WTIU Documentaries
Archiving Airwaves: The Miley Collection
Special | 28m 59sVideo has Closed Captions
John Miley finds a home for his collection of roughly 44,000 sports broadcasts dating back to 1947.
An Evansville, Ind., man has compiled perhaps the largest collection of sports broadcasts in the country. He's been the go-to for historic broadcasts by all the major networks and sports leagues. But at 93 years old, John Miley has been looking for someone to curate the more than 44,000 recordings he’s made or gathered since the late 1940s. And he found one at Indiana University’s Media School.
WTIU Documentaries is a local public television program presented by WTIU PBS
WTIU Documentaries
Archiving Airwaves: The Miley Collection
Special | 28m 59sVideo has Closed Captions
An Evansville, Ind., man has compiled perhaps the largest collection of sports broadcasts in the country. He's been the go-to for historic broadcasts by all the major networks and sports leagues. But at 93 years old, John Miley has been looking for someone to curate the more than 44,000 recordings he’s made or gathered since the late 1940s. And he found one at Indiana University’s Media School.
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>> Support for "Archiving Airwaves: The Miley Collection" is provided by IU Credit Union.
Offering mobile access to IU Credit Union accounts, helping account holders check balances, transfer funds and pay bills through their mobile devices.
Available in the IU Credit Union apps for iPhone and Android.
And by WTIU members.
Thank you!
♪ >> Joe DiMaggio is really a picture up there at home plate.
Yes, he's really something.
It's a long drive going high up over the left field pavlion.
And it's a home run for Joe DiMaggio!
That ball was almost over the roof out in left field!
Boy, oh, boy, was that apple really hit.
>> Well, it hasn't come down yet, Tom.
So I can't estimate.
>> Well, he needs only one more pitch, if it can be the right one.
Wilhelm kicking around a little bit out on the mound.
Now, checking his sign.
Bauer guarding the plate.
Here it comes.
He swings, and it's a high pop-up into right field.
It may be.
Gardner going back.
Tasby in.
Gardner has got it!
A no-hitter for Wilhelm!
He's got a no-hitter!
Wilhelm pitches the first no-hitter in modern Oriole history, and he's mobbed by his teammates.
>> And the Yankees have tied the game in the top of the ninth inning.
Well, a little while ago when we mentioned that this one, in typical fashion, was going right to the wire, little did we know.
Art Ditmar throws.
Here's the three, and a high fly ball going deep to left.
Can they do it?
Back to the wall goes Berra.
It is over the back home run!
The Pirates win!
[ Cheers ] Ladies and gentlemen, Mazeroski has hit a 1-0 pitch over the left field fence and caused Bill to win the 1960 World Series for the Pittsburgh Pirates.
>> I'd say there's three different aspects to a great broadcast.
You need a good crowd.
You need good announcers who know what they're doing, and you, of course, need a couple of teams that are playing.
>> After 156 games each, two more than the regular schedule calls for, the Bums from Brooklyn, the Giants from New York have come down to the wire to where it is all or nothing.
What happened before, even the Giants closing rush from 13 and a half out will be forgotten when the final decision is rendered at the Polo Grounds this afternoon.
20 years from now, the fans will be talking about this afternoon's hero, as yet unknown, but the man and the hour are about to meet.
>> Let me tell you where I was when the game happened.
I was a cadet in charge of quarters at West Point.
They have a cadet in charge of quarters each day.
I was -- 1951, I was a junior.
On the radio, I was listening to the game.
Who was I listening to?
Red Barber.
>> Runners take their lead.
Lockman waits.
The right hand is around.
Now, the ball hit into left field for a base hit.
Dark is coming in to score, and coming into third is Mueller.
And around to second goes Lockman.
The tying run is at second base.
>> Boy, I'm telling you what they're going to say about this one, I don't know.
Bobby Thomson the batter.
The outfield deep and very much to the left.
Ralph Branca on the hill in favor of Newcombe.
Rube Walker catching the pitch to Bobby.
It's Branca.
A straight curve that Branca ripped right in.
>> Bobby hitting at .292.
He's had a single and a double and he drove in the Giants first run with a long drive to center.
Brooklyn leads it 4-2.
Branca throws.
There's a long drive!
It's going to be, I believe.
The Giants win the pennant!
The Giants win the pennant!
The Giants won the pennant!
The Giants won the pennant!
Bobby Thomson hits that to the line back of the left field stands.
The Giants won the pennant, and they're going crazy.
They're going crazy!
Hey, hey!
I don't believe it.
I don't believe it.
I do not believe it.
