The Hunt for TV’s Lost Baseball Treasures

David B. Wilkerson has written a nice article at MarketWatch about missing television broadcasts of baseball games.

The recent discovery of Game 7 of the 1960 World Series has, not surprisingly, brought a lot of attention to the topic. According to the article, the earliest existing complete broadcast is Game 6 of the 1952 World Series, which has been shown on the MLB Network, as have many other games from the 1950s and 1960s. Kinescopes of games created for the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service decades ago may still be floating around; the article states that a 1956 World Series game was obtained by a collector from a film collector who in turn got it from a man who served in Hawaii.

Here’s a list of the most wanted baseball games, compiled by Nick Trotta, senior library and licensing manager for MLB Productions:

  • Oct. 3, 1951 – NL Playoff, Game 3: Brooklyn Dodgers at New York Giants
  • Oct. 16, 1962 – World Series Game 7: New York Yankees at San Francisco Giants
  • July 2, 1963 – Milwaukee Braves at San Francisco Giants
  • Oct. 4, 1955 – World Series Game 7: Brooklyn Dodgers at New York Yankees
  • Oct. 15, 1964 – World Series Game 7: New York Yankees at St. Louis Cardinals
  • May 30, 1966 – Los Angeles Dodgers at Atlanta Braves
  • July 4, 1966 – Minnesota Twins at Cleveland Indians
  • Sept. 5, 1966 – San Francisco Giants at Los Angeles Dodgers

The article also briefly discusses missing football games. No complete broadcasts exist prior to 1967; that year’s Super Bowl I is the holy grail. Also missing are Super Bowls IV (1970), V (1971), VI (1972) and XII (1978). Read the complete article for more detail.

(Found via rec.arts.tv)


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6 Replies to “The Hunt for TV’s Lost Baseball Treasures”

  1. Actually, the complete telecast of the 1961 NFL Championship game (Giants-Packers) does exist but that is the lone exception among pre-1968 pro football material (two hours of the 1962 AFL Championship game also exists).

    The 56 WS game referenced in the article is Don Larsen’s perfect game, which was also one of the Holy Grail lost items for MLB.

    The two 1952 WS broadcasts were relocated some time in the mid-1980s. We also have a partial Game 5 of the 1955 World Series, complete Game 3 and partial Game 6 of the 1957 World Series. The earliest regular season partial telecast that exists is two innings of a May 24, 1958 Yankees-Tigers game from station WPIX.

  2. Archival Television Audio (www.atvaudio.com) has a number of one-of-a-kind television broadcast audio air checks, including Mickey Mantle’s 7th inning home run in game 4 of the 1956 World Series (Mel Allen announcing)…Chris Schenkel & Jack Brickhouse wrapping up the Chicago Bears sixth NFL Championship victory over the New York Giants – Decmber 29, 1963…others

  3. With the 1956 World Series “Perfect Game” being found in Hawaii, perhaps it was a kinescope flown by NBC from the mainland for broadcast a day later.

    I suspect there may be a lot of “lost” TV treasures in Hawaii (and Alaska, too) given that kinescopes (and tapes) were shipped there for delayed broadcasts.

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