Guide To Watching Old Baseball Broadcasts
From an old collector
Guide To Watching Old Baseball Broadcasts
I’ve watched old baseball broadcasts ever since I was a kid.
I don’t have a massive collection anymore. There was once a time when I had over a thousand DVDs of old games, along with thousands of computer files.
I’ve gotten away from my hoarding ways. However, I still enjoy watching old games and learning more about them.
Here are a few tips I’ve learned over the years:
Do not overpay. In the bootleg community, the accepted standard practice is to not sell media you don’t own the rights to. It’s understandable if somebody charges you money to offset the costs of a DVD, or shipping, or a tape, or a paid file drop service. However, when Rare Sports Films tries to charge you $30 for a DVD, just say no. It shouldn’t cost you more than $5.
Nothing is rare. The concept of rare media no longer exists. Once a piece of media has been released into the community, it’s there to stay — even if it’s been deleted. There’s always somebody out there who will save a copy.
Official does not mean better. Many of you remember the old A&E DVD box sets of select World Series. Not only were these box sets plagued by rights issues (which is why I think the 1991 series was never released), but there were tons of technical issues as well — including basic audio-video sync issues. In many cases, the version that circulates in the collecting community is superior to the official release — and, yes, this includes the 1975 World Series.
YouTube changed the scene. I remember the good old days of SportScene, The Sport Torrent Network, and a few other sites that I haven’t visited in years. YouTube makes all of this so much easier. You no longer have to worry about your ratio, you don’t need anybody to seed, and you can discuss old games with others in the comments. Of course, the risk you run is having the original video (or channel) deleted for whatever reason — though that doesn’t happen as often as you might think. It turns out that punishing your customers for enjoying your product isn’t the smartest business decision.
Games I recommend watching:
The 1975 World Series. If you haven’t seen it yet, you need to. Watch every game in order. I firmly believe that the 1975 World Series games are the best directed and best broadcast baseball games in history.
Any Vin Scully NBC broadcasts between 1983 and 1989. It’s not easy to tell which ones are the Scully broadcasts. Remember that he did the “A” game for NBC, which means the bigger market teams. NBC broadcasts in this era were simply amazing.
The 1980 NLCS. It’s not a great example of broadcasting skill; in fact, ABC’s broadcasts in the 1980s tended to pale in comparison to what NBC was doing. However, the 1980 NLCS is the most exciting playoff series in the history of the sport, and it’s not even close.
The 1997 World Series. In my opinion, this is the last truly good World Series broadcast we had — I prefer this to 1999. If you compare it with contemporary FOX broadcasts, you’ll see just how much better NBC’s production values and sense of the dramatic were than what FOX has given us.