Bobby Thomson hit a line drive into the lower deck of the left field stands.
Now this whole place is going crazy.
The Giants won it by a score of 5-4, and they are picking Bobby Thomson up and carrying him off the field.
>> I remember listening to the '39 Rose Bowl when I was a kid.
>> We're looking forward to a big battle between the two star teams of the nation.
>> Duke was playing USC and Duke was undefeated, untied, and unscored on.
>> Here come the Duke Blue Devils out onto the field.
They are in their blue uniforms, new trousers, new jerseys.
The trousers with white stripes down the side.
>> And the last part of the game was unbelievably exciting.
With about two minutes to go in the game, USC got the ball, and their fourth string quarterback, Grenny Landsell, led them down the field to what turned out to be a touchdown.
>> Throwing a pass out there to Krueger, and it's complete across the goal line.
It's complete across the goal line.
Touchdown!
It's a touchdown.
Southern California goes on to score 6-3 opponent Duke University.
Oh, what a ballgame this is.
>> And here, Duke's season was gone.
Undefeated, untied, unscored on, until a minute was left in the entire season, and they got beat 7-3.
The three announcers that I really enjoyed when I was a kid were Bill Stern, Ted Husing, and Harry Wismer.
Mel Allen, I really loved listening to Mel Allen too.
When I was at West Point, I could hear a lot of New York Yankee games, and I just was enthralled with his broadcast.
Well, I have, I believe -- I don't know this for a fact, but I believe I have the best and most comprehensive sports audio and video collection that has ever been had.
>> Two strikes and a ball.
Mitchell waiting.
Standing straight.
Feet close together.
Larsen is ready.
Gets the sign.
Two strikes, ball.
Here comes the pitch.
Strike three!
A no-hitter, a perfect game for Don Larsen.
Yogi Berra runs out there.
He leaps on Larsen, and he's swarmed by his teammates.
Listen to this crowd roar!
[ Cheers ] >> In the mid-'70s, I was at KMOX Radio in St. Louis, and I just decided on my own, let's do a weekend retrospective about the three World Series that the Cardinals were in in the 1960s, all the games called by Harry Caray and Jack Buck on KMOX.
>> I came across KMOX, and they're playing old Stan Musial highlights.
My favorite player of all time, Stan Musial.
So -- and I've got everything that Musial ever did, right?
No!
He had some stuff that I didn't have.
So I'll be doggone, if after the program was over around 10:30 in the morning, I picked up the phone.
>> And he just called out of the blue.
Got connected to the sports office at KMOX.
We had a conversation.
He invited me to come to his home.
And I drove to meet him in Evansville.
>> He picked out several things that he wanted to hear.
>> And I was stunned by what he had even then in 1976 and how precisely he had it cataloged.
Now, some of it was among the greatest moments in sports history.
You know, Louis knocks out Schmeling or Jessie Owens at the '36 Olympics or some sort of scratchy broadcast of a 1933 World Series.
>> One year, CBS called me.
They wanted to play highlights of old World Series games.
They were doing the World Series on -- on radio, and they wanted to play highlights of old World Series.
They gave me a list of 48 World Series highlights that they wanted from the past.
I had all 48 of them.
>> Two away.
Cochrane on second base.
Goslin batting.
It's the last half of the ninth inning.
The ballgame tied up 3-3.
French steps in on the mound.
He's getting the signal.
Here's the pitch, and a drive going out to right field for a hit!
And here comes the throw to the plate.
Here comes the run in, and the ballgame is over!
And the Detroit Tigers are the new champions of the world!
>> When I got to NBC and later to HBO, any time we were doing historical stuff, one of my suggestions was, let me check with John Miley.
And very often, he had not only what we were looking for, but more than we had asked for related to that topic or that game or that broadcaster.
>> Everyone comes to me.
The major networks, the players, the relatives of the players, fans of -- of the sport in particular, people who know about my collection, and -- and think -- wonder what in the world does he have?
>> We did a tape for Oakland as we did for Marty and Joe and Harry Caray.
We did a tape for Oakland's 25th anniversary, and they gave -- they gave the tape away to the first 10,000 that came into the ballpark.
>> I got all the cassettes and reel-to-reels in here, including large reel-to-reels that I used to make my Notre Dame tape, which was sold up at the Notre Dame Bookstore.
>> No one -- and I mean the archives of the networks, I mean the Smithsonian, if they've archived any of this stuff, I mean the respective Halls of Fame in Cooperstown, Springfield and Canton, no one and no entity has as much stuff and as precisely cataloged as John Miley does.
