17 replies to this topic

[sfip]

I recently received the DVD, "The Boston Red Sox Essential Games of Fenway Park" (SoSH amazon link), figuring this month would be a most appropriate time to play it for obvious reasons. The DVD has 6 games in full, selected by Red Sox Nation, plus some bonus features. Here are the 6 games:

DISC 1: Sept. 30, 1967 Regular Season vs Minnesota Twins®--Carl Yastrzemski hit his 44th home run as the Sox tied for the lead in a four-team American League® pennant race.
DISC 2: 1975 World Series® Game 6 vs the Cincinnati Reds®--This see-saw battle of the Titans ended with Carlton Fisk and his 12th inning game-ending home run.
DISC 3: Apr. 29, 1986 Regular Season vs Seattle Mariners®--23-year-old Roger Clemens set the Major League record with 20 strikeouts in this hallmark game.
DISC 4: 1999 Major League Baseball All-Star Game® and MLB All-Century Team celebration--Fenway Park was selected to house the final Mid-Summer Classic of the 20th Century and the festivities riveted the world.
DISC 5: 1999 American League Championship® Series Game 3 vs New York Yankees--Red Sox ace Pedro Martinez shutdown the vaunted Yankees and former Boston pitcher Roger Clemens with 12 strikeouts over 7 innings.
DISC 6: Apr. 22, 2007 Regular Season vs New York Yankees®--Boston dispensed with its archrival Yankees in large part thanks to four consecutive home runs.

This thread is to ask you what 6 games you feel should have been featured not just for your own sake but for any Red Sox fan who would view this DVD. I have no dispute with games 2-5, but I'm not so sure about games 1 and 6. Before you decide which 6 games should have been featured, this DVD also has the following bonus features:

DVD Features: The Origins of Fenway Park; Ted Williams: Fenway's Hometown Hero; Ted Williams Throws out First Pitch at 1999 All-Star Game; Vintage Film: Yaz 1968 World Series Highlights at Fenway; Yaz 400th HR and 3000th hit; Red Sox Clinch 1986 ALCS in Fenway; Brunansky's amazing catch clinches 1990 AL East Crown; Last inning of Derek Lowe's No-Hitter (4/27/02); Red Sox score 10 runs before making their first out (6/27/03); Bill Mueller walk-off HR vs. Mariano Rivera (7/24/04); Dave Roberts: The Steal 2004 ALCS Game 4; Big Papi's 2004 Postseason Walk-off Hits; Last inning of Clay Buchholz's No-Hitter (9/1/07)

For disc 1, I don't feel I should say too much about it because I wasn't born yet when the game was played. But to people here who are old enough to remember it, wouldn't it have made more sense to feature the next day's game instead?

For disc 6, I'd think it would have made more sense to feature the bottom of the 3rd inning in the bonus features as opposed to the whole game being 1 of the 6 games.

Let's hear from the rest of you. With this month being Fenway's 100th anniversary, what 6 games do you feel should have been featured? Would you have featured the same 6?

[joyofsox]

I reviewed this set when it came out and was very disappointed.
http://joyofsox.blog...enway-park.html

September 30, 1967 - This complete game can also be found on NESN's "Impossible To Forget" DVD.

October 21, 1975 - This game is part of the 1975 World Series box set, also produced by MLB/A&E.

April 29, 1986 - Excellent choice!

July 13, 1999 - The title of the set is "Fenway Park Games" and not "Red Sox Games", but I still don't think this one belongs.

October 16, 1999 - A questionable choice.

April 22, 2007 - The Red Sox hit four straight home runs against the Yankees. This half-inning is the very definition of "bonus footage". Indeed, it can be found as an extra on the 2007 World Series box set. It does not belong here.

The extras include "Yaz 1968 World Series Highlights at Fenway "

Extras: The entire first inning of the June 27, 2003 game is not included. Only the first 11 batters are shown (with the radio broadcast audio), since the 12th hitter made an out. Thus, we don't get to watch the final eight Red Sox hitters of that historic inning. Johnny Damon became the first player to ever hit a single, double, and triple in the same inning, but his single (as the inning's 19th batter) is not shown.

