary of what you think of the broadcast. Let's have some fun with it. Discoveries like this will become fewer and further between from here on out.

In the immortal words of the late Jack Buck: We'll See You Tomorrow Night!

1962 World Series Game 7: Newsreel or broadcast?

2010-11-06T14:45:00.004-04:00

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.

The 1965 All-Star Game Review

2010-07-20T14:15:00.008-04:00

"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.

As for the broadcast, it is a mixed bag. The footage is very ‘watchable’ but is only slightly better than the 1968 All-Star Game kinescope and nowhere near as crisp as the 1965 or 1968 World Series kinescope. The print suffers from a large amount of dirt and the original recording appears to have been record with a considerable amount of OTA static and noise.

From Light.....

....To Dark

Evidenced above, you can see that NBC is using their 4 year old Instant Replay technology. Whenever NBC cue'd up the footage, a signal disruption wiped the screen of the live feed and momentarily began the replay. Likewise, NBC had atleast 5 camera angles in this broadcast. The baseline camera (both sides), the high angle above homeplate, the CF camera and the behind homeplate cameras were all in use.

When digitizing the print, MLB seems to have not applied any post-enhancements. There are major contrast problems, either due to lack of lens filters during the broadcast or lighting changes in the kinescope recording environment. I lean more towards it being during the broadcast as only certain camera angles continually suffer from it. Having been spoiled over the last 15 years by great restorations of classic prints involving films, it is a bit disheartening that MLB doesn’t invest the resources in preserving and restoring these classic broadcast. Clearly, it lacks the revenue that a restored print of The Wizard of Oz or North by Northwest brings back to the restoring studio but these broadcast are disappearing treasures that once gone we can’t ever get back.

For MLB Network’s credit, they included a few of the classic commercials. The traditional sponsors such as Gillette and Plymouth were left in. What other commercials existed, I don’t know as there doesn’t seem to be a copy of this broadcast unedited in the trading community. Annoyingly, MLB Network ran their ‘baseline’ throughout the entire broadcast, taking away from the experience.

Part of the past allure of the ASG was that it was often the only time you got to see your favorite players square off against the best of another franchise. An interesting example is the late game at-bat between Willie Horton and Bob Gibson. In the 1968 World Series, Horton is famously the 17th strikeout (as well as the 4th) in Game 1 of that series. Here, in this 1965 game, Horton faces Gibson for the first time in his career. How does Gibson handle the at-bat? He throws him a first pitch curveball for a foul strike, then lets one slip right above Horton’s head. Gibson relied heavily on his breaking ball in the at-bat. In the ’68 series, Horton struckout 5 times, picking up 2 hits out of 11 at-bats vs Hoot, taking his ‘career’ numbers to 2-12 with 6 k’s vs Gibby. He would later face Gibson one final time in the 1970 ASG, going 1-for-1 with a single.

Unfortunately, a lot of the pregame footage is cut from the broadcast. There are quite a few jumpcuts that eliminate the introduction of the broadcast, the introduction of the reserves, the national anthem, etc. Hopefully someday MLB releases the full broadcast of this game either on DVD or on digital media outlets. Even if they do, the likelihood of the broadcast being unedited is slim, as even the 2004 NLCS games they’ve released have a lot of the pregame footage and postgame interviews chopped. When they released the 1968 World Series Game 1, they did the same even though both exist in their entirety in the trading community.

A pledge, of sorts...

2010-07-15T13:52:00.000-04:00

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

2010-07-09T13:16:00.002-04:00

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

2010-07-03T10:29:00.005-04:00

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

2010-06-29T13:17:00.007-04:00

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.

As you can see at the very bottom of the screengrab, there is white lettering throughout, as if this is a recap of the game. The video footage that does exist is of the last inning, as Moose gets Art Shamsky to groundout to Dave Cash for the final out.

I'm not sure where this footage came from. I would say that it was footage from the Mets home broadcast, however I've seem similar footage (lighting and color) of the final out made at Forbes Field. I have yet to see the Shea Stadium DVD that was released when Shea was in it's final season, so anyone with access to that, please pass along if this clip is included. I'd imagine, like most No-No's of the era, the only surviving footage is of either the last inning or just the last out.

As a bonus, this SNS clip was included. It is game footage, however is clearly not broadcast footage. It appears to be the remnants of a news broadcast.

(Lack of) 1967 World Series Complete Game Broadcasts

2010-03-01T02:34:00.006-05:00

Ok, so let's try to get this thing figured out.

I finally found the article I KNEW I had read and that I KNEW stated that MLB had acquired 2 complete broadcasts from the 1967 Series.

Well, here is the quote:

"We know what we have in our archive. But as recently as seven years ago when MLB Productions was brought in-house, we were opening boxes that we didn't know what was in them," Scott said. "Talk about a treasure hunt for archivists. We know what we've got now. But occasionally we will discover that someone else has something that we don't."

The search for more content is a never-ending process. MLB just acquired a couple of complete games from the 1967 World Series.

The article was written for BaseballAmerica.com by J.J. Cooper and has an interview with Elizabeth Scott, Major League Baseball Productions vice president of programming and business affairs.

This article is from April 19, 2007 .

So I tried contacting J.J. Cooper on 3 different occasions to no response.

With that avenue closed, I tried contacting MLB.

MLB did respond saying they knew of no such acquisition but that they were intrigued by the claim in the article and would looking into it further.