>> There's whole television series that never got recorded and saved because they were just considered disposable.
>> Super Bowl III, when Joe Namath and the Jets upset the Colts, to my knowledge, no one had the full game.
Things just disappeared.
Don Larsen's perfect game just disappeared.
>> Television stations would tape over them.
So the only way that you would have access to a lot of these recordings is if somebody took the time to record them on their own and then maintained them.
>> This fine chilling sound of baseball history being made.
It's moments like these that fuel the passion of John Miley of Evansville, Indiana.
Owner of the world's most complete collection of baseball audio.
>> My collection started probably back in the 1940s when I bought -- or my parents bought me a wire recorder.
At that time, they didn't have taped recorders.
Whatever I would record, I would just take this microphone -- I would start the recorder, whatever -- however you start the recorder.
I don't remember that.
But it -- when you start the recorder, then you just take this microphone and you put it next to the radio.
[ Cheers ] >> And I remember taping -- the thing that really got me started was the California-Northwestern Rose Bowl in I believe 1949.
>> He's going wide.
He's untouched.
Off left tackle and Jensen, and he's into the pair.
He's down to the 40.
He's down to the 30, to the 10, and he's over for the touchdown!
[ Cheers ] >> I had no idea what I was doing, really.
What I was trying to do was I knew that when I retired, I would want something to do, and what better than listen to old sporting events.
>> Billy Cannon watches it bounce.
He takes it on his own 11.
He comes back up field to the 15, stumbles momentarily.
He's at the 20, running hard at the 25, gets away from them at the 30, at the 25, at the 35, the 25, he's at the 5, he scores!
>> I would search the dial every night.
I couldn't get the stations until nighttime.
The 50,000 watt stations, you could get WEEI and you could get WGN and KMOX, et cetera, WLW.
So I would check each one of them.
I knew who was playing, and I had a list of who was playing, and so I would check and see what was going on.
>> 54-53 with five seconds left in the third overtime!
And it's going to be an out-of-bounds play with Parker handling.
All right, five seconds.
You know, if they get the -- if they get the field goal, they're gonna win the whole thing, the whole championship, the whole season, everything.
If they miss it, Carolina is gonna get it.
That's what it boils down to.
All right.
It's taken out by Parker.
Parker throws a long one into the left side.
They feed it to Stilts, and it's knocked away from Stilts and into the hand of Kearns, and we win!
54-53 North Carolina did it!
Joe Quigg knocked it away -- knocked it away, and North Carolina wins the championship 54-53!
>> And he was well situated in mid-America to pick up WHAS in Louisville for a Kentucky basketball game or whatever, or to pick up WJR in Detroit and listen to Ernie Harwell.
So he would just start the recorder.
>> There are only 5 seconds to go.
Kentucky has a 12-point lead.
Elgin Baylor takes the last shot of the ballgame.
No good!
And the NCAA the National Champion Kentucky Wildcats!
>> There is a distinct difference between a national broadcaster and the local or regional broadcaster, and the approaches must be different.
>> Here they come.
Hare, Middleton, and the Buckeyes.
And they are tearing down Michigan's coveted M Club banner.
They will meet a dastardly fate here for that.
They have the audacity, the unmitigated gall to tear down the coveted M that Michigan is going to run out from under.
And here they come, the maize and blue, making their way, 105,000 fans!
And they're cheering and jumping up and down in front of the Ohio State fans, and now they're coming underneath the M. The M Club supports you, Michigan, and so does everybody from coast to coast.
The coast of Lake Michigan to the coast of Lake Erie, what a football game we're gonna have here this afternoon!
>> Most sports fans in the '50s, '60s, '70s, into the '80s and 90s even, your exposure to sport was not through national television, because it wasn't on national television that often.
So your exposure was through local or regional broadcasters, and they became part of your life.
>> It is 9:46 p.m. 2-2 to Harvey Kuenn.
One strike away.
Sandy into his windup.
Here's the pitch.
Swung on and missed.
A perfect game!
[ Cheers ] >> Harry Caray was St. Louis.
He was sensational until he went to the Cubs.
Let's put that way.
He was good with the Cubs too, but nothing like he was with the Cardinals.
>> Two balls, two strikes.
Stan waits.
Now the stretch from the belt.
Here's the pitch.
Line drive.
That is into left field.
That's number 3,000!
A run is scored.
Musial around first.
On his way to second with a double.
Holy cow, he came through!
>> The network broadcasters should get excited when the moment objectively calls for that, but it's just not gonna be the same.
Plus the familiarity is not going to be the same.
So it's Don Fischer, over all those years on Indiana basketball and football.
