Golden Age Baseball broadcasts...............

[31 Model A]

I'd love to find a radio station that replays the old time baseball games. Maybe a suggestion to Sirius/XM could happen. How do you think it would go over? They have special channels that run for a short times of various artist on their own. Why not Golden Age baseball???????

 

[commercecomet536]

I'd love to find a radio station that replays the old time baseball games. Maybe a suggestion to Sirius/XM could happen. How do you think it would go over? They have special channels that run for a short times of various artist on their own. Why not Golden Age baseball???????

I think that is a good idea. I am guessing this would appeal more to baseball enthusiasts than oldtime radio buffs.

The problem lies in the fact that teams/stations did not save their material. The majority of recordings that have survived were recorded by fans.
Much of what survives today is the work of the late Pat Rispole who recorded Dodgers, Yankees and Mets games from his home in Schenectady, NY.
Starting in 1969 Pat began advertising in an OTR publication to recruit others to tape games for him in other cities. Unfortunately, he was not able to obtain volunteers in all MLB cities as there almost no recordings with the Twins and Padres announcers and nothing with the Indians crew until 1977. Therefore some famous announcers like Jimmy Dudley and Dizzy Dean, and Buddy Blattner are almost impossible to come by. I'd also like to find some broadcasts with Gowdy from Boston, Merle Harmon in KC, Minnesota, or Milwaukee, or Bill Campbell and By Saam in Philly.

There are a few announcers who have kept a few recordings. The family of Claude Sullivan of the Reds donated a large collection of Reds and UK games to the U of Kentucky Library. I think Harwell donated some to the Detroit Public Library and Bob Wolff donated some to the Library of Congress. Hopefully, there are more out there to be uncovered.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Former Kansas City/Oakland Athletics announcer Monte Moore also accumulated a number of recordings, which are starting to become available on the commercial market. Most are excerpts, but there are several complete broadcasts from 1968-69, and one nearly complete broadcast from 1966.

A Merle Harmon-Bill Grigsby Kansas City A's broadcast from 1961 was released a couple months ago by John Miley via Baseball Direct. This is a complete broadcast, missing only the pre-game show.

There's only one known complete Curt Gowdy Red Sox game, the opening day of the 1965 season, which was released by John Miley about four years ago. There are no known complete radio broadcasts by the Ken Coleman-Ned Martin-Mel Parnell/Johnny Pesky team of 1966-71, but a few fragments exist. There's also about half a Red Sox game from 1938 called by Fred Hoey and Tom Hussey, the only regular season Red Sox material known to exist from the pre-Gowdy era. The Martin and Woods era of 1974-78 has several known surviving games, most of them from AFRTS. This duo represented the peak of 1970s baseball broadcasting, and are well worth looking up.

 

[commercecomet536]

A Merle Harmon-Bill Grigsby Kansas City A's broadcast from 1961 was released a couple months ago by John Miley via Baseball Direct. This is a complete broadcast, missing only the pre-game show.


Thanks. I knew about the 1965 opener and noticed the 61 A's-Yanks game but just assumed that one was Allen-Barber and Rizzuto. The other A's broadcasts have been a joy to listen to.

There are also some Senators network broadcasts from the late 60s and early 70s that have surfaced recently. Almost all teams networks are now accounted for from this time period with at least one broadcast with the exception of Cleveland, Minnesota, Philadelphia and Milwaukee/Atlanta. Other notable announcers missing are Dizzy Dean; I believe there is only a 16 minute clip from a TV-broadcast (and an oldtimers ceremony). I was just a small child when he did the game of the week so I will never really get a chance to become familiar with him.

I read some very nice things about the Liberty Radio Network and their recreations in Tony Silvia's book but I don't think there are any complete broadcasts of those recreations available. I've also read Giant and Dodger fans enjoyed hearing recreations of games after they moved west but I think those are unavailable as well.

