Complete Kinescope of Game 7 of 1960 World Series found!

[FreddyE1977]

A kinescope of the complete NBC broadcast of Game 7 of the 1960 World Series has been found.

It was located in a vault in the home of the late Bing Crosby, of all places! Crosby was a part-owner of
the Pirates at the time, and had paid a company to record the game for him while he was in Europe.
Supposedly the film was only viewed once and is in excellent shape! Can't wait for it to hit DVD or the
MLB Network.

http://www.postgazette.com/pg/10266/1089916-63.stm

 

[Cincinnati Kid]

I know that NBC had the audio of the TV coverage - at least in the early 1960's - because it was used for an anniversary show broadcast on the NBC Radio Network around that time. In it, Mel Allen describes the Mazerowski homerun. Somewhat strange that they don't use the NBC Radio version with Chuck Thompson although in that one, Thompson says the Yankees pitcher is Art Ditmar instead of Ralph Terry and immediately after the winning homer reports the final score as 10-0 before correcting it to 10-9.

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

I know that NBC had the audio of the TV coverage - at least in the early 1960's - because it was used for an anniversary show broadcast on the NBC Radio Network around that time. In it, Mel Allen describes the Mazerowski homerun. Somewhat strange that they don't use the NBC Radio version with Chuck Thompson although in that one, Thompson says the Yankees pitcher is Art Ditmar instead of Ralph Terry and immediately after the winning homer reports the final score as 10-0 before correcting it to 10-9.

I've also heard the audio of the description of the Mazerowski homerun in Ken Burns' "Baseball" series.

 

[KML0224]

Coincidence that the follow up to Baseball is airing next week?

Too bad that Pittsburgh beat my Yankees to win that Series. I wasn't born yet, so there's nothing I can do about it (1960 there and 1971 here).

 

[timmyb]

As a long long suffering Pirate fan, this is easily the best news in ages.

on mlb.com, there are showing a minute clip of the telecast. The kine looks to be in great shape.

I will buy, no matter how poor I am!!

 

[KML0224]

I don't see the clip on the front page now at mlb.com. Put 1960 in the search box and the image should appear on the left of the screen.

 

[Charles1]

Can't wait to see this when it airs. I was only 8 months old in October, 1960, so I really don't remember this too well.

MLB Network earned its stripes with me when they showed Don Larsen's perfect game from the '56 Series on their debut. Wonder what other nuggets are out there for us to see?

 

[Stanislav]

A kinescope?

Given that Crosby was known to be an early adopter of new technologies, that his people did some of the pioneering work on videotape technology, that said technology had been in practical use for 4 years, and that he was ridiculously wealthy, one would think he'd have his own personal VTR installed in his home by 1960.

As a baseball fan (at least of the game that used to be -- pre-steroids, multi-million dollar contracts and spoiled prima donnas), I'd like to see this kinnie. As a TV geek, I'd be equally interested in seeing any local IDs, promos, or commercials that were captured during the breaks. Alas, I'm sure such "extraneous" material will be edited out of any commercial release.

 

[oldschooler1]

I watched that one-minute clip on MLB.com. Hard to believe they hadn't figured out the concept of a center-field camera yet, shooting past the pitcher to the batter.
I'd betcha this was originally shown in color. The NYTimes wrote that it looked like NBC used only about five cameras; no iso's; no instant replay; graphics used sparingly. What a find!!!!

As a TV geek, I'd be equally interested in seeing any local IDs, promos, or commercials that were captured during the breaks. Alas, I'm sure such "extraneous" material will be edited out of any commercial release. Yea, right? You know they won't include that cool stuff. What would it have been back then -- KRCA, Los Angeles?

 

[MR5229]

I watched that one-minute clip on MLB.com. Hard to believe they hadn't figured out the concept of a center-field camera yet, shooting past the pitcher to the batter.
I'd betcha this was originally shown in color. The NYTimes wrote that it looked like NBC used only about five cameras; no iso's; no instant replay; graphics used sparingly. What a find!!!!

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/07/02/sports/tv-sports-the-case-of-the-once-feared-camera.html

The article here gives the reason why there wasn't any center-field camera. Apparently the commissioner of baseball at that time had told NBC not to use that particular camera position because of reports of sign-stealing.

 

[Cincinnati Kid]

The World Series started being seen in color around 1956 or 1957 on NBC-TV. It was made easier because the games were played in the daytime.

I had heard the reasoning about the use of camera shots from centerfield was that there was concern about it showing the catcher's signs. This was particularly true of local coverage. To my knowledge, the first time I saw the use of a centerfield camera was in a telecast of a Reds-Cubs game from Wrigley Field sometime in the mid-1960's.

 

[Gary Mack]

Here's the direct link to the MLB clip: http://mail.jfk.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=12321991

GM

 

[FRR]

If Mr .Crosby died so long ago, why did it take this long for someone to look in his vault?

 

[onairb]

Employees of Crosby's estate have been gathering whatever material is in the vaults at his (and his widow, Kathryn's) home in California, trying to compile as many of his TV appearences as they can find, in order to issue them in a DVD collection. They found the kinescope in a box labeled '1960 World Series', along with the shorter(30 minute) 'official' highlight film.

 

[davalvideo]

Great that a kinescope of the game exists. Too bad it wasn't videotape as the 1960 World series was telecast by NBC in color. But as a former broadcaster once told me..."kinescope is better than no scope".

 

[Bob1370]

There could easily have been a color aircheck tape of the '60 series, if only for picking up highlights for each night's news on WRCA-TV in New York. But it probably doesn't exist now. NBC kept very few color archive tapes back then simply because high density color video tape good enough for broadcast use was so expensive in its first decade (1958-68) that it was erased and re-used repeatedly...it was cost-prohibitive to put it aside for archive use. That's why so few early episodes of Johnny Carson's or Jack Paar's Tonight Show telecasts were preserved in color until about 1968 (which happens to be about the time when the cost of color tape came down, as tape production volume went up to service hundreds of TV stations which were converting to color for local production in the late 60s).

 

[wbhist]

There could easily have been a color aircheck tape of the '60 series, if only for picking up highlights for each night's news on WRCA-TV in New York.

Except for one thing: By the 1960 World Series, NBC's New York "pioneer station" had already become known as WNBC-TV (having changed to those calls on May 22, 1960). Otherwise, I have no quibbles with your assessments.

 

[KML0224]

Yes, because channel 30 of New Britain/Hartford originally had those call letters. They then became WHNB-TV and then WVIT-TV.

 

[ixnay]

Apparently the commissioner of baseball at that time had told NBC not to use that particular camera position [center-field] because of reports of sign-stealing.

That commish was Ford Frick, the same Ford Frick (or Ford Brick, as he was lampooned on The Flintstones), who stuck the asterisk next to Roger Maris's feat the following season (during which I was born).

ixnay

 

[wbhist]

Apparently the commissioner of baseball at that time had told NBC not to use that particular camera position [center-field] because of reports of sign-stealing.

That commish was Ford Frick, the same Ford Frick (or Ford Brick, as he was lampooned on The Flintstones), who stuck the asterisk next to Roger Maris's feat the following season (during which I was born).

And when Bruce Nash and Allan Zullo, in their 1985 Baseball Hall of Shame book, inducted him into same because of that boneheaded decision, they retaliated by putting, in their words, "a big fat asterisk" next to his name, so that the heading of his entry showed up as "Ford Frick*." They noted that Frick was a huge Babe Ruth partisan, dating back to his days as a sportswriter in the '30's.