SWC75
Bored Historian
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A while back there was an announcement that a baseball treasure had been found. Prior to the 1970's, original broadcasts of major league games tended to be "wiped": the tape was reused for other events. Film was melted down so the silver content could be sold. Thus complete records of famous games of the 50's and 60's are extremely rare.
Bing Crosby was for years a part-owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates. He was out of the country when the Pirates played the seventh game of the World Series against the New York Yankees. He asked for a kinoscope to be made of the broadcast of the game so he could watch it when he got back.
A kinoscope was the technology used to record east coast shows for broadcast to the west coast in the years before video tape. It was used after that when someone felt moved to record something that was being done live, (the many What's My Line clips on U-Tube are kinoscopes as are the "lost episodes" of the Honeymooners). The technology was simple and primitive: a film camera was bolted head-to-head with a TV monitor as the broadcast was being sent to the country. The result was a somewhat grainy, occasionally wavy but watchable black and white image. In this case, the seventh game of the 1960 World Series was a color broadcast but the kinoscope recorded for Crosby was black and white.
It was found in his wine cellar decades after Bing's death and has now been put out on DVD:
http://www.amazon.com/Baseballs-Greatest-Games-World-Series/dp/B004AP3PO4
I sent for it and got it yesterday. I decided to watch it when the Mets were in rain delay. Some observations:
I pulled up the box score of this game:
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/box-scores/boxscore.php?boxid=196010130PIT
if you add the at bats, the walks and the one error 81 players came to the plate in this game. The number who struck out: ZERO. There were five home runs in this game. So much for the current theory that you have to strike out a lot to hit home runs. When you strike out, you aren't hitting home runs. You aren't hitting anything.
I saw two black faces in this game. Elston Howard was injured and couldn't play but you can see him in the dugout for a couple of shots. The one black player playing is Robert Clemente. The announcers insist on anglicizing his name to "Bob" or "Bobby" Clemente, which infuriated him. This is 13 years after Jackie Robinson. Integration was still at an experimental stage for much of baseball. The floodgates would open in the 60's. Watching this, you come to realize how isolating it must have been to be one of those pioneers. It must have been especially so for Clemente who was not only black but also Hispanic and had to learn a new language and find a way to live in a city that bore little resemblance to his native Puerto Rico.
Unsung heroes: Everybody remember Bill Mazeroski's home run but how many people remember Hal Smith's three run shot that set it up, (or Bernie Carbo's that set up Fisk in '75?). But my favorite story is that of Rocky Nelson, the "King of the Minors" in the 1950's. He was doin in the international league what Mickey Mantle was doing in the majors:
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/minor-league/minor1.shtml
Rocky was up with the Pirates in 1960 and playing first base in this game. He hit a two run homer to open the scoring and in the top of the 9th found himself holding his major league counterpart, Mantle, on first base with one out and the tying run on third. Yogi Berra hit a line drive right to Rocky. he stabbed it and reach out to tag Mantle to get the third out and end the World Series. The Mickey Mantle of the minors would top the Mickey Mantle of the majors!. But it was not to be. Mickey avoided the tag, the tying run scored. they got Skowron out on the next play and Mazeroski reached for his bat.
I have an old baseball book I got as a kid that refers to this as "The Kubek series", saying that what everybody remembers form this series is that Tony Kubek got hit in the dam's apple on a bad hop and that opened the door to the Pirate's big 8th inning. In Ken Burns baseball, they interview a succession of Yankees and Yankee fans about this series and it's all about how our Yankees got beat by that undeserving Pirate team in a freakish result nobody likes to talk about.
Much of the writing we see about baseball comes form new York writers or those from Boston who tend to see the rest of the country through the windows of New York City office buildings. The greatest and most important things that have ever happened happened in New York or Boston or, at least, to their teams. The most dramatic home run was Bobby Thompson's. The best World Series home run was Carlton Fisk's, which won the greatest game ever played. The greatest Cinderella team of all time was the 1969 Mets.
The Pirates of the 50's WERE the Mets of the 60's. The '52 Pirates were the worst team of the decade. The franchise kept loosing but acquiring young talent that suddenly blossomed at the end of the decade. They took on the mighty Yankees just as the Mets would taken on the mighty Orioles. But instead of winning in 5 games, they absorbed horrible 3-16, 0-10 and 0-12 beatings, coming back to win three close games and set up the dramatic finale. In that game they jumped out to a 4-0 lead, saw the Yankees score 7 unanswered runs, came back with a 5 run 8th to take a 9-7 lead which they lost in the top of the 9th on the Nelson play and then won it on Maz's shot. If the Mets had beaten the Orioles in such a fashion, it would would have been the greatest thing since Easter to the New York press but it happened to a New York team so it was a freakish result that cheated their team of a title. I wonder how Orioles fans feel about 1969? And surely Maz's home run tops Thompson's and Fisk's because it won the championship.
I think this is the greatest game of all time, the greatest Cinderella story and the greatest home run. And now you can watch the live broadcast of it.