Dave Roberts's steal is shown, but not the single that scored him. Also, only the final pitch (ball 4) to Kevin Millar is included.

Of David Ortiz's three game-winning hits in the 2004 post-season, only his ALDS-winning home run is shown in its entirety -- because he hit his bomb on the first pitch. Only the final two pitches of his four-pitch at-bat to end ALCS 4 are shown and we get only the final pitch of the epic 10-pitch at-bat that ended ALCS 5.

I can't believe there was not enough room on the DVD to show these entire innings and at-bats. It feels like they were copied in a hurry and haphazardly slapped together. The metal case is sturdy, but when you open it up, all you see inside are six red discs. There is no booklet, no box scores of the games, no pictures, no information about these games at all except the dull one-sentence descriptions on the back of the case.

A set of essential Fenway Park games is obviously a great idea -- and if it was reconfigured to be "essential Red Sox games", we could relive Pedro's 17 K, one-hit masterpiece in Yankee Stadium from September 1999 -- but this collection is decidedly unessential. MLB, despite all of its resources, has failed baseball fans yet again. I cannot recommend anyone spending $50-60 for this, but if you are a completest and find it laying in a cut-out bin, grab it.

Edited by joyofsox, 08 April 2012 - 08:49 AM.

[OttoC]

It may be that there is no recording of the October 1, 1967 game available. Although video tape was available in the mid-1950s, the dominant tape format used, well into the '70s, was 2-inch quad, which was expensive and bulky to store so it often was re-used.

[Al Zarilla]

Sept. 30, 1967 was one of the best, most fun regular season games ever for me. Yaz pulled off his usual 1967 heroics to win the game late and get himself into a tie for the home run lead with Killebrew while keeping himself in it for the triple crown which he won. Oh, Yaz was 7 for 8 with 6 RBI in the last two games vs. the Twins. Talk about carrying a team on your back. You really had to live the Impossible Dream year to appreciate or even understand it.

The pennant was clinched on Oct. 1, of course, but we all had to wait for the Tigers to lose to the Angels before we knew the Sox won it. Also, when Lonborg got the lead that day with the Sox scoring 5 in the sixth, they weren't losing that one.

I probably saw every pitch of 5 of those games, not seeing Clemens' 20 K game vs. Seattle. It was either a day game or at night with no national TV.

Edited by Al Zarilla, 08 April 2012 - 11:09 AM.

[Lose Remerswaal]

I expect when Part II comes out, the current ownership will insist on this summer's Liverpool game at Fenway.

And the Neil Diamond concert.

[snowmanny]

Nm. Dumb.

Edited by snowmanny, 08 April 2012 - 11:28 AM.

[Rough Carrigan]

Look, it ended horribly but the 1978 Playoff game has to be on any such DVD. That it's not is an obvious failing. Especially considering that the tape exists.

I would've had the last or next to last game of the '67 season. I think the former's available.
Game 6 of the 1975 World Series.
The 1978 Playoff game
Game 4 of the 1999 ALCS ("Where is Roger?" "In the shower!")
Game 4 or Game 5 of the 2004 ALCS
Game 7 of the 2007 ALCS

Edited by Rough Carrigan, 08 April 2012 - 02:44 PM.

[biollante]

I would love to see the oldest game they have preserved that the Sox played in. I would love to see some older games (I don't think of 67 as older). I don't know anything about the preservation of old games but I would like to experience the sounds and pace of the game. It seems like today's games are so slow and drowned out by music or some inane announcement.

Also, I would like to see some other games, quirky games or highlights:

Pokey Reese's inside the park home run and regular home run in 1 game. (because I was there)
The Bucky Dent game because Yaz popped out and ended my innocence as to the mastery of heros.
The game where Jack Clark strikes out 3 or 4 times and then gets a standing O for walking. (because I was there).

[behindthepen]

only the last at bat of 7-24-04? That whole game was pretty epic, especially the story of how it almost wasn't even played. I think its the most memorable regular season game since 1967.

[loshjott]

Neither Game 4 nor 5 of the 2004 ALCS is included in the Top 6 Essential Games of Fenway Park?

Mind boggling.

