Berra, Larsen Finally See Telecast of Larsen’s World Series Perfect Game
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After over 50 years in the record books former Yankees battery-mates, catcher Yogi Berra and pitcher Don Larsen finally got to view Larsen’s 1956 World Series perfect game, the only such masterpiece in major league baseball World Series annals. They had never previously viewed the game.
An Associated Press report for ESPN explains how film of this great baseball highlight finally came to light after being missing for decades;
For decades, it was also considered one of the few images that survived from that day — black-and-white highlight reels of the last inning were common, but footage from the original broadcast of the entire game was assumed to be lost forever.
Then, an Illinois sports film collector revealed last year that in the early 1990s he had acquired a kinescope of the television broadcast that featured all but the first inning of Game 5 between the Brooklyn Dodgers and Yankees.
“I’m anxious to see it,” Berra said Thursday. “I want to hear the play-by-play, see the commercials. It got a lot of reaction from people, it was amazing. A lot of them said they saw it and want to see it again.”
Tickets, priced at $300 each, sold out “in a hurry,” according to David Kaplan, the museum’s director. Nostalgia buffs are coming from as far away as Seattle and Kansas City, he said. A portion of the ticket sales will go to the museum and to the Don Larsen Foundation, which donates to several charities, including the ALS Association.
The evening will begin with a baseball-style buffet, followed by the game and then a question-and-answer session with Larsen, Berra and Wolff.
The broadcast found its way into Ewing’s hands via a circuitous path.
According to Ewing, an Alaska man acquired the recording while serving in the armed forces overseas. It was a common practice in the 1950s for the networks to send kinescopes — made by using a movie camera to film a television broadcast directly off the screen — of the World Series to U.S. forces to watch, with the condition that they be destroyed afterward.
The Larsen game managed to survive and from Alaska made its way to an Oregon flea market, where a collector noticed it and notified Ewing.
Ewing, founder of Rare Sports Films Inc. of Naperville, Ill., didn’t show it publicly or reproduce it for fear of having it pirated, he said.
He said he has approached the major networks as well as YES, the Yankees’ television network, but has not reached a deal to have the game shown on TV.
“There’s interest and we’ve talked to him, but at this point we have nothing in place,” YES spokesman Eric Handler said Thursday.
In a later report for Yahoo sports, Associated Press writer David Porter gives an account of the Friday night viewing and festivities;
Along with a crowd of about 100 people Friday night that included former teammate Yogi Berra, the pitcher who owns the only perfect game in World Series history watched the television broadcast of the Oct. 8, 1956, game, courtesy of Illinois collector Doak Ewing.
“It ended the way I hoped it would,” Larsen cracked after the game ended and the audience whooped and hollered as if seeing it for the first time.
The black-and-white telecast originally aired on NBC and featured few camera angles, fewer commercials and little of the production values that are ingrained in modern-day baseball telecasts. Legendary broadcaster Mel Allen called the game along with a young Vin Scully.
“The game was two hours, with the commercials,” Berra said, adding, “I wish they did that now.”
The 77-year-old Larsen watched himself shut down a Brooklyn Dodgers lineup that included Jackie Robinson, Duke Snider and Carl Furillo, then strike out Dale Mitchell on a 1-and-2 count to end the game.
Larsen recalled how his teammates, cleaving to baseball superstition, refused to sit near him or talk to him in the final few innings.
“I didn’t believe in superstition,” he said. “I was more uncomfortable the last few innings because no one would talk to me or sit next to me. The only time I was happy was when I was on the mound.”
Superstitions played a role off the field as well. Bob Wolff, who did the national radio call, said he didn’t mention the perfect game for fear of meeting the same fate as announcer Red Barber in 1947, who repeatedly mentioned Floyd Bevens’ unfolding no-hitter only to see it broken up in the late innings.
“Gillette was the sponsor and they had received a lot of letters and telegrams from people complaining,” Wolff said. “Fear was my motivating factor; I wanted to work another World Series.”
Lioy’s son, Jason, traveled from Pittsburgh to see Friday’s broadcast, and neither he nor his father thought once of leaving early.
There were loud cheers when Mickey Mantle homered in the bottom of the fourth inning to give the Yankees the only run they would need, then ran down a liner by Gil Hodges; groans when Snider made a diving catch to rob Berra, and guffaws at Roy Campanella’s wooden delivery of a promo for Gillette razors between innings.
Through it all, Larsen and Berra watched intently from different vantage points in the small auditorium.
“Whatever sign I put down, Don got it over,” Berra marveled. “He pitched a hell of a game.”
Larsen noticed himself on film reaching for the rosin bag more than he remembered in the later innings.
“I was very nervous out there,” he said. “I was probably doing that routine to keep myself comfortable.”
The earlier AP report concludes;
Berra still recalls what he said to Larsen after the Yankees won the ‘56 Series in seven games and Larsen was named MVP.
“I told him I could have won the car if he hadn’t pitched the no-hitter,” Berra said with a laugh. “But it was great.”
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