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1985 NLCS: Game 5 - Cardinals vs Dodgers
“In a year that has been so improbable... the impossible has happened!”  Sound familiar?  Yeah, that’s Vin Scully’s famous call of the Kirk Gibson 1988 World Series Game 1 homerun.  Why did I put it there?  Two reasons: One, Scully is the play-by-play announcer for this game and two, the end of this game was truly improbable.

Overall, this may be the best broadcast in the set.  The colors are sharp (helped by being a day game) and the audio is the best of the bunch.  As far as Scully goes, he’s the best in the business.  Unfortunately this is the wrong time to use him.  The greatest flaw of these DVD sets is the exclusion of audio broadcasts as secondary audio tracks, never more apparent than on this game.  The end of this game featured Jack Buck’s classic radio call of ‘Go Crazy, folks! Go Crazy!”   Yet, we get Scully.  For a set that is geared towards Cardinals fans and the fact that it is to be representative of Busch Stadium (a building that had Buck immortalized in bronze outside of it), Buck’s game length commentary would have been appreciated.

The Cardinals had no business winning this game.  Their only weapon was Fernando Valenzuela’s erratic control. However, as the sign of all good Cardinals teams, they just hang around and find an opportunity to succeed.  When Ozzie Smith stepped to the plate in the 9th inning of this marathon, he dug himself on the left side of the plate.  The Dodgers had to like their chances, as Smith had never homered from that side in his then eight-season MLB career.  You get goose bumps seeing them flash the graphic of his 2,967 career at-bats without a home run from that side.

And he hit a home run.

For any Cardinals fan, the thump of those fireworks going off in rhythmic fashion is ingrained into your soul.  Ozzie seemingly floated around the bases, fist in the air, almost giddy and stunned that he, the most unlikely hero in that situation, had come through.  Scully, at this point, becomes useless.

1987 World Series: Game 3 - Cardinals vs Twins
Like the 1968 team, the Cardinals of 1987 would be the last of a good run. Ozzie Smith led the team in batting average, the first time in his career he hit over .300.  Jack Clark powered the team, leading the NL in on-base percentage, slugging, and walks.  He also led the team in homeruns and RBIs.  Many players that year had career years, including Willie McGee, who hit double digit home runs for only the second time in his career and drove in 100 runs for the only time in his would-be 18-season career.

Everything was in place for an overachieving Cardinals team to buzzsaw through an 85-win Minnesota Twins team.  Unfortunately for the Cardinals, with Tudor unavailable in Games 1 and 2, they were outscored 18 to 5.  The Twins, on the cusp of a solid 6 year run, were a better offensive team than their record let on.  Furthermore, the entire season featured Jekyl and Hyde performances by both teams from one game to another.

As for the game featured here, Game 3, it was a classic Whitey Herzog Cardinals game.  Just keep ‘chopping wood’ until finally the tree falls down. Tudor was electric, going seven innings and striking out seven, only making one mistake in the sixth inning.   

The production value of this broadcast is top notch.  Not only are we treated to a commentary by Al Micheals, Jim Palmer and Tim McCarver, but we get pitching scouting reports by Tom Seaver and Tony Gwynn and hitting reports by Paul Molitor.  It is shocking to hear Tim McCarver provide valuable and interesting commentary to a game, something he doesn't seem to have done since this 1987 broadcast.  The entire group seems to know the topic they are talking about and it's a treat.  The real bonus is that we actually get postgame interviews with this one.  Led by ‘Mr. October’ Reggie Jackson, you begin to wonder why Gwynn, Palmer, Molitor and Reggie Jackson seemingly don’t have jobs in baseball broadcasting anymore.

Unfortunately, for as great as the original broadcast had to have been, the transfer here is not.  The audio sounds as if we are listening through a telephone.  There is no bass to the voices or on-field sound effects.   The picture is so dark that the game appears to be played without the stadium lights on.  Very disappointing.

Mark McGwire’s 62nd Home Run
This is the most disappointing game of the set, for various reasons. Firstly, it’s like watching a giant lie that you are the only one in the know. The announcers, the fans, even the Maris family are falling all over McGwire as he seemingly breaks one of the most cherished records in baseball.  Obviously, later on we will learn that not only is the record breaking season surrounded in a cloud of taint but the record itself will later be beaten by someone who is not only a better hitter but a better cheater.