I know about a few of the Boston fragments from 9/30/67, 9/24/69 and 5/29/71. Are there any others?

 

[LizzieMaine]

There are few short clips from 1959, if I remember correctly, called by Bill Crowley, who was Gowdy's sidekick at the time. He left the broadcasting team after the 1960 season, to become the team's PR director, making way for Ned Martin to join the booth. I haven't heard these clips, but I know they exist.

There's also the last inning of Dave Morehead's no-hitter at the end of the 1965 season, called by Gowdy, but I don't have that either.

There are some By Saam Phillies broadcast clips from the mid-fifties floating around as well, but I haven't gotten hold of them myself. The earliest complete Phillies broadcasts that are current;y known to exist are Saam-Kalas-Ashburn from late 1973.

I recently picked up those 1968-69 Senators broadcasts -- one's a game against the Red Sox, and the other is a spring-training game against the Braves. The circulating recordings are about 10 percent off-speed on the slow side, and would benefit greatly from pitch correction. The Senators themselves would have also benefitted from pitch correction.

The only surviving Liberty recreation I know of is a Don Wells-Lindsey Nelson broadcast recreating the Grover Cleveland Alexander game of the 1926 World Series. Baseball Direct offers this, but I don't have a copy of it. I'm guessing the date is early fifties, but they don't list an actual broadcast date.

The Hall of Fame has a 1951 Boston Braves broadcast by Jim Britt against, I believe, the Giants in its archives, but I don't think it's found its way into circulation yet. I believe this is most likely the recording made at the direction of NL president Ford Frick, who was upset about the amount of commercial time on local broadcasts, and used the recording to make a report to a league committee about the problem. But no Braves broadcasts are known from the Milwaukee or Atlanta broadcast teams until Milo Hamilton and Ernie Johnson's broadcast of the Hank Aaron HR715 game in 1974.

There are also no local broadcasts known for the St. Louis Browns, although a partial Mutual Game Of The Day broadcast exists from 1953.

As for the recently-circulated Athletics broadcasts, I was surprised how much I enjoyed listening to Moore. He has a reputation as a sycophantic cornball, but I think that reputation's been greatly exaggerated based on what I've now been able to hear of his work. He's energetic and seems to be enjoying himself immensely, and I particularly enjoyed the broadcasts where he was paired with Al Helfer, who's always been one of my favorites.

 

[commercecomet536]

There are few short clips from 1959, if I remember correctly, called by Bill Crowley, who was Gowdy's sidekick at the time. He left the broadcasting team after the 1960 season, to become the team's PR director, making way for Ned Martin to join the booth. I haven't heard these clips, but I know they exist.

There's also the last inning of Dave Morehead's no-hitter at the end of the 1965 season, called by Gowdy, but I don't have that either.

There are some By Saam Phillies broadcast clips from the mid-fifties floating around as well, but I haven't gotten hold of them myself. The earliest complete Phillies broadcasts that are current;y known to exist are Saam-Kalas-Ashburn from late 1973.

I recently picked up those 1968-69 Senators broadcasts -- one's a game against the Red Sox, and the other is a spring-training game against the Braves. The circulating recordings are about 10 percent off-speed on the slow side, and would benefit greatly from pitch correction. The Senators themselves would have also benefitted from pitch correction.

The only surviving Liberty recreation I know of is a Don Wells-Lindsey Nelson broadcast recreating the Grover Cleveland Alexander game of the 1926 World Series. Baseball Direct offers this, but I don't have a copy of it. I'm guessing the date is early fifties, but they don't list an actual broadcast date.

The Hall of Fame has a 1951 Boston Braves broadcast by Jim Britt against, I believe, the Giants in its archives, but I don't think it's found its way into circulation yet. I believe this is most likely the recording made at the direction of NL president Ford Frick, who was upset about the amount of commercial time on local broadcasts, and used the recording to make a report to a league committee about the problem. But no Braves broadcasts are known from the Milwaukee or Atlanta broadcast teams until Milo Hamilton and Ernie Johnson's broadcast of the Hank Aaron HR715 game in 1974.

