A detailed account of how McLendon was able to do the Thomson game live can be found in Lindsey Nelson's 1966 book "Backstage At The Mets." Nelson worked with McLendon at Liberty at the time and he wrote:
"Gordon went to New York to do the three-game playoff between the Giants and the Dodgers.....Without bothering to check with anybody for permission, although these games were not part of the regular season schedule, Gordon simply went in and broadcast them.......
"As soon as the second game ended we had a telephone call in Dallas [Where Liberty was based] from a New York advertising agency, asking if we would be interested in buying the rights to the third. Obviously the caller didn't know that we had already done the first two. We decided the best thing to do was stall him off. We told him we'd let him know and then we closed the switchboard. It stayed closed for the next twenty-four hours. The Liberty Broadcasting System didn't reopen for business until that third playoff game was over."
So in effect McLendon just barged his way in with his engineer and somehow managed to find space to broadcast because he wasn't doing the only national radio broadcast. Mutual was doing a broadcast too that is lost to the ages (I have read that Harry Caray did the call) and there were also of course the Dodger and Giant radio broadcasts and the NBC-TV broadcast (The first live baseball telecast that was carried coast-to-coast via coaxial cable) with Giant announcers Russ Hodges and Ernie Harwell (nothing has surfaced of that even in audio form).
There are at least two home recordings of McLendon's broadcast. The first one Danrick Enterprises sold was rougher in quality and was missing most of the Dodger rally in the 8th inning which the taper then covered over with a quick vocal recap (and on that release Danrick I remember interrupted things to explain what happened). Then Danrick released a second version which is the standard version that circulates now and has no game action missing, station ID's for WCFL-Chicago and one ad for sponsor Falstaff Beer. Danrick also on the cassette release read the same excerpts from Nelson's memoir to assure listeners the game was no recreation.
The pristine sounding version I came across was a lucky find on e-bay. It was an engineer's transcription disc that clearly was not part of any commercial release and it went for just $30. After getting it digitized and hearing the difference in quality I then donated the original record to the Hall of Fame which accepted the donation late last year. So at least they now have the original source element for long-term preservation.
I knew a little bit about this story - I think Sports Illustrated ran a short excerpt from it back in 1966 or so. I'll have to get a copy of that book.
I do know that there were a few somewhat prominent people in the radio collecting world who argued for quite some time that the McLendon broadcast was actually a recreation. It wasn't until I heard yours that I was 100% certain that it was live at the ballpark.
Some may remember that CBS Radio tried to revive the national radio broadcasts, though on a smaller scale - only once a week, every Saturday afternoon CBS carried a game at 1:00. I don't remember exactly when it started in the '80s, but this lasted at least into the '90s, although not all CBS Radio affiliates carried the games. They did the All-Star Game and I think the World Series as well. I can't think of the announcing team but maybe someone remembers who called those, they did have their own crew and didn't just use one of the participating team's radio feeds.
My dad grew up in Texas in the late 40s and 50s and I remember him telling me about listening to the recreated broadcast by the "Old Scotchman" but as a kid he did not know they were not from the actual ballpark.
I collect radio broadcasts as well and there is a university library in Texas I believe that was the recipient of some tapes of his broadcasts. There's not a lot of games (If I remember correctly he has a few recreations of the 1955 WS among others) Unfortunately, like the 1955 WS, I believe the actual broadcasts exist for almost all the items the library has.
I inquired about the availability of the collection and was told once that those copies could be obtained for a fee but tapes were not properly stored and they were not sure if they would be able to make copies for all of items in the collection. It would probably be a good idea to get some of those items along with some of the items in the Harwell collection from the Detroit Public Library)
John Miley has made three Liberty Network recreations of historic games of the distant past available. Game 7 of the 1926 World Series, Game 5 of the 1920 World Series and an 1886 Brooklyn Dodger game that featured a no-hitter (and at the end, a phone interview with the last surviving player from that game!) Those recordings date to 1950-51.
I've got copies of the original radio broadcasts of all 7 1955 World Series games in high quality. I haven't gone through them to make sure they are clean quite yet, but once I do I'll stick them up in the members area.
I have the original broadcasts as well. I was referring to Gordon McLendon's recreations of the 55 WS. I believe the Texas Tech has them in their library. They also have a few others but I can't recall what else they have.
Oh gotcha. I actually didn’t know that McLendon did recreations of those games, since Liberty was no longer a thing by that time.
I’d be really interested in listening to those, actually, even if the quality is bad. I might see if I can get in touch with the Texas Tech library to find out more.