The broadcast is terrible.  The first two innings suffer from tracking errors and audio glitches that distract from any ability to transport yourself mentally into the game.  The advertising for the set claims that you can own these classic games, unedited.  That’s not true.  There is a large chunk of the game between McGwire’s post home run speech and another half inning.  This game is an utter waste of space, although it does allow a window into the mentality of fans and announcers during a suspect era in baseball’s history.

2004
Fast-forward to the 2004 NLCS, truly one of the greatest postseason series in the history of baseball.  An entire set should be devoted to this series alone.  Dramatic late inning home runs, stellar pitching and amazing defensive plays, the home team in this series won every single game.  After playing the first six games, the St. Louis Cardinals and the Houston Astros had identical ERAs, Team Batting Averages, and Runs Scored.  This was, in all essence, the breaking point.  This game didn’t disappoint, either.  From Biggio’s first inning home run to the second greatest postseason defensive play by Jim Edmonds in the second inning, this game had the excitement and drama of the first 6.  I mean, we had a suicide squeeze for Christ’s sake.

Presentation wise, this disc just doesn’t live up.  The game was in 2004, so the technology for digital recording or, at the very least, minimal data loss should have been there.  Instead, this game looks like an XVID AVI converted over to MPEG and then burned to a DVD.  There is aliasing on the baselines, halos around the baseballs and the players’ outlines, the background crowd is blurry and the there is a constant ‘rain’ effect to the images.  Blacks are somewhat washed out as well.  To top it all off, this is not even a first generation recording. 

Apparently, MLB forgot to set their VCR that night, because this copy is from FOX 5 New York City, as the station ID pops up midway through the 3rd inning.  That is unacceptable.  I can understand if you are dealing with a 40-year-old source material, but even the ’68 game is straight from the NBC National feed, not some local affiliate.  Finally, as far as the authoring aspect there is a layer change 43 minutes into this game.  I am sure it is because A&E crammed all the bonus footage onto this disc, but even beyond that, the layer change happens AFTER they come back from a commercial break.  2 seconds earlier and the layer change would happen during a black screen between innings.

There is no excuse for this bonus footage to not be put on Disc 1 with the 1968 World Series Game 1.  A quickly paced game that already suffered from diminished video quality, they certainly were not stretching the disc space for a higher bit rate on that disc.  When they needed the extra for 2004, it was not there.

Extras
The extras for this set are very few, tacked on to the end of the 2004 NLCS disc.  They are poorly produced, having the production value of a community college local access channel.  The interviews are neither insightful nor informative.  There are a few solid highlights, but nothing spectacular.  One of them, in fact, is of Auggie Busch riding the Clydesdales on the turf before a World Series game.  It’s nice to see, but isn’t a selling point for the set.  The exclusion of the title “Busch Stadium Memories” a separate retail DVD made available at the conclusion of last season is somewhat befuddling.  With a set directed at the stadium itself and not the team, including that DVD only makes sense.

There isn’t anything particularly discussed about the stadium itself. Nothing about the retired numbers, statues, press boxes, etc.  This set is unique compared to the other MLB DVD sets because it attempts to cover the life of a stadium, not a series or team.  In that respect, it fails.

Overall
For Cardinals fans, this set is obviously a must own.  If only for two discs: Gibson’s Game 1 in ’68 and the now seemingly centuries ago last championship in 1982.  The saddening part about this set is not only the constant reminder that Busch Stadium II is now gone, but that during its run the Cardinals seemingly couldn’t win a championship.  Maybe it truly was time for a change.

For the average baseball fan, classic moments like Gibson’s Game 1 performance, Bruce Sutter’s two innings in 1982 and Ozzie Smith’s improbable home run, along with McGwire’s record breaking long ball are welcome additions to your collection.  MLB once again misses the boat with a set as far as extra features and overall presentation, but being able to actually own these classic games far outweighs the faults. 

Unlike other MLB produced sets, we don’t get the story of the game in and game out of a 7 game series.  The disconnected feeling of these games more than likely accounts for whatever disappointment there is in the content.  When you step back and look at the variety and importance of the games given, this set clearly deserves the benefit of the doubt.

As Jack Buck would say, “That’s a winner!”

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