From the New York Times: How a near pristine black-and-white reel of the entire television broadcast of the deciding game of the 1960 World Series — long believed to be lost forever — came to rest in the dry and cool wine cellar of Bing Crosby's home near San Francisco is not a mystery to those who knew him.
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.
"He said, 'I can't stay in the country,' " his widow, Kathryn Crosby, said. " 'I'll jinx everybody.' "
He 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. It is considered one of the greatest games ever played.
It's a fascinating story -- probably on par with the time they found half a ham sandwich and the director's cut of Weekend At Bernie's II in Kent Hrbek's deer stand.*
*Did not really happen, to our knowledge.