The frustrating thing for me is that all the footage used in the Baseball Seasons 1967 was saved. Most of it probably came from TV News footage but it is, in fact, clips of broadcast footage. Not ONE single frame of TV broadcast footage from the 1967 World Series was saved? Not in a news clipping, not on an old kinescope, not by a home collector in the greater Boston area.

Part of this could be rooted in the fact that the Red Sox had fallen so out of favor with the locals in the years before that many were disinterested in saving footage. Likewise, with the Red Sox going down in defeat in a Game 7 blowout, local producers and collectors may have believed the games weren't worth saving.

The game I'm extremely surprised does not exist is Game 2. In Game 2, Jim Lonborg threw a 1 hitter and Yaz hit 2 HRs at home in Fenway Park. If ever a game was going to be saved (besides a Game 7 clincher) it would have been this one.

I'm certainly not going to give up searching and certainly hope to hear back again from MLB, but for now it appears that if this series DOES exist, it exists in the hands of private collectors.

The Good News: Cubs Fail - Bad News: So Does Lefty

2010-03-01T01:35:00.008-05:00

How glorious YouTube truly is. Because of it, we get rare footage that pops up every once in awhile. This footage may not be something MLB Network actually has, however, or else they failed miserably for not using it at all during their Baseball Seasons: 1969 special.

What we have here is actual game footage from the pennant clinching game on September 24, 1969. The Mets played the Cardinals and dispatched of future HOF'er and better-than-Rick-Wise pitcher Steve Carlton in the first inning.

First up is footage from the first inning. With Bud Harrelson at 2B and Tom Agee at 1B, Don Clendenon took a Carlton pitch deep to RF for a 3-run HR.

Following this, we are treated to the last batter Carlton faced that evening, still in the first inning. Eddie Charles blasted Carlton's just to the left of the Shea Stadium scoreboard and just beyond the outstretched reach of Curt Flood (whose bickering about the management's comitment to winning in '69 would lead to his infamous trade).
With Carlton out of the game, the fun didn't stop for Don Clendenon. In the bottom of the 5th, he touched off another one to RF, this time off reliever Dave Giusti (whom this Cardinals fan didn't even remember pitched for the Cardinals).

Mets starter Gary Gentry went the distance, finishing off the pennant by getting Joe Torre to ground into a 6-4-3 double play to end the game.

What followed was footage of the postgame celebration, with the fimiliar camera angle of the Mets players coming down the ramp into the clubhouse just as they would after clinching the World Series in a few short weeks. But this postgame footage, which is one continous broadcast from the last pitch until Ralph Kiner sends it back to the studio, is for another post.

All of this footage comes from a program that was compiled for Channel 9 which aired shortly before the League Championship Series titled "To Mets With Love". This is actual broadcast footage. In the 5th inning, Ralph Kiner calls the Clendenon homerun with his customary "It is gone, goodbye!" In the first inning, it is Bob Murphy. It was customary for Murphy to do the first 3 innings, Kiner the middle 3 and then leave it to be finished by Lindsey Nelson.

What is infinantly cool about this clip is it has Nelson's famous line:

At 9:07 on September 24th, the New York Mets clinched the Eastern Division of the National League.

The video tape that exists of this is in pretty bad shape and pretty washed out. Rumor is that when Channel 9 was dumping all their old Mets footage, Lindsey Nelson actually was sent a copy (the only copy?) of "To Mets With Love". Hopefully, though, MLB has gotten a copy of this documentary from either his estate or the Channel 9 vault. It is a recap of the 1969 season and you can clearly see that there is more footage both before and after the clip loaded onto YouTube.

Two divisions, one series

2010-02-16T12:25:00.004-05:00

For 100 years, Major League Baseball had existed in the simplest form of 2 leagues. Whether it be 154 games or 162 games, the pennants of each league were award to those who finished the marathon with the most wins. Yet, because of expansion in 1961(62) and 1969, MLB felt that with 4 new teams in each league, each league needed to be divided up into 2 divisions. To facilitate this, a league championship series was created in which the champions from each division would compete in a best of 5 series.

During the kinescope era (until 1976) there were 14 league championship series played. In the National League, that accounts for 27 games. Not a single full broadcast copy of any of those 27 games exists. In fact, the only American League Championship Series broadcast that exists prior to 1976 is of Game 2 of the 1972 series.

What we have left is snippets, brief little glimpses of actual broadcast footage. Most of these continue to exist thanks to whatever footage was used for nightly news broadcasts. Generally, those feature only the audio from the actual sports anchor in the studio and not the original television crew.

So, where to begin? The first LCS seems as good a place as any. 1969 is a year that features the oldest known copy of a color World Series broadcast. Luckily, some enterprising people had the warewithal to preserve the color 'truck feed' tapes from the 3 World Series games played at Shea Stadium. The first two games in Baltimore are preserved via CBC kinescopes. Due to this, we are able to see this series in it's entirity.

Yet, those same enterprising folks did not seem to see fit to preserve the first ever League Championship Series. The Miracle Mets were pitted against the West Champion Atlanta Braves and their offense with Hammerin' Hank and The Baby Bull Cepeda in the middle of the lineup. The Mets made quick work of said Braves in 3 games.

It is that Game 3, at Shea Stadium again, that we have SOME color footage. What we have is a Hank Aaron HR in the 1st inning off of Gary Gentry:

It was a 2 run homerun as you can see Tony Gonzalez waiting at home along with the following batter Rico Carty.

The only other broadcast glimpse we get is of Braves starter Pat Jarvis. The clip is spliced together with some MLB Films footage in the Baseball Seasons: 1969 broadcast that all these shots come from. In that scene, Mets 2B Ken Boswell takes Jarvis deep. This happened in the bottom of the 4th inning.

