RECALLING BING AND THE PIRATES

The singer-actor-entrepreneur purchased a stake in the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1946; years after his death, a pristine recording of what's been called The Best Game Ever — the seventh game of the 1960 World Series — was found in his cellar...

Bing Crosby ranked among the wealthiest entertainers of his era and was an early, highly successful multihyphenate.

The singer-actor-entrepreneur sold a half-billion records; did a string of hit movies withBob Hope; won a best actor Oscar for 1944'sGoing My Way; and in 1948 invested in a "fast freezing" process that paid off handsomely when it became Minute Maid. By the late 1950s, his wealth was estimated at up to $130 million in today's dollars. But the investment that got the most attention was his 1946 purchase of a 25 percent stake in the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The total price for the team was $2.25 million ($29 million today). Crosby always had been interested in baseball (he'd played semipro ball in his youth), but since 1937 he'd owned part of the Del Mar racetrack in Southern California.

At that time, the baseball commissioner was the formidable Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who prohibited anyone involved in what he considered the shady world of horse racing from becoming involved in Major League Baseball. When Landis died in 1944, the door opened for Crosby.

Arguably the biggest effect the singer had on MLB history was in preserving what's been called The Best Game Ever, the seventh game of the 1960 World Series, in which Pirates second baseman Bill Mazeroski hit a game-ending home run to beat the Yankees 10-9 after the lead had changed four times. Crosby, who had a passionate interest in videotaping -- Ampex, an early tape-recorder manufacturer, was another of his investments -- believed he'd be a jinx to the Pirates since they'd lost a number of games he'd attended, so he arranged for a kinescope (a pre-videotape recording process) of the last game to be made. Crosby died at 74 in 1977, and in 2010 the pristine copy of the NBC broadcast was found in his wine cellar.

"There's no replays or no nothing except the actual play," says 1960 Cy Young Award winner Vernon Law, now 84, who pitched the game's first seven innings for the Pirates. "I could remember every pitch I threw to every hitter. I remember those things like it was yesterday." Nine years after Crosby's death, the team was sold to a group of Pittsburgh businessmen... 

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PHOTOS OF THE DAY: BING AND THE PIRATES

I guess next to horses and golf, baseball was one of Bing's other favorite past times. From 1946 until the end of his life, he was part-owner of baseball's Pittsburgh Pirates. Although he was passionate about his team, he was too nervous to watch the deciding Game 7 of the 1960 World Series, choosing to go to Paris with Kathryn and listen to the game on the radio. Crosby had the NBC telecast of the game recorded on kinescope. The game was one of the most famous in baseball history, capped off by Bill Mazeroski's walk-off home run. He apparently viewed the complete film just once, and then stored it in his wine cellar, where it remained undisturbed until it was discovered in December 2009. Here are some pics of Bing and The Pittsburgh Pirates...

WHO OWNS BING'S WINE CELLAR TREASURE

Postscript to Crosby’s Wine Cellar Treasure By RICHARD SANDOMIR

The discovery of a copy of the broadcast of Game 7 of the 1960 World Series in Bing Crosby’s former wine cellar led some readers to raise an interesting question: if Major League Baseball owns the copyright to World Series broadcasts, why did it have to pay the Crosby estate for the rights to televise the game on the MLB Network in December and release a DVD? Matt Bourne, a spokesman for M.L.B., said that baseball’s contract with NBC at the time granted the game’s copyright to the office of the baseball commissioner.

So what did baseball buy that it did not own? “We purchased from the Bing Crosby estate what we understand is the only physical copy of the game,” Bourne said. The Crosby estate “maintains possession” of the five kinescope reels made of the game, he added, but “cannot exploit them for commercial gain and cannot sell them for additional copies to anyone else.” Only baseball will benefit financially from the DVD sales, Bourne said. Philip Hochberg, a Washington-based sports and communications lawyer, said in an e-mail: “Baseball in essence bought access to the sole copy and is now going to air and copyright the telecast on MLB Network, which will actually be something different than what Crosby owned (because of the various additional elements which will go into the telecast).” Bob Costas is to host the presentation of the game and will presumably interview some of the participants.

1960 WORLD SERIES VIDEO DISCOVERED IN BING'S BASEMENT

Nice to see Bing Crosby still making the news... A FIND IN BING CROSBY'S BASEMENT by Associated Press Bing Crosby often found himself dreaming of the Pittsburgh Pirates, too, even while on vacation in Paris during the 1960 World Series. His zealous support and superstition wound up being a good thing for baseball fans: Found in his wine cellar was film of the deciding Game 7, in which Pirates second baseman Bill Mazeroski hit a game-ending homer to beat the Yankees, that was thought to be lost forever. A published report says the complete NBC broadcast had been discovered in Crosby’s longtime home near San Francisco. The silver-tongued crooner, whose recording of “White Christmas” has sold millions of copies worldwide, was part owner of the baseball team from 1946 until his death in 1977. But the avid sportsman was such a nervous wreck watching the Pirates that when they played the Yankees in the World Series, he went on a European vacation with his wife, Kathryn. “He said, ’I can’t stay in the country. I’ll jinx everybody,’” Crosby’s widow said. It was thought that one of the greatest games ever played had survived only through radio broadcasts, grainy photographs and the written word. Then in December, while Robert Bader was combing through tapes and reels of Crosby’s old TV specials, the vice president of Bing Crosby Entertainment stumbled across two gray canisters in a pile stretching to the ceiling. They were labeled “1960 World Series” and looked as though they hadn’t been touched in years. An hour of searching revealed three more reels. Bader screened the 16-millimeter film and realized it was the complete broadcast of Game 7, with the Yankees’ Mel Allen and Pirates’ Bob Prince calling the action. The conditions of the wine cellar — cool and dry — meant that the film had survived in pristine condition. “I had to be the only person to have seen it in 50 years,” Bader said. “It was pure luck.” Crosby couldn’t bear to watch the game live, although he did listen by radio while in Paris, so he had hired a company to record the broadcast by kinescope. The early relative of DVR meant that he could go back and watch the 2-hour, 36-minute game later if the Pirates won. The five reels have since been transferred to DVD, and fans will get a chance to view the game during the offseason on the MLB Network. Bob Costas is set to host the special, which will include interviews with former players and other additional programming. “Bing Crosby was away ahead of his time,” said Nick Trotta, senior library and licensing manager of Major League Baseball Productions, the sport’s archivists. “It’s a time capsule.” The game at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh that October day was filled with high drama. The Pirates scored four runs in the first two innings off Bob Turley, then watched the Yankees score a run in the fifth and four more in the sixth, when Yogi Berra’s home run gave the Yankees the lead. Two more runs in the eighth made it 7-4. Pittsburgh rebounded with five runs in the bottom half, pulling ahead on Hal Smith’s three-run homer, before the Yankees tied the game in the ninth on a heads-up baserunning play by Mickey Mantle that allowed Gil McDougald to cross the plate. Minutes later, Mazeroski stepped into the batter’s box leading off the ninth inning. With one ball and no strikes, he connected with Ralph Terry’s pitch and drove the ball over the left field wall. The Pirates poured out of the dugout, the Yankees stood in disbelief, and Mazeroski rounded the bases after the first game-ending home run to win a World Series. Only later did Crosby get to see the spectacle unfold, in the comforts of his own home. “It was such a unique game to begin with,” said the Pirates’ Dick Groat, the 1960 league MVP who will turn 80 in November but remembers the game as if it happened yesterday. “It was back and forth, back and forth. It was unbelievable.”