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Many of you probably don't know the story of Doak Ewing and how he came into possession of Don Larsen's no-hit game telecast. Back in the 1950s, major televised sporting events were filmed by kinescope which was essentially setting up a movie camera to film a tv set (videotape having yet to be invented). The networks had an agreement to record these games on movie film and ship them overseas for our fighting men in Korea and elsewhere. Those who received the films were under orders to destroy them after being shown.

A typical baseball game might take up 6-8 reels of film. From time to time, a reel of film shows up in some dead soldier's attic somewhere that family members comb through while selling off his belongings. Usually, these reels hold only two innings or less.

Ewing runs a business called "Rare Sportsfilms" where he refurbishes old movie film to its optimal viewing capacity. For that, he runs an ad in hobby magazines offering to buy old reels of film. Much of what he gets aren't worth much but, one day, Ewing hears from a woman in Oregon. She says she was cleaning out some old soldier's attic and she noticed several cans that said only "Larsson" (note the misspelling). She doesn't know what's on the film but would he be interested? Sure, he says.

It turns out that the cans of film contain the televised Game 5 of the 1956 World Series, all except the first inning and the first two batters of the second inning - exactly what you saw on MLB Network.

So, what happened to the film of the first inning? Doak calls the lady back and asks where the first reel might be. She said she didn't know but the soldier also kept a movie projector in the attic which they had sold years ago and there was already a reel on the projector. Somebody somewhere may have the first inning and not even know it!

Games 6 and 7 of the 1952 World Series exist for the most part and show from time to time on ESPN Classics. They are believed to be the oldest televised broadcasts known to exist. Game 3 of the 1958 World Series exists in almost complete form which Ewing restored and now offers for sale. All known complete games that exist are World Series games until 1969 when a copy of a Cubs-Phillies Game of the Week somehow survived.

Ewing restored Larsen's gem but decided it was too historic to sell to the public. Instead, he used it as part of a charity event in 2006 on the 50th anniversary of Larsen's feat where Larsen, Berra and other old Yankees attended where seats were sold for about $500 a person. Before January 1st, that was the only public showing of the film.

Since I saw no credit given at all to Ewing or Rare Sportsfilms on the MLB Network broadcast, it make me wonder whether MLB bought a copy of the game from him or if they just seized the films as their own property, as they have done to others that sold old baseball broadcasts. If the latter, I feel sad for people like Ewing who run their small niche business and then have their assets seized by the likes of Bud Selig.

As Paul Harvey would say, now you know "the rest of the story".