About a month ago we reviewed a few of the independently released DVDs in the Baseball’s Greatest Games series, a line where each entry features the entirety of an exciting game from the history of the MLB. Often these are the games of the ALCS, NLCS, or the World Series and they’re always excellent examples of what makes baseball such a popular spectator sport. Sometimes the game selected was chosen because of the back and forth between the two teams as they jockey to be ahead as they reach that final inning (with extra innings as a very real possibility), but other times the games see one team rally from a few runs behind to overtake the opponent the odds favored to win. Whatever the case, the bouts in the Baseball’s Greatest Games series can be considered the pinnacle of the MLB viewing experience, and consequently it’s hard to find too much to gripe about the “Collector’s Edition” which is really just a big boxset of 10 such games and then a disc of extra features. It’s over a day’s worth of baseball greatness and it affords fans the chance to watch games starring some of baseball’s greatest players of the last 50 years.
The games included in the set are as follows:
1960 World Series Game 7 – New York Yankees vs. Pittsburgh Pirates
1975 World Series Game 6 – Cincinnati Reds vs. Boston Red Sox
Wrigley Field Slugfest 1979 – Philadelphia Phillies vs. Chicago Cubs
1985 NLCS Game 5 – Los Angeles Dodgers vs. St. Louis Cardinals
1986 World Series Game 6 – Boston Red Sox vs. New York Mets
1991 World Series Game 7 – Atlanta Braves vs. Minnesota Twins
1992 NLCS Game 7 – Pittsburgh Pirates vs. Atlanta Braves
1993 World Series Game 6 – Blue Jays vs. Philadelphia Phillies
2003 ALCS Game 7 – Boston Red Sox vs. New York Yankees
2004 ALCS Game 4 – New York Yankees vs. Boston Red Sox
If you’ve already been buying a lot of the DVDs from the BGG series, then chances are you own at least one of these already, if not more. That’s all this “Collector’s Edition” really is: a compendium of the releases thus far, with the exception of the disc for Derek Jeter’s 3,000th hit which isn’t included here.
The games are fantastic unto themselves, and even if the set feels slightly Red Sox and Yankees heavy, there’s enough variation to make it an enjoyable collection to work through for just about anyone who enjoys watching baseball.
DVD Bonus Features
Each disc includes an alternate audio track so you can watch the game and listen to the radio play-by-play commentary instead of the normal televised broadcast audio. On the bonus disc, there are interviews with athletes and coaches from the teams in each of the games along with additional footage of the games in question. You don’t get much more than you would if you bought the disc’s one by one, but it does cost less and the slimmer packaging makes it less of a shelf hog.
"Baseball's Greatest Games - Collector's Edition" is on sale October 18, 2011 and is not rated. Sports.