A detailed account of how McLendon was able to do the Thomson game live can be found in Lindsey Nelson's 1966 book "Backstage At The Mets." Nelson worked with McLendon at Liberty at the time and he wrote:
"Gordon went to New York to do the three-game playoff between the Giants and the Dodgers.....Without bothering to check with anybody for permission, although these games were not part of the regular season schedule, Gordon simply went in and broadcast them.......
"As soon as the second game ended we had a telephone call in Dallas [Where Liberty was based] from a New York advertising agency, asking if we would be interested in buying the rights to the third. Obviously the caller didn't know that we had already done the first two. We decided the best thing to do was stall him off. We told him we'd let him know and then we closed the switchboard. It stayed closed for the next twenty-four hours. The Liberty Broadcasting System didn't reopen for business until that third playoff game was over."
So in effect McLendon just barged his way in with his engineer and somehow managed to find space to broadcast because he wasn't doing the only national radio broadcast. Mutual was doing a broadcast too that is lost to the ages (I have read that Harry Caray did the call) and there were also of course the Dodger and Giant radio broadcasts and the NBC-TV broadcast (The first live baseball telecast that was carried coast-to-coast via coaxial cable) with Giant announcers Russ Hodges and Ernie Harwell (nothing has surfaced of that even in audio form).
There are at least two home recordings of McLendon's broadcast. The first one Danrick Enterprises sold was rougher in quality and was missing most of the Dodger rally in the 8th inning which the taper then covered over with a quick vocal recap (and on that release Danrick I remember interrupted things to explain what happened). Then Danrick released a second version which is the standard version that circulates now and has no game action missing, station ID's for WCFL-Chicago and one ad for sponsor Falstaff Beer. Danrick also on the cassette release read the same excerpts from Nelson's memoir to assure listeners the game was no recreation.
The pristine sounding version I came across was a lucky find on e-bay. It was an engineer's transcription disc that clearly was not part of any commercial release and it went for just $30. After getting it digitized and hearing the difference in quality I then donated the original record to the Hall of Fame which accepted the donation late last year. So at least they now have the original source element for long-term preservation.
Thank you!
I knew a little bit about this story - I think Sports Illustrated ran a short excerpt from it back in 1966 or so. I'll have to get a copy of that book.
I do know that there were a few somewhat prominent people in the radio collecting world who argued for quite some time that the McLendon broadcast was actually a recreation. It wasn't until I heard yours that I was 100% certain that it was live at the ballpark.
McLendon really was an amazing broadcaster.
Some may remember that CBS Radio tried to revive the national radio broadcasts, though on a smaller scale - only once a week, every Saturday afternoon CBS carried a game at 1:00. I don't remember exactly when it started in the '80s, but this lasted at least into the '90s, although not all CBS Radio affiliates carried the games. They did the All-Star Game and I think the World Series as well. I can't think of the announcing team but maybe someone remembers who called those, they did have their own crew and didn't just use one of the participating team's radio feeds.
My dad grew up in Texas in the late 40s and 50s and I remember him telling me about listening to the recreated broadcast by the "Old Scotchman" but as a kid he did not know they were not from the actual ballpark.
Hi Daniel,
I collect radio broadcasts as well and there is a university library in Texas I believe that was the recipient of some tapes of his broadcasts. There's not a lot of games (If I remember correctly he has a few recreations of the 1955 WS among others) Unfortunately, like the 1955 WS, I believe the actual broadcasts exist for almost all the items the library has.
I inquired about the availability of the collection and was told once that those copies could be obtained for a fee but tapes were not properly stored and they were not sure if they would be able to make copies for all of items in the collection. It would probably be a good idea to get some of those items along with some of the items in the Harwell collection from the Detroit Public Library)
Karl
John Miley has made three Liberty Network recreations of historic games of the distant past available. Game 7 of the 1926 World Series, Game 5 of the 1920 World Series and an 1886 Brooklyn Dodger game that featured a no-hitter (and at the end, a phone interview with the last surviving player from that game!) Those recordings date to 1950-51.
I've got copies of the original radio broadcasts of all 7 1955 World Series games in high quality. I haven't gone through them to make sure they are clean quite yet, but once I do I'll stick them up in the members area.
I have the original broadcasts as well. I was referring to Gordon McLendon's recreations of the 55 WS. I believe the Texas Tech has them in their library. They also have a few others but I can't recall what else they have.
Oh gotcha. I actually didn’t know that McLendon did recreations of those games, since Liberty was no longer a thing by that time.
I’d be really interested in listening to those, actually, even if the quality is bad. I might see if I can get in touch with the Texas Tech library to find out more.