‘How About That?’

The television broadcast of game seven of the 1960 World Series was long considered lost. A copy has been found, apparently in good condition, in Bing Crosby’s wine cellar/media vault:

Crosby loved baseball, but as a part owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates he was too nervous to watch the Series against the Yankees, so he and his wife went to Paris, where they listened by radio.

“He said, ‘I can’t stay in the country,’” his widow, Kathryn Crosby, said. “‘I’ll jinx everybody.’”

He knew he would want to watch the game later — if his Pirates won — so he hired a company to record Game 7 by kinescope, an early relative of the DVR, filming off a television monitor. The five-reel set, found in December in Crosby’s home, is the only known complete copy of the game, in which Pirates second baseman Bill Mazeroski hit a game-ending home run to beat the Yankees, 10-9. It is considered one of the greatest games ever played.

MLB plans to broadcast the game in December.

★ Friday, 24 September 2010