Bing Crosby was for years a part-owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates. He was out of the country when the Pirates played the seventh game of the World Series against the New York Yankees. He asked for a kinoscope to be made of the broadcast of the game so he could watch it when he got back.
A kinoscope was the technology used to record east coast shows for broadcast to the west coast in the years before video tape. It was used after that when someone felt moved to record something that was being done live, (the many What's My Line clips on U-Tube are kinoscopes as are the "lost episodes" of the Honeymooners). The technology was simple and primitive: a film camera was bolted head-to-head with a TV monitor as the broadcast was being sent to the country. The result was a somewhat grainy, occasionally wavy but watchable black and white image. In this case, the seventh game of the 1960 World Series was a color broadcast but the kinoscope recorded for Crosby was black and white.
It was found in his wine cellar decades after Bing's death and has now been put out on DVD:
http://www.amazon.com/Baseballs-Greatest-Games-World-Series/dp/B004AP3PO4
I sent for it and got it yesterday. I decided to watch it when the Mets were in rain delay. Some observations:
I pulled up the box score of this game:
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/box-scores/boxscore.php?boxid=196010130PIT
if you add the at bats, the walks and the one error 81 players came to the plate in this game. The number who struck out: ZERO. There were five home runs in this game. So much for the current theory that you have to strike out a lot to hit home runs. When you strike out, you aren't hitting home runs. You aren't hitting anything.
I saw two black faces in this game. Elston Howard was injured and couldn't play but you can see him in the dugout for a couple of shots. The one black player playing is Robert Clemente. The announcers insist on anglicizing his name to "Bob" or "Bobby" Clemente, which infuriated him. This is 13 years after Jackie Robinson. Integration was still at an experimental stage for much of baseball. The floodgates would open in the 60's. Watching this, you come to realize how isolating it must have been to be one of those pioneers. It must have been especially so for Clemente who was not only black but also Hispanic and had to learn a new language and find a way to live in a city that bore little resemblance to his native Puerto Rico.
Unsung heroes: Everybody remember Bill Mazeroski's home run but how many people remember Hal Smith's three run shot that set it up, (or Bernie Carbo's that set up Fisk in '75?). But my favorite story is that of Rocky Nelson, the "King of the Minors" in the 1950's. He was doin in the international league what Mickey Mantle was doing in the majors:
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/minor-league/minor1.shtml
Rocky was up with the Pirates in 1960 and playing first base in this game. He hit a two run homer to open the scoring and in the top of the 9th found himself holding his major league counterpart, Mantle, on first base with one out and the tying run on third. Yogi Berra hit a line drive right to Rocky. he stabbed it and reach out to tag Mantle to get the third out and end the World Series. The Mickey Mantle of the minors would top the Mickey Mantle of the majors!. But it was not to be. Mickey avoided the tag, the tying run scored. they got Skowron out on the next play and Mazeroski reached for his bat.
I have an old baseball book I got as a kid that refers to this as "The Kubek series", saying that what everybody remembers form this series is that Tony Kubek got hit in the dam's apple on a bad hop and that opened the door to the Pirate's big 8th inning. In Ken Burns baseball, they interview a succession of Yankees and Yankee fans about this series and it's all about how our Yankees got beat by that undeserving Pirate team in a freakish result nobody likes to talk about.
Much of the writing we see about baseball comes form new York writers or those from Boston who tend to see the rest of the country through the windows of New York City office buildings. The greatest and most important things that have ever happened happened in New York or Boston or, at least, to their teams. The most dramatic home run was Bobby Thompson's. The best World Series home run was Carlton Fisk's, which won the greatest game ever played. The greatest Cinderella team of all time was the 1969 Mets.
The Pirates of the 50's WERE the Mets of the 60's. The '52 Pirates were the worst team of the decade. The franchise kept loosing but acquiring young talent that suddenly blossomed at the end of the decade. They took on the mighty Yankees just as the Mets would taken on the mighty Orioles. But instead of winning in 5 games, they absorbed horrible 3-16, 0-10 and 0-12 beatings, coming back to win three close games and set up the dramatic finale. In that game they jumped out to a 4-0 lead, saw the Yankees score 7 unanswered runs, came back with a 5 run 8th to take a 9-7 lead which they lost in the top of the 9th on the Nelson play and then won it on Maz's shot. If the Mets had beaten the Orioles in such a fashion, it would would have been the greatest thing since Easter to the New York press but it happened to a New York team so it was a freakish result that cheated their team of a title. I wonder how Orioles fans feel about 1969? And surely Maz's home run tops Thompson's and Fisk's because it won the championship.
I think this is the greatest game of all time, the greatest Cinderella story and the greatest home run. And now you can watch the live broadcast of it.
The game itself was a great back and forth contest as was the entire series. Although the Pirates bested my Yanks, I still can't bring myself to believe that the better team won. The angels were clearly on their side with the Kubek bad bounce. Without that the Yanks win. Oh well...I gues that is the price you pay playing in so many World Series. Eventually Lady Luck will abandon you once and a while.
