Old Kinescopes of World Series Games

[FreddyE1977]

The other evening, the new MLB Network was running a replay of Game 2 of the 1968 World Series between Detroit and St. Louis. Lots of fun to watch and see the old classic names take the field (Roger Maris, Bob Gibson, Curt Flood, Tim McCarver, and inning break interview with Casey Stengel in the stands). The annoucers were Harry Caray, Curt Gowdy, and Tony Kubek with sideline reports, an early version of the NBC Game of the Week crew. The game was a black-and white kinescope, and was pretty much a real-time, pitch-by-pitch repeat of Game 2.

Does anyone know why they were kinescoping entire World Series games as late as 1968? The game ran more than 2 1/2 hours, so it seems like an awfully expensive undertaking unless you have a real good reason. Also, was the Series that year being broadcast in black-and-white, or is it just a copy on black-and-white film? (I watched most of it, and there were not any mentions of "coming to you in living color" that I heard.) If so, was it the last year that they broadcast in black-and-white? I think I have seen footage of the Amazin' Mets 69 Series in color..and on tape for that matter. Any guesses on how far back they have complete, real-time kinescopes of World Series games?

 

[Stanislav]

Does anyone know why they were kinescoping entire World Series games as late as 1968?

One word...(well, one acronym): AFRTS.

 

[cdsull502]

I can tell you that the 1967 World Series was broadcast in color. My team, the Red Sox, made it to the Series after a 21 year absence. I decided to get friendly with a neighbor that had a color TV.

 

[onairb]

I post on a forum dedicated to sports broadcasting, and this subject has come up several times. Briefly, NBC, as it did with 'The Tonight Show' and many other vintage programs, erased a lot of its World Series games. Some of the surviving games, including that 1968 telecast, were kinescoped by the CBC, which simulcast NBC's coverage for many years.
I believe Game 7 of the 1965 Series (Sandy Koufax and the Dodgers shut out Minnesota) also exists only through the CBC's efforts.
From 1969 onwards, NBC did a hit-or-mis job of saving some games while junking others. The 1969 Series exists in its entirety, but for at least two of the games, the only recordings that survive were the backups made in the NBC production truck in the Shea Stadium parking lot. Only a few World Series and playoff games from 1970-75 are still around; it's only been since 1976 that every World Series game has been kept intact; some of the playoff games as recently as 1979 are lost, but everything since then is intact.

 

[Rob Jason]

Somebody was doing the world series in color (probably NBC) in the 1950s. My brother tells me his middle school actually had a color TV, and set it up in the library so they could watch it. This site claims the first colorcast was in 1955:

http://www.brainyhistory.com/events/1955/september_28_1955_117213.html

Extremely few color kinescopes of color shows exist. I've seen one (of an Ernie Kovacs routine from 1957), and it doesn't look good. Making a color kinescope involved a process that was never really perfected in the 1950s; plus, the color film took longer to develop, so the turn-around time for the left coast kinescope of a NYC-originated color show took longer and was impractical.
Andrew Inglis, in his book Behind the Tube, says about kinescoping a color show: "With skillful operation, surprisingly good results could be obtained under laboratory conditions. But the film was expensive, and rapid development was impossible. The second was the use of lenticular film, monochrome film with cylindrical lenticules, or lenses, embossed on it. When viewed through a special filter, a color image could be obtained on playback. This permitted rapid film development, but unfortunately it never worked very well."

I hear you can purchase an entire 1967 Boston Red Sox game that was saved on color videotape. But maybe just a portion:

http://www.raresportsfilms.com/1967world.html

 

[KYLEBOOK]

I hear you can purchase an entire 1967 Boston Red Sox game that was saved on color videotape. But maybe just a portion:

Actually, that would be this:

http://www.amazon.com/Impossible-Fo...ef=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1245343704&sr=8-1

This set contains a bonus disc with the color videotape broadcast of the Red Sox-Twins game at Fenway Park on September 30, 1967. It's 99% complete: there's a couple of outs missing in the middle innings (I forget which ones), where the radio broadcast was substituted. The broadcast is without any graphics identifying the players.

 

[FreddyE1977]

Last night MLB Network followed-up with another kinescope of Game 7 of the 1965 Series between the Dodgers and Twins from old Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington.
(NBC broadcast that appeared to have Vin Scully basically working solo.) I found it interesting because Sandy Koufax is always spoken of as this legendary hall-of-fame pitcher who was basically invincible. But in this game he did not have his best stuff, and Scully was really laying into him at times. I am not old enough to have seen Koufax during his career, so the disconnect was a surprise to me. The Dodgers still won however.

I am assuming this was another CBC kinescope. Merci to our friends in Canada for preseving these! (and raspberries to NBC who did not think that this part of our culture was worth preserving) Looks like MLB Network is going to make this a regular feature if enough old kinescopes do in fact exist.

 

[onairb]

A few of those Series kinescopes turned up in the early '90s, on 'Baseball's Greatest Games', hosted by Steve Garvey, which ran as filler(but sometimes on a regular basis on Sunday nights during winter) on the (then)Sportschannel/Prime Sports affiliate in my area, and presumably on other RSNs.

 

[radioman148]

You can get some good stuff at
http://www.raresportsfilms.com/1967world.html

I just got some good films from the late 50s.

 

[timmyb]

Last night MLB Network followed-up with another kinescope of Game 7 of the 1965 Series between the Dodgers and Twins from old Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington.
(NBC broadcast that appeared to have Vin Scully basically working solo.) I found it interesting because Sandy Koufax is always spoken of as this legendary hall-of-fame pitcher who was basically invincible. But in this game he did not have his best stuff, and Scully was really laying into him at times. I am not old enough to have seen Koufax during his career, so the disconnect was a surprise to me. The Dodgers still won however.

Ray Scott worked the first 4 1/2 innings of the game as well as the bottom of the 9th inning as Scully was heading down to the Dodgers locker room.

The custom prior to 1966 was for NBC to have two men split play by play for the World Series games. The home team announcer would call the first 4 1/2 innings and then before the bottom of the fifth, hand off the call to the visiting team voice to take it the rest of the way. Both men normally worked solo.

From 1966 to 1971, Curt Gowdy, as NBC's in house play by play man, would call the first 4 1/2 innings, while the home team commentator would act as color man. The roles would be reversed starting in the bottom of the 5th.

In 1972, Tony Kubek moved into the booth from the stands and it would work as a three man booth thru 1976.

 

[radioman148]

In 1959 when the White Sox were in the Series, Vin Scully & Jack Brickhouse called the games.
In Chicago NBCs broadcast was simulcast on WGN-TV which carried White Sox regular season games.
So the games were on two channels in Chicago NBC-5, and WGN 9.