Obviously, if a full broadcast of this game existed, MLB would have made it availible in one way, shape or form over the last few years. Somewhere in the trading community we would have seen it pop up. Even with the lack of a full broadcast, once it again it would fantastic to see just how much of this broadcast truly exists in the MLB vault. It is a real treat to see Hank Aaron in broadcast footage as an Atlanta Braves slugger other than 715, 714 and the 1971 All-Star Game.

June 7, 1969 - Reds vs Cubs (in Living Color, I swear!)

2009-12-05T13:40:00.009-05:00

Once again, MLB Network has provided glorious fodder for me to dredge the internet looking for exact moments their footage shows. The recent Baseball Seasons 1969 episode gave me a slew of footage I'll be talking about in the next few weeks. However, I'm going to start with yet ANOTHER Chicago Cubs game. This one comes from the World Seri....oh wait.

Anyways, let's run down the clip:

The Reds pitcher is #30 Jim Merritt. He only pitched at Wrigley Field twice in 1969. The batter is #14 Mr. Cub Ernie Banks. He homered in BOTH games that season at Wrigley vs Merritt. Just for good measure, that is Ron Santo standing on 2B.

The two games in question are June 7th and August 26th. On June 7th, Santo hit an RBI single in the 1st inning and advanced to 2B on a wild pitch before Banks homered. On August 26th, Banks hit a solo shot in the 4th inning.

Randy Hundley (#9) is the following hitter and he followed Banks directly only on June 7th.

To be clear, I am sure this a 1969 video clip because of the centennial patch on the sleeves of all the players.

Next, we have a clip of Cubs pitcher #49 Bill Hands pitching to #23, Reds slugger Lee May. Lee May will ground out to 3B Ron Santo for a putout at 1B. Lee May only faced Bill Hands in two games in 1969 at Wrigley Field, June 7th and August 25th.

On August 25th, he lit Hands up but recorded his only two outs with two strikeouts. On June 7th, May grounded out to 3B Ron Santo in the 6th inning with the bases empty.

So, I can say with 100% certainty that this footage comes from this game. The question is, how much really exists? We've got two clips from two completely different innings and very seperate parts of the ballgame.

To add more mystery to the situation, I searched a thread I stumbled upon a bit ago on The506.com, a Broadcast Map website. In it was included all the NBC Game of the Week broadcasts from 1967-1971. On the list, was found:

6/7/69
Cincinnati @ Chicago Cubs--Curt Gowdy, Tony Kubek
Washington @ Minnesota--Jim Simpson, Sandy Koufax

What is interesting was this comment by poster 'BearFan':

The June 7th 1969 game with the Reds visiting the Cubs had something unusual about it. Because the Cubs televised every home game and the Reds did all Saturday away games, there weren't enough COLOR television lines for NBC. They had to keep running disclaimers about it since the Game of the Week was in glorious, black and white that day. It's difficult to believe that even though it was about a month prior to landing people on the moon, color television transmission had not fully matured yet.

So, what feed are we looking at here? I can tell you that the audio doesn't seem to be from a Cubs broadcast. The announcer is very subdued, like Curt Gowdy traditionally would be and it lacks the trademark 'Hey Hey' of Jack Brickhouse. From an audio standpoint, this would either be the NBC feed or the Reds feed. In 1969, the Reds were on WLWT (an NBC affiliate). The PBP announcer was Ed Kennedy. I am not fimiliar with the protocol on this, whether a local NBC affiliate would go to all the cost of creating their own broadcast for a Saturday game while the National NBC team were going to be doing a broadcast of the very same game.

Either way, I'm very intrigued by this footage....because according to the MLB Records, this game NEVER HAPPENED. Due to the lack of lights at Wrigley Field, the game was called at 3:50 pm amidst rain. The National League decided to restart the game from scratch on August 26th as part of a day-day doubleheader at Wrigley Field. The stats, however, were retained by the individual players for the day. Which, statistically, would have moved Ernie Banks from a tie on the career HR list with Eddie Mathews down to a tie with Mel Ott.

We will probably never know how much of this footage MLB has in their vault. When little clips like this pop up, you have to keep an eye-out and hope more can be pieced together from a certain game. What we do know is that 2 at-bats (one from the 1st inning and the 6th) have been preserved from a game that technically never happened.

Reason #4,927 in favor of the 1968 World Series DVD set

2009-10-20T16:46:00.005-04:00

Bonus Material! No game footage this time. Not even kinescope. This is some solid color tape that was brought to my attention by twib77 (yet again!). George Kell and Larry Osterman of WJBK are giving viewers the inside-the-locker room celebration after the Tigers clinch the 1968 American League Pennant.

The Tigers clinched in dramatic fashion on September 17, 1968 vs the New York Yankees. Joe Sparma, who had been relegated to non-use after a public confrontation with his manager was given a spot start. He twirled a gem, only allowing 3 hits through the first 2 innings.

With 1-0 lead, Sparma yielded 2 hits and a run. Al Kaline would pinch hit for Norm Cash (that's like using a bazooka for a rocket launcher) , Bill Freehan would follow with a hit and Gates Brown with a free pass before Don ".178 hitter" Wert would slap a single to RF and drive in the pennant clinching run.

The video picks up with the fans storming the field and then quickly cuts to the players in the locker room. Standing on a podium (the Tigers were 11 games up on the Orioles and Boston had already eliminated Baltimore with a victory earlier in the night), the interviews flow in one after another:

Dick McAuliffe

Don Wert

Wertz tells us it was a 2-2 slider he hit to drive in the winning run.