[trekfan55]

Neither Game 4 nor 5 of the 2004 ALCS is included in the Top 6 Essential Games of Fenway Park?

Mind boggling.

Those two are among the best games in baseball history, let alone Fenway Park.

[HangingW/ScottCooper]

Neither Game 4 nor 5 of the 2004 ALCS is included in the Top 6 Essential Games of Fenway Park?

Mind boggling.

I agree, these are the two most significant games in Red Sox history, and they were both fantastic games.

[Red(s)HawksFan]

No real quibbles with the first five choices. Seemed they wanted to cover everything the park has experienced...one World Series game, one ALCS game, one September pennant chase thriller, one All-Star game, and one history-making record-breaking game. The last game apparently is just an average regular season game with a twist, a quirk. But I think that 4-HR game could have been reduced to just showing the homers on the extras DVD. I think 7/24/04 is a perfect fit for a regular season game with a catch. It had everything...a brawl, a see-saw game, and a walk-off HR. That's one game I'd love to have a broadcast quality copy of.

I could argue for Game 4 or 5 from the 2004 ALCS instead of the Pedro-Clemens game from 1999, but I've already got the box set with those games. I don't have much vintage Pedro video laying around.

[Larry Gardner]

I would love to see the oldest game they have preserved that the Sox played in. I would love to see some older games (I don't think of 67 as older).

I bought "Impossible to Forget, The Story of the '67 Red Sox" a review of the '67 season from the Globe a few years ago, which included highlights from the entire season, plus a bonus DVD. The bonus DVD was described as the oldest entire game recorded in color in baseball history-- it was the September 30, 1967 game, which just happened to be the first game I ever attended at Fenway (I was 10), and the only game I've ever been to with my dad, who isn't a baseball fan.

http://articles.bost...ast-fenway-park

Best part, is that he made us leave in the 8th to avoid traffic, and I never saw Harmon Killebrew's HR in the 9th, until I watched the game on the bonus DVD.

The game definitely belongs in the top 6, IMO.......

[Al Zarilla]

I bought "Impossible to Forget, The Story of the '67 Red Sox" a review of the '67 season from the Globe a few years ago, which included highlights from the entire season, plus a bonus DVD. The bonus DVD was described as the oldest entire game recorded in color in baseball history-- it was the September 30, 1967 game, which just happened to be the first game I ever attended at Fenway (I was 10), and the only game I've ever been to with my dad, who isn't a baseball fan.

http://articles.bost...ast-fenway-park

Best part, is that he made us leave in the 8th to avoid traffic, and I never saw Harmon Killebrew's HR in the 9th, until I watched the game on the bonus DVD.

The game definitely belongs in the top 6, IMO.......

Traffic? It was a Saturday afternoon game, so who kind of like, cares. Also, it's not as though all people that drove to the game would be trying to get out of one huge parking lot. Back then, you parked wherever. Congrats on seeing one of the best handful of Sox games ever in person.

[Larry Gardner]

Traffic? It was a Saturday afternoon game, so who kind of like, cares.

I hear you, Al.....but I was 10, and didn't have much choice, we weren't from the Boston area (we lived in Rutland, VT back then) and my old man was/is kind of a lunatic anyways.
Kind of cool on the DVD when they showed Teddy Kennedy and HHH in the stands. We were sitting last row directly over 3B, and we had no idea they were there that day. The one person not on the DVD who was there was Sandy Koufax-- I remember seeing him on the field doing the weekly interview he did for the Saturday Game of the Week on NBC. Great game, great memories, and I've still got the scorecard with the score I kept.

[biollante]

Sounds like a great game to see. Are there any black and white games kicking around that are older ?

[Al Zarilla]

Sounds like a great game to see. Are there any black and white games kicking around that are older ?

I don't know about full games, but MLB Network had some partial game stuff of the 1946 world series on last summer. Besides the heavy, bulky flannel uniforms and the players being smaller and not so muscular, the lack of speed of the players running bases was striking. Not so much in that world series, but Ted Williams in other old footage, when he was skinny, looked fast by comparison to a lot of players. Of course, another factor was that it was a segregated sport back then.