Dodgers pitcher Sandy Koufax’s first no-hitter in 1962. Boxer Joe Louis’ heavyweight championship fights against Billy Conn in 1941 and 1946. The record-breaking game in 1966 between the Redskins and the Giants that racked up the most combined points ever scored in an NFL game (113).
Such are the classic sports moments caught on tape that are now part of the audio collection housed at the Library of Congress Packard Campus on Mount Pony.
Collector John Miley of Indiana recently gifted the large collection that includes more than 6,000 radio and television sports recordings from 1920 to 1972. Known in the sporting world as the Miley Collection, the recordings cover every kind of sport imaginable – MLB, NHL, NBA, Olympic events, Indy 500 races, golf, tennis and more.
In addition to historic play-by-play recordings of sports action, the archive is an audio gallery of great sports announcers like Harry Caray, Mel Allen and Dizzy Dean.
Librarian of Congress James Billington lauded the rarity of the collection, saying many early broadcasts are lost forever.
“With the acquisition of the John Miley Collection, the Library of Congress will now be able to ensure the archival preservation of a collection that substantially documents the historical record of the nation’s sports broadcasts prior to 1972, when sound recordings were not protected by federal copyright law,” he said in a release.
Miley has been collecting and recording sports broadcasts since 1947, when as a high school student his parents bought him a wire recorder. He is considered the authority on sports broadcast recordings.
“I have been looking for years for the proper place for my collection that would not only preserve it for generations to come, but also make it available to the public,” said Miley, adding that he started collecting sports broadcasts so that he would have something to listen to when he retired. “It didn’t take long for me to realize that others wanted to hear this, too.”
Packard Campus staffers will catalog and digitally preserve the broadcasts which will be publicly available in the LOC reading room in Washington, D.C., and eventually on the LOC web site.
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