Denny McLain

Mickey Stanley

Norm Cash

Takes a champagne bath!

Earl Wilson

Originally the starter for this game, says he felt 'congestion' in his shoulder that scratched him from taking the mound.

Gator Brown

Joe Sparma

Eddie Mathews

Says he won't be eligible for the World Series.

Mgr. Mayo Smith

Bill Freehan

Willie Horton

Owner John Fetzer

GM Jim Campbell

Mickey Lolich

Al Kaline

Dick Traceweski

Traceweski claims that Game 1 is the most important game. If they win game 1, they'll win the Series easy. Of course, Gibson struck out 17 in that game...

Jim Northtrup

Ed Katalinas

Katalinas was the man that discovered Al Kaline, as well as many of the other Tiger Town products that the Tigers developed over the years.

Jim Price

Pat Dobson

Jon Warden

Dennis Smith (The batboy? Really?)

Don McMahon

McMahon compares the 1968 Tigers to the 1960 Pirates in their ability to keep coming back and winning games

....And it goes on and on from there with various coaches and rookies. The main theme of the interviews is the Tiger ability to keep coming back. The total, at the time, was apparently 27 comeback victories. Coincidentally, the Tiger WOULD come back in Game 5 down 3-0 early to extend the series and win in Game 7, coming back from a 3-1 series deficit.

Not nearly as exciting as trying to figure out game footage or discovering a historic video but all the same, it was a great treat to put some voices and personalities to these famous names (and not so famous). It was worth it, if for nothing more to see McLain look like an idiot trying to spray the television camera only to have the bottle cork foil him for a solid 12 minutes.

1965 World Series or "only losers use relievers"

2009-06-05T14:17:00.004-04:00

'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.

Most Hated Villians

2009-02-03T16:03:00.007-05:00

The team I hate the most. Logically they must be as they destroyed the destiny of the team I loved the most, the 1968 St. Louis Cardinals. If Flood catches that ball in CF, Gibson unquestionably goes down as greater than Koufax, Flood isn't run out of town the next year and St. Louis doesn't go into a 15 year downward spiral. I'll even irrationally blame them for the Carlton-Wise trade.

Anyways, part of why I love the launch of MLB Network is that MLB has to fill their programming schedule and that means footage they've been hoarding away is finally seeing the light of day.

Which brings us to these clips of the 1968 Detroit Tigers. What is most interesting about these is that they are a) in color and b) aren't kinescopes. In fact, they appear to be sourced from tapes. This are the best quality images I've seen from any season before 1969.

We have three games and it's time for more detective work.

Game 1

This one was rather simple. The footage included the scoreboard, which shows a Yankees player caught in a rundown. The scoreboard tells us that #41 Jake Gibbs batting. Earlier in the clip we see the batter is lefthanded, which fits Gibbs. It is the 6th inning with 2 outs. I could delve further into when and why it could be but honestly, this one is fairly easy.

It's September 17, 1968.

Game 2

This one was more Quincy than the last one. We've got a game with the Tigers in which the opponent isn't easily clear. It shows runners at 2nd and 3rd and a left-handed batter up. The left handed batter hits a 3 run HR (despite the audio MLB Network uses in the clip saying the score increases to 2-0. That's simply not possible if you are showing a player hitting a 3-run HR.)

Let's focus on the batter. Left handed hitters for the Tigers that year were:

Norm Cash - 25

Tom Matchick - 2

Eddie Mathews - 7

Dick McAuliffe - 3

Gates Brown - 26

Lenny Green - 30

Jim Northrup - 5

We only get a brief glimpse of the batter's backside, and while we can't make out exactly what the number is, we can see that it is double digits. It also appears to begin with a '2' but we'll leave that out because we can't know for sure. That narrows the list to:

Norm Cash - 25

Gates Brown - 26

Lenny Green - 30

To put it bluntly, there is something else right away you notice about the batter, he's white. Gates Brown and Lenny Green, not so much. That just leaves Norm Cash. I had a sneaking suspicion it was Norm Cash anyways because of the way he swung and ran.

So, now that we know it's Cash and we know it's 1968 (something MLB Network isn't always accurate about either but that is for another blog entry) we can focus on what game it is.

In this game, Norm Cash will need ATLEAST 3 RBIs because despite Ernie Harwell's bad math in the audio a 3-run homerun gives you 3 runs batted in. Norm Cash's game logs from that year show that 6 times that season he had 3 or more RBIs in a game. It also shows that 2 of those games he had 2 homeruns, thus making them impossible.

The games are:

June 6 - Boston

August 17 - Boston

September 14- Oakland

September 16 - Yankees

On August 17th, Cash hit the HR with only 1 on. So the list is down to 3.

With that in mind, the pitcher in the clip is left-handed. The 3 pitchers Cash hit the 3-run HRs off of were Steve Barber - LH, Chuck Dobson - RH and Lee Strange - RH.

We've got the game now: September 16, 1968 vs the Yankees in the 2nd inning. Two on, 1 out and the ball was hit to RF (as the video shows). Just to make sure, let's look at the last piece of data...who was on base and who was up next.

Waiting at homeplate for Cash are #5 - Jim Northrup, #24 - Mickey Stanley and # 11 - Bill Freehan. Freehan has a bat in his hand while Northrup and Stanley follow Cash towards the dugout. The game log shows that both Stanley and Northrup walked to start the 2nd inning, advanced to 2nd and 3rd on a Wild Pitch in an at-bat that Willie Horton struck out. Cash hit the HR and the next batter was Freehan who singled.

