The Essential Games Of The…Chicago Cubs/Philadelphia
Phillies/Texas Rangers (MLB/A&E
DVD Box Sets)
Picture: C+ Sound: C+ Extras: D Main Programs: B
A&E
and Major League Baseball are back with a continuation in what has to be the
most comprehensive DVD Sports box set series anyone has issued to date. Usually ties to championship events, but also
based on a given particular team, the new The
Essential Games Of The series features three rival teams at their best in
four great games each.
The Chicago Cubs set includes the 1960 Hall
Of Fame Showcase, Sandberg’s 1984 Comeback Shocker, 1998 NL Wildcard Tiebreaker
and 2008 NL Central Division Clincher.
The Philadelphia Phillies offers
the 1980 NLCS Game 5, 1993 NLCS Game 6, 2008 World Series Game 5 and 2010 NLDS
Game 1. Last (and least?) we have the Texas Rangers set including Nolan
Ryan’s 1991 7th No-Hitter, the 1998 ALDS game vs. The Yankees, 2010
ALCS Game 6 against the same team and 2011 ALCS game against Detroit. All are nicely packaged in hard paperboard
boxes with slendercases and in line with the many previous boxed sets.
Most of the
games are presented in a 1.33 X 1 aspect ratio, but some latter games are here
in anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 framing.
The earliest games are on black and white film, which sometimes has
optical additions done in the lab. All
the sets offer lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 sound throughout, with older audio
monophonic and newer games in stereo, but all sound as good as they could
though I would consider spending some money for further restoration and
preservation if I were MLB. None of the
sets have any extras.
- Nicholas Sheffo
