100 Years Of Wrigley Field (Chicago Cubs/2014/A+E/Lionsgate DVD)/Super Bowl XLVIII Champions: Seattle Seahawks (2014/NFL/Cinedigm Blu-ray)

Picture: C+/B- Sound: C+ Extras: C/B- Main Programs: B/C+

Here are two new sports titles that revisit some similar coverage from the past...

100 Years Of Wrigley Field (2014) is a new documentary that talks about the legendary baseball field and longtime home of the Chicago Cubs. Turns out it was originally built for a long-defunct baseball team, became their home early on and much, much more. Running a rich 85 minutes and narrated by William Petersen, we have seen programs telling us how great this place is before, but this one adds new facts, ideas, rare footage and interviews old and new to any kind of overlap we may have encountered before. The result is a portrait of one of the greatest cities on the world with a place that is part of its heart and soul.

While too may other cities have torn down their stadiums long before they needed to (if they ever needed to), Chicago rightly stuck to this amazing structure that has endured and become an entity unto itself. Wish more cities pulled off what the Windy City (aka Second City) has here.

Extras include clips on the Ernie Banks Statue Dedication and the retirement of key numbers from legendary players Ron Santo, Ferguson Jenkins and Greg Maddux. For more on Wrigley and The Cubs, try these DVD links:

Essential Games Of The Chicago Cubs Box Set

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11753/The+Essential+Games+Of+The%E2%80%A6Chica

Forever Loyal

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/961/Forever+Loyal+(Chicago+Cubs

We Believe

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/9790/We+Believe+(2009/Virgil+Films+DVD

As the Cubs keep chasing a World Series victory, they can take inspiration and the like from Seattle, Washington, another great city that has hardly ever had any national sports victories of any kind. Super Bowl XLVIII Champions: Seattle Seahawks (2014) shows the rise and victory of the NFL football team throughout their entire season to their bizarre win against the shockingly weak San Francisco 49ers, a team some thought could win. Instead, they had trouble on every level of the game, barely scored and were bulldozed in the end as they seemed to be dozing off too much of the time.

That makes this particular entry in NFL Films' consistently fine series of Super Bowl programs on home video unusually anticlimactic and mixed, but the record of the whole season is here in a thorough 142 minutes and will be here for anyone who has missed in in perpetuity.

Extras include ten clips including two Wired For Sound clips, one for the players, the other for the coaches. For more Super Bowl action, try these links:

Baltimore Ravens: Super Bowl XLVII Champions Blu-ray

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/12079/Baltimore+Ravens:+Super+Bowl+XLVII+Champion

Greatest Super Bowl Moments DVD

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11374/Greatest+Super+Bowl+Moments+(NFL/Vivendi)/Wa

New York Giants Road To XLVI Blu-ray

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11653/New+York+Giants+Road+To+XLVI+Post-Season+C

Super Bowl Champions XLVI: New York Giants DVD

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11535/Baseball%E2%80%99s+Greatest+Games:+2011+

The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Wrigley is going to be a little rougher because it has 100 years of film and video footage, so it is not going to be able to compete with an all-HD (and possibly 16mm film)-shot compilation of the newest football season, especially in a 1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer as Seattle offers, though the Cubs, which could help them maybe finally win?

Though it can have rough monophonic sound at times via the age of some of its film and video clips, the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 sound on Wrigley is usually simple stereo, while the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on Seattle has a strangely restricted soundfield and puts its sound too much in the center channel. It is still full enough that you can tell it is not lossy, but it disappoints enough that the DVD can more than compete with it.

- Nicholas Sheffo