Game 3

Again, simple game to figure out. This is a clip of Denny 'Inmate #: MI23526434' McLain recording the last out of the ballgame.

He covers first on a groundball to the Second basemen (a right handed player). The opponent is clearly the Twins (the firstbase coach's chest shows that) and the scoreboard shows the Tigers beat the Twins 8-3.

What is odd about this clip is WHERE IS NORM CASH? Cash is seen moments after McLain covers as congratulating him on the victory. Yet the 2B (McAuliffe) clearly is the one that gets the groundball and McLain is the one covering. Strange but true.

Anyways, it checks out and actually the audio on this one is correct: McLain did indeed win his 28th game that day.

September 6, 1968.

Conclusion

So, why do these video clips exist? Some of them are rather bizarre clips of nothing really important (not milestones) so where did they come from? Does MLB have FULL BROADCASTS or even over 50% broadcasts of these games in question? If they do, please, please, please show them!

A Snip here, a Snip there

2008-08-28T23:24:00.003-04:00

So, in heartbreaking news, it appears that the WPIX clip of Mickey Mantle's 500th HR is just that, a clip:

He hit his 500th at Yankee Stadium on May 14th, 1967. Wednesday night, I showed some tape of the historic homer on the 11 p.m. news.

The back story: Several years back, an NBC technician came to my office. He said he used to work at Channel 11. He was working that day when the Mick hit his milestone homer. And the technician took a pair of scissors and physically cut off the chunk of tape (two-inch tape at the time) and shoved it into his locker. He wanted to know if I wanted the tape.

Wanted it? It was the mother lode -- the actual portion of the broadcast on WPIX that was long forgotten. It was 40 years ago, and that brief chunk of tape looks like the Middle Ages by comparison.

http://www.wnbc.com/sports/13808006/detail.html

And just like that, hope evaporates.

Hat tip goes to twib77, whoever this mystery man is, for bringing this to my attention.

Mickey Mantle's 500th Homerun

2008-08-12T01:28:00.005-04:00

As Yankee Stadium comes to a close, the ~~YES~~ ESPN Network has been highlighting the greatest moments in The Stadium's history. For me, and many baseball purists, Yankee Stadium was closed over 30 years ago when the iconic features and dimensions were destroyed and the entire playing surface was rotated slightly.

But, that doesn't take away how historic Yankee Stadium has been in baseball and how depressing it will be to see it go.

During the kinescope era, the 500 HR plateau was broken 9 times. While the last of the 9 times (and probably the two before it) more than likely came during the videotape era, it is worth noting. They are as follows:

Ted Williams - 06/17/1960
Willie Mays - 09/13/1965
Mickey Mantle - 05/14/1967
Eddie Mathews - 07/14/1967
Hank Aaron - 07/04/1968
Ernie Banks - 05/12/1970
Harmen Killebrew - 08/10/1971
Frank Robinson - 09/13/1971
Willie McCovey - 06/30/1978

Known partial broadcasts exist of a handful of these, one of which I will touch on today.

Mickey Mantle muscled his 500th career Homerun into the lower bowl of the right field corner off of Sam Miller in the 7th inning vs the Baltimore Orioles.

This game was originally broadcasted on WPIX CH 11. The clip of the homerun has been reshown on HBO's special 'Mantle', during ESPN's retrospective of Yankee Stadium and I believe part of it was involved in the Yankeeography on Mickey Mantle.

The full broadcast is not known to be in existence. That isn't to say that WPIX doesn't have the recording. It isn't to say that Mickey Mantle, the most idolized star during the kinescope era, who also played in the biggest, richest city on the planet did not have a stary eyed fan out there recording the feat.

In fact, Mantle's HR appears to not be on kinescope but rather video tape. The footage we see is not from a collector's home stash but a video master that at one time was recorded by WPIX. Here is a video retrospective on Yankees on WPIX which holds the video clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1Y0hKB2dqo

Screengrabs from 'Remembering the House that Ruth Built' commercial on ESPN.

Clemente/Cubs Game - A new twist?

2008-06-26T22:52:00.007-04:00

Well, how do you like that. Who said a rain-delay was good for nothing (except erasing a beating your teams starting pitcher may have taken)?

While watching the Yankees-Pirates game tonight, I stumbled across some footage that may have just further muddled the mystery from this post: http://kinescopestealshome.blogspot.com/2007/11/clemente-vs-cubs-regular-season.html

The Footage comes from theClemente bio movie put together in by Fox Sports Films.

In the original post, we had concluded that the footage was of the July 2nd, 1971 game between the Cubs and Pirates at Wrigley Field. Bob Moose had been the pitcher, Paul Popovich and J.C. Martin both played important parts in the scene we had. This also featured a fantastic catch by Clemente in right-centerfield, falling backwards.

Well, apparently Clemente bedeviled the Cubs that entire series.

On July 3rd, the Cubs and Pirates locked up for Game 2 of that Series. In the 8th inning, Billy Williams would hit a 1 out single to CF, advancing Glenn Beckert to 3rd. Joe Pepitone, the next batter, would single to RF and with Billy Williams running...the following unfolded.

Now, I'm not 100% that this is the July 3rd game. Originally I thought I had uncovered more footage from the July 2nd game until I couldn't find an instance of Williams being thrown out at 3B. I'll continue to roll through the various boxscores from the 1971 and 1972 seasons to find another instance of Williams being gunned out by The Great One but I can't imagine anyone would be silly enough to try it twice.

