CLEVELAND — Considering it’s one of the most significant moments in baseball history, one would think footage of Don Larsen’s perfect game in the 1956 World Series would have been carefully preserved.
But beyond the final moments of the game, captured by movie cameras, no full tape of the game’s TV broadcast had been seen publicly until 2007 — including Larsen and catcher Yogi Berra.
Rare Sports Films founder Doak Ewing, who has specialized in the digitization of old film reels (particularly sports like baseball, basketball and football) for over four decades, told cllct he acquired four of the five original film reels in the early 1990s from a man who previously picked them up at a flea market.
In 2006, Ewing revealed to the world he not only had the broadcast — sans the missing reel that includes the first inning — but he had digitized it onto DVD, a concept he pioneered.
“We do something nobody has done before,” Ewing said, showing off his large collection of digitized moments from sports history from his booth at The National.
The following year, in front of a crowd of around 80 people at the Yogi Berra Museum, with Berra and Larsen in the audience, Ewing finally screened the full broadcast. It was the first time the pitcher-catcher duo had ever had the chance to see the full game in such a format.
“Just like I remembered it” was Larsen’s reaction, according to Ewing.
Then the audience asked Berra his thoughts.
“Well, I liked that it was a two hour ballgame. I miss that. We need more of that these days,” Ewing recalled Berra saying.
Berra’s favorite part? The Gillette commercials.
“Typical Yogi,” Ewing said.
Will Stern is a reporter and editor for cllct.