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Bing Crosby, Television Sports Preservationist

Posted by timothy on from the way-before-tivo dept.

Hugh Pickens submits news first gleaned from a now-paywalled article at the New York Times (and, happily, widely reported) that "The hunt for a copy of the seventh and deciding game of the 1960 World Series, considered one of the greatest games ever played and long believed to be lost forever, has come to an end in the home of Bing Crosby, a canny preservationist of his own legacy, who kept a half-century's worth of records, tapes and films in the wine cellar turned vault in his Hillsborough, California home. 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. Crosby 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."

5 of 148 comments (clear)

  1. Now, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Get him for piracy...

    1. Re:Now, by camperslo · · Score: 5, Informative

      Bing Crosby deserves recognition for his place in history as the investor that stepped in with a $50,000 investment in Ampex Corporation for development of the reel to reel tape recorder. Ampex was a small company with six employees prior to that. During WWII Germany developed wire recorders with improved quality as a result of a high frequency (above audio range) signal added to the record current. That overcame non-linear magnetic behavior greatly reducing distortion.
      Ampex used the same A.C. bias current technique with magnetic tape, and Bing Crosby was a major influence in the quick adoption by broadcasters.

  2. Any World Series where ther Yankees lose by winkydink · · Score: 5, Insightful

    is one of the all time great World Series.

    --

    "I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey

  3. Alert! by JustOK · · Score: 5, Funny

    Couldn't we have had a spoiler alert?

    --
    rewriting history since 2109
  4. Copyright implications by kanweg · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think it is relevant because it is an example of the usefulness of recording by the public as part of the deal between a creator and society. A copyright holder has the right to stop anyone from using the material for a (ridiculous long) period of time. The reward for society of giving a copyright holder this power, is that in the end the work enters the public domain. What you see here, is that the copyright holder got his end of the bargain from society (it is not relevant whether he actually ever sued over it; he had the right to), society doesn't get anything once the copyright holder loses interest (or trashes the recording).

    People should make a mental note of this when it comes to arguing the duration of copyright, and also when it comes to DRM. I don't think that copyright should apply to DRM material because there obviously is no guarantee that the work could end up in the public domain. More likely the DRM technique used is likely to be abandoned before the copyright expires.

    Bert
    Who refuses to buy anything Blue-ray because of this.