>> 8 seconds to go.
Out to Smart, baseline jump shot in the air.
Gooooood!
Four seconds, three seconds, two seconds, one!
The Hoosiers have won the national championship!
>> Not only is Don an excellent broadcaster, but the attachment, the familiarity, that voice is a voice you've heard since you were a little kid if you grew up as an Indiana fan.
You attach it to so many memories and so many specific calls at specific moments.
No network broadcaster, no matter how competent, can have that relationship.
>> Indiana is number one!
They won it!
Indiana has won it!
They are the National Champions for 1976.
>> Something that I think is really -- it's almost humbling to think of that happening all over the country, but us only being aware of the broadcaster or the couple of broadcasters that were in our area.
Thinking about how that was really happening everywhere simultaneously is really cool.
>> A little bouncer slowly towards Bryant.
He will glove it and throw to Rizzo.
It's in time!
And the Chicago Cubs win the World Series!
>> I spent much of my childhood in New York.
So I listened to Red Barber.
I listened to Mel Allen.
I listened to Lindsey Nelson, to Marty Glickman, but I also -- even at a young age, I was fiddling around with the dial on the car radio in the driveway long before I had a license to drive to pick up distant broadcasts.
So when I was 11 years old, I knew who Bob Prince was.
I knew who Chuck Thompson on the Orioles was.
>> I remember as a kid driving around with my dad, who was a salesman.
So he drove 60,000 miles a year, and he always had 700 WLW on in the car, listening to Reds games with Marty Brenneman and Joe Nuxhall.
That's embedded in my memory because when I was 11 years old or 10 years old, the Reds won the World Series.
>> Lansford, good hitting Oakland third baseman.
Steps in, levels the bat.
And Myers bringing it.
And the pitch is hit in the air, foul off first.
Benzinger backing and calling.
And the 1990 World Championship belongs to the Cincinnati Reds!
♪ >> Back in around 1975, I had been using TC-105s, Sony TC-105 units.
Every time I would need new recorders, I would call Long's Electronics, which is no longer in existence, in Birmingham, Alabama.
I said I need two more of my Sony recorders.
And she said, you know, John, you should be aware, Sony no longer makes that recorder.
This was 1975 or so.
And I said, oh, really?
I said, do you have any in stock?
And she said, yes, we -- we do have.
And she went to check to see how many she had.
She had 40 units in stock.
I said, well, I tell you what, I'll call you back and let you know how many recorders, I want.
So I went to my pad and figured out how long I thought I was gonna live, and I knew how long those units would last because I already lost a couple of them, wore them out.
And -- and just divided this, well, divide this and so forth and so on.
I figured out, I'll need about 15 of them before I'm 80.
Figuring 80 was the day I was gonna stop, which I'm 93 now and I haven't stopped yet, but I have stopped using the units.
So called her back.
I said, give me 15 of the units.
They are like two -- a little over $200 a piece, which was a nice little sum, but that was my life.
And so I -- I purchased them.
But there's only one of my TC-105s that's -- that is operable right now, and it's the one right behind me.
Unbelievably, it's still going, but it's not going to be going very much longer, but neither am I!
[ Chuckles ] ♪ >> There was an article written about me in a local paper in 1977 by a local sports writer.
And he had found out about my collection.
He came out to interview me, took a picture and had a really nice interview in the paper, and I got a lot of comments on it.
And meanwhile, I was taking "The Sporting News" at the time, which was the baseball newspaper of the world at that time.
One of their writers was a guy by the name of Bill Madden, who now is in the Hall of Fame.
He's a Hall of Fame writer.
And he wrote an article -- a column or article, whatever you want to call it, every week on the sports collector.
Well, that interests me very much.
So I would listen -- I would read about the sports collector every week.
And I got to thinking, you know, I wonder if he'd like to know something about my collection.
So I don't know how I got it, but I got his phone number.
And immediately, he answered the phone.
And I told him who I was and what I did, and he sounded interested.
And he said, John, we're going to do a story on you.
And he wrote a sensational article.
I had two people taping for me at the time, and I mentioned that to him, and he put it in the article.
And at the end of the article, unbeknownst to me, he says, okay, here you have it, folks.
If you want to join John Miley's tape network, contact him at Post Office Box 5103, Evansville, Indiana 47715.
It wasn't two days before I started getting letters.
I got about 50 to 75 letters from people around the country, one or two overseas.
So anyway, they -- all of these people started taping for me, and that's the reason that I have all this collection.
It is unbelievable what they did for me.