There are also no local broadcasts known for the St. Louis Browns, although a partial Mutual Game Of The Day broadcast exists from 1953.

As for the recently-circulated Athletics broadcasts, I was surprised how much I enjoyed listening to Moore. He has a reputation as a sycophantic cornball, but I think that reputation's been greatly exaggerated based on what I've now been able to hear of his work. He's energetic and seems to be enjoying himself immensely, and I particularly enjoyed the broadcasts where he was paired with Al Helfer, who's always been one of my favorites.

I noticed Miley had the 8-25-61 broadcast but assumed it was from the Yankee network as usual. I look forward to listening to Merle Harmon call a game for a change. I was also impressed with Monte Moore's broadcasts. The more 1960s AL baseball recordings the better.

You are correct in regards to the Senators being a pitch off. They set back baseball in the capital for decades.

Those By Saam partials were recordings I obtained from someone I corresponded with who picked them up from the original taper. I had someone out in Mass convert those for me.

The Library of Congress says they have a much longer version of the Milwaukee Braves pennant clincher from 1957 but they need permission from Mr Miley to pass on any copies.

Last month I won an ebay auction of some old reels from someone whose father recorded them back in the 1960s. Included in the batch was a NY Yankee network recording of Billy Rohr's one hitter from 1967. Those reels were in remarkably good shape for being 50 years old.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I recently picked up a few reels myself -- one contains an excellent copy of the first 1959 All Star Game, called by Bob Prince and Jack Brickhouse. Although it doesn't include commercials the audio quality is better than the circulating Rispole version. Another is the original reel for the 4/12/55 Cubs season opener agains the Cardinals -- the only known Bert Wilson aircheck to surface. This has been circulating for a while, but the reel itself is in somewhat better audio quality than the copies that are going around. It was recorded open-mike from a radio pulling in WCFL from some distance away, and the interference gets worse as the game progresses, but you can understand and follow what's going on.

I'm expecting soon to see a reel which may contain the only complete Bob Prince-Jim Woods Pirate broadcast yet to surface. We shall see. It's always a crapshoot buying reels on eBay -- you can never be sure if the reel in the box actually contains the material written on the box, or if it's somebody's family Christmas tape.

 

[commercecomet536]

I recently picked up a few reels myself -- one contains an excellent copy of the first 1959 All Star Game, called by Bob Prince and Jack Brickhouse. Although it doesn't include commercials the audio quality is better than the circulating Rispole version. Another is the original reel for the 4/12/55 Cubs season opener agains the Cardinals -- the only known Bert Wilson aircheck to surface. This has been circulating for a while, but the reel itself is in somewhat better audio quality than the copies that are going around. It was recorded open-mike from a radio pulling in WCFL from some distance away, and the interference gets worse as the game progresses, but you can understand and follow what's going on.

I'm expecting soon to see a reel which may contain the only complete Bob Prince-Jim Woods Pirate broadcast yet to surface. We shall see. It's always a crapshoot buying reels on eBay -- you can never be sure if the reel in the box actually contains the material written on the box, or if it's somebody's family Christmas tape.

The previous auction with the 4-14-67 NY-Bos game also included a complete 9-25-66 NY-Bos as well as 9-29-68 NY-Bos. The previous version of the 9-25-66 was missing the ninth inning.

Is that the reel from 5-31-64 LA-Pit? I lost that auction and was kicking myself for not grabbing it for that exact reason; it is the only complete Prince Woods broadcast. I also won the 7-26-62 Yanks-White Sox broadcast but lost the 7-9-61 NY-Bos auction (or was it 9-30-61. It was difficult to tell what the date was since there is tape covering part of the date. ) Please let me know if that is the Prince/Woods recording.