The 'Perfect' Father's Day Gift

2008-06-21T14:50:00.003-04:00

It's a widely known fact that no Pond Scum Mets pitching has ever thrown a no-hitter let a perfect game. In this final year of Shea Stadium, the days are running out in which a Mets pitcher can perform such a feat in he teams stench filled storied venue.

However, that is not to say that a pitcher has never thrown a no-hitter in Shea Stadium. Bob Moose threw one in 1969 for the Pirates (I never thought Bob Moose would ever come up twice on this blog). The more important or notable no-hitter was thrown by (now Kentucky Senator) Jim Bunning.

Jim Bunning was not one of the more overpowering pitchers in baseball history but he was certainly one of the smartest. He is also known imfamously for his role in the 1964 collapse of Gene Mauch's Phillies. Bunning and Chris Short were the golden arms of that team, helping to push them to their large lead late in the '64 season. However, Mauch became consumed by the hard charging Cardinals and began to overuse (and abuse) both Bunning and Short. In fact, in the final 21 days of the season, Mauch used Bunning and Short 13 times!

In a bright spot of that 1964 season was Father Day, June 21st. Some 44 years ago today, Bunning took the mound in Shea Stadium for the first part of a double header and retired 27 straight Mets hitters. He did so in striking out 10 batters.
Boxscore: http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYN/NYN196406211.shtml

Philadelphia never trailed in the game and extended their lead to 6 in the 6th, leaving Bunning without the extra pressure of preserving a small lead.

As far as the kinescope goes, not much is known. From what I have gathered, only the bottom of the 9th inning and the postgame interview remains. This is common place for most 'spontaneous acheievement' games during the kinescope era. A station manager or club employee would take note of what was happening and begin to hastily record the final pitches of the game.

The kinescope of the 9th in black and white (per usual) and the transfers I've seen are in pristine condition. The broadcast is the WOR-TV broadcast with Lindsey Nelson and Bob Murphy. At the conclusion of the 9th inning, Ralph Kiner hosts 'Kiner's Korner' on the field, interviewing Jim Bunning about the feat.

What is remarkable is how receptive the New York fans and broadcasters are to Bunning's performance. The crowd stands and cheers his every pitch, Kiner seems giddy at what Bunning had just done.

Of note, in the second half of the DH, Rick Wise (another reference!) and Johnny Klippstein would hold the Mets to 3 hits over 9 innings (allowing 2 runs and 3 BBs). The Mets would go 11 innings over the DH before getting their first hit with 2 outs in the 3rd.

Hopefully, somewhere out there exists more footage of this game. If you had to ask me which games (known to have parts exist) from the 1960's I would wish to have a full broadcast of, this is one of them.

A truly Happy Father's Day for Senator Bunning.

Clips provided by "Unhittable" DVD.

1985 Cardinals

2008-02-29T13:51:00.005-05:00

I know I haven't updated in awhile but there is some stuff coming. It's alittle hard to hunt down content but I'm pushing forward.

Anyways, on a personal note, I wanted to use this posting to make an open call to anyone with copies of 1985 St. Louis Cardinals games. In my collection, I currently have:

09-April St. Louis vs New York

21-May Atlanta vs. St. Louis

1-Jun Cincinnati vs. St. Louis

21-Jun Chicago Cubs vs. St. Louis

6-Jul Los Angeles vs. St. Louis

9-Aug St. Louis vs. Philadelphia

23-Aug St. Louis vs. Atlanta

25-Aug St. Louis vs. Atlanta

13-Sep St. Louis vs. Chicago

14-Sep St. Louis vs. Chicago

21-Sep Montreal vs. St. Louis

28-Sep St. Louis vs. Montreal
01-Oct New York Mets vs. St. Louis
02-Oct New York Mets vs. St. Louis
05-Oct Chicago Cubs vs. St. Louis

I'm mostly interested in Regular Season games. Please, don't hesitate to contact me if you have any games from that season other than of these.

Rick Wise = Babe Ruth

2007-11-28T15:39:00.000-05:00

There was a day in which Rick Wise beat the Cincinatti Reds by himself. Sure, he had some fly catchers parading in the outfield and some speedbumps in the infield to catch the ball but Rick Wise could have taken the mound June 23, 1971 with a bounce-back screen behind homeplate and 6 well trained golden retrievers and handed the Big Red Machine the loss.

For on this day, Rick Wise would throw up this line from the mound:

Name	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR
R Wise	9	0	0	0	1	3	0

While seemingly a special moment for the Philadelphia Phillies organization and Mr. Wise himself, it was the 175 No-Hitter in baseball history up until that point.

What set this day apart from most of the others was what Wise did at the plate:

Name	AB	R	H	RBI	BB	SO	DETAILS
R Wise	4	2	2	3	0	0	2HRs

Wise took his Wonderboy with him to the plate that day, taking both Ross Grimsley and Clay Carroll deep.

Between 1960 and 1976, roughly 54 no-hitters were thrown in Major League Baseball. I'm not really going to get into the other no-hitters that video still exists of however, generally speaking, only small snippets of the ends of the games still remain. What would generally happen is someone would begin to realize that a no-hitter was being thrown and whether it was a station manager, fan with a kinescope at home or maybe someone with the team would begin to record the final 12 or so of the 27 outs.

If lucky, today we can find maybe the last two innings of the game have been preserved.

That is what appears to be the case with Mr. Wise's special day.

Thanks to the video footage found on the MLB Productions DVD Unhittable, we are shown clips of (using detective work again) the final 2 innings. Placing the clips in chronological order:

Above we see Wise smacking his 2nd homerun, this one off of Clay Carroll. Thanks to retrosheets again, we know that this happened in the Top of the 8th inning.