♪ >> I am on the air with Jack Buck, and he's interviewing me.
>> Every time I see you, you hand me a tape of days gone by, and you have the biggest collection of sports tapes in the country.
>> Well, I -- I believe I do, Jack.
It is a large collection.
I've got a lot of things, especially of yours.
>> We had a nice one- or two-minute interview.
It was very short, but he -- he did a good job interviewing.
I really enjoyed the interview, because I enjoyed Jack Buck.
At the end of the interview, he gave -- gave out my number.
He says, if anybody wants to contact John Miley about what he has in his collection, here's his number.
And I -- and I immediately said -- I had time to say it.
I said, wait a minute.
I said don't call now, because there's nobody there.
I'm here, and I'm not at home, and I'm the only person in my -- in my company.
And I got a call on Tuesday morning from a gal who said I heard your broadcast on KMOX the other day.
She said, Pete Reiser was my brother.
I said, I know who you are talking about, Pete Reiser.
He was a very exceptionally good center fielder for the -- for the Brooklyn Dodgers before Duke Snider.
So I said, well, let me go see what I have.
So I went into my room and checked on the computer, and I find that the one thing that I have -- I know I have other things, but one thing I had was -- immediately caught my interest.
I went back in to pick up the phone.
I said, you know what, all I've got is -- is Pete Reiser hitting a home run in game three of the 1941 World Series.
She said, what?
I said -- I knew she would be thrilled to death.
I said, I'll tell you what, I'm gonna send it to you.
So I sent it to her, and she sent me a letter back saying how much she really appreciated that.
That's what makes my work so exciting and -- and so much fun, that I'm able not only to please myself, but I'm able to please others.
>> He's not imposing his obsession on anybody, but he's happy to share it.
>> I was giving a program at the local quarterback club, playing some of my tapes, thinking they would enjoy them and they did.
So I started off my -- my talk, and as I started my talk, who comes in the back door, goes and sits down in one of the seats, as far away as she can be, and I -- I look, I said -- I immediately -- I don't know how I thought of this.
But I said, folks, before I continue with my program here, I want you to turn around -- could you imagine Carol being so embarrassed like that?
>> His wife Carol is a lovely, lovely person.
>> I want you to turn around and see who just came in the room.
And I want you to -- I want to tell you why she just came in the room.
She wants to know what I've been doing in the basement for the last 30 years.
[ Laughter ] So -- and that was the truth.
She never came down in the basement.
She doesn't know what's what.
She has no idea what this stuff is.
Carol had the greatest doll collection.
Ask anybody in town.
Nobody in town had anything close to what she had in doll collection.
She has a wonderful doll collection, but I have no idea what's -- you just take your dolls, and I'll take my tapes.
Every once in a while, we'll meet for supper.
So -- and we've had a life like that, that has no problems at all.
We haven't -- we haven't been divorced yet.
We've only been married 71 years or so.
♪ >> Indiana is gonna have everything that I have or at least they have the opportunity to have everything that I have.
>> I think typical of John turning his collection over to the Indiana Media School, his only concern -- not just his primary concern -- was will this wind up in a place where it will be valued, understood, fully appreciated and they'll take care of it?
>> This is a history of sports broadcasting in the United States over the last century.
>> I've had several announcers call me and say, hey, what do you have of Red Barber?
Why do you want that?
I just want to see how he handled the broadcast.
I don't want to copy him, but I want to see how he handled the broadcast.
It is unbelievable what people will be able to do with this.
>> I think John -- if you ever did a history of sports broadcasting, John's opinion, either on camera or as a consultant, would be valuable, because he has a very broad and nuanced understanding of the history of the craft.
And while he wanted anything, he wasn't saying oh, that's this guy.
He's subpar.
I'm not taping it.
He taped all of it, if it was of interest to him.
But he could give you a pretty knowledgeable grade from here are the people who are excellent.
Here are the people that are very good.
Here are the people that are pretty good.
Here's the people that should have driven a truck instead, but they were on this game and I taped it anyway.
>> And I know that what I do is valuable to other people.
>> There it is!
There it is!
There it is!
There it is!
There it is if it stays fair.
And it is number 60!
How about that?
A standing ovation.
A standing ovation for Roger Maris who has got number 60.
>> Support for "Archiving Airwaves: The Miley Collection" is provided by IU Credit Union, offering mobile access to IU Credit Union accounts, helping account holders check balances, transfer funds and pay bills through their mobile devices.
Available in the IU Credit Union apps for iPhone and Android.
And by WTIU members.
Thank you!
WTIU Documentaries is a local public television program presented by WTIU PBS