Next, as the legendary baritone voice of Harry Kalas tells us (why do I suddenly feel like eating soup?) , Wise retires Tommy Helms with a groundball to the shortstop...which was the 3rd out of the 8th inning.

There is nothing shown that would indicate the Top of the 9th inning was recorded but it would seem rather odd for someone to stop the recording while the Phillies were batting.

Finally, Pete Rose lines out to the Golden Retriev...er, John Vukovich at 3rd base for the 27th out of Rick Wise's remarkable day. The dogpile (pun intended) that ensued with Phillies players was all captured in this recording as well.

Like most no-hitters during this time period, being a regular season game...it would have taken either sheer luck that someone was recording the game that night or foresight by the Phillies, Reds or the station manager to keep a copy of this recording on file.

We have no idea if any of these things happened. What we do know is that MLB has in their possession at the very least the final 6 outs (both Home and Away) of one of the most remarkable games a pitcher has ever had. We also know that there was an actual television broadcast of this game recorded and aired by the Philadelphia Phillies.

As for what else exists? Ask MLB.

1957 World Series: Milwaukee vs New York

2007-11-26T22:43:00.000-05:00

With the 1957 Milwaukee Braves World Championship team wrapping up their 50th Anniversary, it seems like as good a time as any to look at just what is available from that game.

Over the past 2 years, Doak Ewing, the President of Rare Sportsfilms has opened up his archive (which rivals that of MLB) and allowed rarely seen full broadcasts of the Series to be displayed.

Firstly, there was the pentiultimate Game 7. For some time, Rare Sportsfilms has had available a DVD that included the majority of the first 5 innings of the clinching game. Little was known about a complete broadcast. However, this year, through an agreement with the SABR Keltner Chapter, a full broadcast of Game 7 appeared:

On Saturday, February 3, 2007, The Ken Keltner Chapter, Milwaukee, WI, of The Society For American Baseball Research presented Game 7 of the 1957 World Series in its entirety. Doak Ewing, President of Rare Sportsfilms, Inc., shared the only known copy of the game at the Chapter's quarterly meeting.

http://www.sportingnews.com/blog/bernieclemente/61571

Sometime, during the past year, Ewing added a new DVD to the available titles on the Rare Sportsfilm website, that included Game 3 of the Series in almost entirety:

1957 World Series Game #3 at County Stadium, Milwaukee - Bob Turley vs Bob Buhl - the entire game, missing only Kubek’s second home run! It was the first World Series game ever played in the state of Wisconsin! It was also the first time that centerfield and behind-the-plate cameras were used for telecasting a World Series game, a new idea that brought NBC rave reviews from fans around the country! Mickey Mantle, Hank Aaron and Tony Kubek (2) hit home runs! The game sets a W.S. record with 19 walks and the Braves leave the bases loaded four times! Mel Allen and Al Helfer. 3 hours, 1 minute, Kinescope.

Finally, it seems Game 4 of the 1957 World Series has poked its head out. Again, with another meeting of the SABR Keltner Chapter:

Our next meeting will take place on Saturday, February 2, 2008, 11 AM, at Long Wong's Chinese-American Sportsbar, 5230 W. Bluemound Road. This meeting will feature, courtesy of Doak Ewing, President of Rare Sportsfilms, a showing of the ENTIRE game 4 of the 1957 World Series. You know what happens, but this will be great to watch. We'll also have a 50-50 raffle, raffles for neat items, and memorabilia for sale. Reservations are recomended.
[…]
Don't forget to circle Saturday February 2nd, 2008 on your calenders! The meeting that day will feature a showing of the ENTIRE game 4 of the 1957 World Series. Thanks again to the President of Raresports Films....Mr. Doak Ewing! If you're interested in the films Doak has available...visit his website at http://www.raresportsfilms.com/

http://www.quicktopic.com/34/H/g6gAVs5S6rqCj

I was able to find another rumor on an internet message board that Ewing had a completely copy of Game 1, but was unable to confirm the existences of that kinescope.

The games known to exist in practical totality are:

1957 World Series Game 3 – (available on DVD)
1957 World Series Game 4 – (to be displayed Feb. 2, 2008)
1957 World Series Game 7 – (displayed February 3, 2007)

For an idea of what these games entail, see the link:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/postseason/1957_WS.shtml

Clemente vs Cubs Regular Season Broadcast (1970-1971)

2007-11-26T20:07:00.000-05:00

I’m going to start today with a game that I don’t know if it exists or not. Not exactly the right foot to start off on. However, my whole hope of this blog is to archive the available games that may be out there in hopes of a) wriggling them away from MLB’s oppressive grip or b) making sure that the fans know what actually does exist, either in MLB’s rarely opened vaults or from collector’s scattered across the globe.

This brings me to the game in question. In Ken Burns' Baseball, Burns profiles Roberto Clemente’s tumultuous 14 month span in which he solidified his legacy as both a baseball player (1971 World Series, 3000 Hits) and as a human being (dying on a humanitarian relief effort to Nicaragua). In this ‘9th Inning’, as a montage of highlights are shown to sweet guitar strumming of Carlos Santana’s ‘Oye Como Va’ of Clemente’s out of this world performance, a brief clip of a sliding grab at Wrigley Field is shown.

Let’s start with the basics: The uniforms. Based on the NBHOF’s Dressed to the Nine’s exhibit, The Pittsburgh Pirates during Clemente’s lifetime only wore the road grey pullovers with the yellow cap from part of 1970 until Clemente’s death following the 1972 season. So, for this game, we’ve narrowed it down to 3 seasons, 1970, 1971, 1972. To further narrow it, using the same DTTN source, the Chicago Cubs would switch to the pullover home pinstripes with blue collar in the 1972 season. So this game broadcast had to have taken place in either 1970 or 1971.

Now, let’s try to fill out the players that are on the field. In the first part of the clip, a Pittsburgh Pirates right-handed pitcher #38 is pitching. If we are to believe Ken Burns' accuracy on using footage from Clemente’s 1970 or 1971 season (and really, should we since this scene is from the regular season and the piece is discussing his postseason attack) then the pitcher pictured is Bob Moose. According to Baseball Almanac, Bob Moose pitched for the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1967 to 1976 and wore the #38 every one of those seasons.

The batter’s number is unclear. What is apparent is that the final number on his uniform is ‘2’.

For the 1970 Cubs, players who had uniform numbers ending in 2 were: Jim Cosman (32), Jim Dunegan (32), Milt Pappas (32), J.C. Martin (12), and Paul Popovich (22).
For the 1971 Cubs, players who had uniform numbers ending in 2 were: Milt Pappas (32), J.C. Martin (12), and Paul Popovich (22).

To further narrow this down, the hitter in the video clip is batting left-handed. The pitchers Cosman, Dunegan and Pappas all bat right handed, eliminating them. Whittling down the list to Martin (a catcher) and Popovich (backup infielder), both players hit from the left side of the plate during the 1970 and 1971 seasons, both are white so none of that helps narrow things down.

Before we move on using the games that Moose and Clemente were involved in, let’s look at the final person in the footage. The centerfielder for the Pirates in this scene is left handed. The 1970 Pirates the only left-handed outfielders they had were Matty Alou (18), Al Oliver (16) and Willie Stargell (8). For the 1971 Pirates, the only left-handed outfielders they had were Vic Davalillo (18), Al Oliver (16) and Willie Stargell (8).

We know it ain’t Pops. The outfielder has a double digit number on the back. It’s pretty obvious the number is 16, but I won’t rule out my failing eyesight and I’ll leave in Davallilo/Alou. In 1970, Alou played 152 games in CF for the Pirates. In 1971, Al Oliver played 116 games in CF for the Pirates.

To recap:

Day game at Wrigley Field.
Game during 1970 or 1971 season based on uniforms (Thanks Dressed to Nines).
Pirates RHP #38 Bob Moose is the pitcher on mound (Thanks Baseball Almanac).
Cubs hitter is either J.C. Martin (12) or Paul Popovich (22) (Thanks Baseball Almanac).
Pirates CF is left-handed, most likely Al Oliver (16) but could be 1970 Matty Alou (18) or 1971 Vic Davalillo (18)

Now, let’s dig into Bob Moose’s (or is that Meeces) game log.

1970
In 1970, Bob Moose pitched 2 games in Chicago against the Cubs.

May 27 – Complete Game
September 12 – 8 innings

May 27th - both Matty Alou and Clemente started. Both Popovich and Martin pinch hit. In Popovich’s at-bat, he got a single to RF. JC Martin hit a flyball to RF. So, we’ve met some criteria. One small oversight that I hadn’t brought up yet; there were no runners at 1st or 2nd base. When Martin hit his flyball in this game, Cleo James should have been standing on 1st base.

Likelihood: 7 out of 10.

September 12th - Clemente didn’t play.

Likelihood: 0 out of 10.

1971
In 1971, Bob Moose pitched 3 games in Chicago against the Cubs.

June 9 – Complete Game (8 innings)
July 2 – Complete Game (9 innings)
September 14 – Relief appearance (5th thru 9th)

June 9th - Clemente and Oliver started as Davalillo would pinch hit but not play the field. For the Cubs, Martin sat and Popovich walked, grounded out, popped out on the infield and singled to RF.

Likelihood: 4 of 10.

July 2nd - Clemente and Oliver started. Popovich and Martin both started. Popovich in the 1st lined out to RF with no one on. In the 3rd, Martin flew out to RF to lead off the inning. In the 7th, Martin would leadoff with a lineout to CF and Popovich would flyout to CF with a runner on 1st.

Likelihood: 9 out of 10.

September 14 - Davalillo would start in CF with Clemente in RF. Popovich would play the whole game at 2B. Moose would pitch in relief from the 5th inning on. Popovich faced Moose twice, popping out to the shortstop and grounding into a force out.

Likelihood: 1 out of 10.

All Boxscores provided by Retrosheets.com.

And then there were 2. May 27th, 1970 and July 2nd, 1971. If my eyes are to be believed, this is a no brainer. It is the July 2nd, 1971 game in which Al Oliver started in CF, Clemente in RF and Clemente caught a ball hit by Popovich in the 1st and Martin in the 3rd. Now, the interesting part comes in deciphering which at-bat or inning this was.

To bring this whole study to conclusion, based on the tint of the color of the footage and the camera setup used, this appears to be an NBC Game of the Week. The July 2nd Game was on a Friday. Without access to a 1972 schedule, it is almost impossible to determine if this is the game in question.

Anyone with a schedule or access to archived TV listings, please share.

Ultimately, it is unknown whether this full broadcast exists or not. Without being able to directly ask Burns or without finding a collector with this broadcast in their collection, it becomes increasingly difficult to track down. A quick Google, Ebay and various listing sites shows no copies of ANY regular season games in 1971.

Perhaps this game too has vanished.