September 19, 2011 -- For the members of Red Sox Nation (if you hadn't guessed, I am a citizen of that nation) the Red Sox 2004 World Series title was like a dream come true, while the 2007 Red Sox World Series championship was like a confirmation that it wasn't just a dream, or perhaps, icing on the cake. Major League Baseball, along with the A&E network, has just come out with a new double feature video (available in both DVD and Blu-ray disks) of both of those championship seasons. This review is for the DVD only.

This is really two documentary films on one disk, the 2004 World Series film is 91 minutes long and the 2007 World Series film is 72 minutes long, both soon to be released by Major League Baseball Productions And A&E Networks Home Entertainment. The first film, of the 2004 season, is narrated by Denis Leary, who was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, making him at least an honorary member of Red Sox Nation. The documentary starts by an apt comment from veteran Boston Globe writer Bob Ryan, one of many people interviewed for this film, who said, “Going to Fenway Park and watching the Red Sox is a Passion Play ... It is a re-enactment of an ordeal that ends, always, in tragedy.” This was the case for Red Sox fans for 86 years, from 1918 to 2004, as the Red Sox went from being the best team in baseball during the second decade of the 20th Century, to a team that came tantalizingly close to World Series victory time and again for the following eight and half decades, only to fall short of victory in the last moments of crucial games. They were heartbreakers.

The film goes on to enumerate those heartbreaks, from Enos Slaughter's mad dash around the bases to score the winning run from first on a single in the seventh game of the 1946 World Series for St. Louis (Slaughter appears in the film, saying proudly he caught the Sox napping) to Aaron Boone's crushing walkoff home run in 2003 to give the Yankees yet another playoff series victory over the Red Sox (that game seven of the ALCS is the subject of another recent DVD from MLB productions and A&E). In between are the similarly crushing defeats in the 1975 World Series, a 1978 playoff game with the Yankees and the 1986 World Series, where the Red Sox came within one out of winning the series. Instead, they blew a two run lead with two out in the tenth inning of the sixth game, losing the game and ultimately the series to the Mets.

With all that misery in their rear view mirror, you could not blame Red Sox fans for being pessimistic about their chances of winning a World Series in 2004, trailing by three games in a playoff series with the Yankees, and trailing in the ninth inning of the deciding fourth game (that game is the subject of another DVD recently released by Major League Baseball and A&E Networks Home Entertainment on baseball's greatest games). Somehow, the Red Sox came back to win eight games in a row to win the World Series, a feat unequaled in Major League Baseball's long history. This film is a celebration of that incredible playoff run against the odds.

That incredible playoff run also played against the background of “The Curse of the Bambino,” the series of failures that plagued the Red Sox after Babe Ruth, the best player in baseball, was sold by the Red Sox owner to the Yankees in 1919. That ended a string of Red Sox championships, and started a long string of Red Sox heartbreaks and championships for the Yankees.

That wasn't the only curse the Red Sox were facing. Red Sox ace Pedro Martinez had such bad luck against the Yankees he went on the record earlier in 2004 saying the Yankees were “his daddy,” so naturally, he heard the chant from the Yankee crowd in New York “Whose your daddy?” When he pitched there later in 2004. Red Sox pitcher Tim Wakefield also felt cursed after giving up that deciding home run in the series against the Yankees the year before. Another player with something to prove was starting pitcher Derek Lowe, who had been relegated to the bullpen because of ineffectiveness during the regular season. With a depleted Red Sox pitching staff because of a series of high-scoring and extra-inning playoff games, Lowe got his chances to start in the playoffs and made the most of them. The film gives good coverage to these individual dramas that played out in the larger drama of the 2004 playoffs.

Because of all the beat-downs over many years at the hands of the Yankees and the bitter rivalry between the two teams, the Red Sox victory over the Yankees in the 2004 American League Championship Series was even sweeter than the 2004 World Series victory over the St. Louis Cardinals. It is fitting, therefore that this film provides good coverage of the Yankees playoff series as well as the World Series. While the World Series was certainly a good series, being a sweep it was not nearly as dramatic, or as satisfying, as the Yankees series.

The second film, about the 2007 world series, is the shorter of the two, but it gives good coverage of both the Red Sox season, and the incredible run to the playoffs of the streaky Colorado Rockies. The Rockies in 2007 made one of the most stirring runs to the playoffs in baseball history, trailing 6 games on September 1, they had the best record in the major leagues the rest of the month, 20–8, winning the last 14 of 15 games and 11 in a row, just enough to barely make it into the playoffs. But once in the playoffs, their streak continued as the Rockies swept their way into the World Series.

As noted in the film, the Colorado streak, 20 wins against one loss at one point in September of 2007, may have worked against the Rockies, after sweeping Philadelphia and Arizona in the playoffs, they had a long layoff while waiting for the winner of the American League championship series to be decided. That layoff of eight days, plus key injuries to the Rockies pitching staff, seemed to cool off the red hot Rockies. They fell, four straight to the Red Sox, but that is a bit deceiving. Two of those games were very close one-run games that could have gone either way. The Red Sox are probably lucky they faced the Rockies after they cooled off.

The reason the Rockies had time to cool off was due to the long American League Championship playoff series between the Red Sox and the Cleveland Indians. At one point, the Indians (who had earlier defeated the Yankees in the playoffs) beat the Red Sox three games in a row to push them to the brink of elimination, three games to one, but the Red Sox rallied time and again to stave off elimination, winning three games in a row to win the series. The Red Sox thus had a bit of a hot streak of their own heading into the World Series against the cooled-off Rockies, and they won the first game 13-1, which set the tone for the sweep. I had forgotten how tough Cleveland was that year. The club tied the Red Sox for the best record in baseball and was a very tough opponent in the playoffs. The Rockies, despite being swept, also put up a better fight in the World Series than I had remembered. There are a lot of good playoff games in this film. The narrator for this film is another member of Red Sox Nation, one of the best known members at that, movie star Matt Damon (of the Bourne films).

One of the unlikely heroes for the Red Sox in the 2007 World Series was a young rookie from Oregon, Jacoby Ellsbury (the first full-blooded Navajo to reach the major leagues). Ellsbury brought something new to the Red Sox, speed. The Red Sox were not known for their speed on the basepaths. Center fielder Ellsbury added tremendous speed in the outfield and on the basepaths, later becoming one of the leading base stealers in baseball. Combined with second baseman Dustin Pedroia, the two made a formidable leadoff combination, giving the Rockies defense fits. The player who came up biggest for the Sox, however, was third baseman Mike Lowell. Originally sort of a throw-in on the trade of all star Hanley Ramírez to the Florida Marlins for pitcher Josh Beckett, Lowell came up with clutch hits and clutch plays for the Red Sox in the series, along with the Red Sox usual stars, Beckett, David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez.

As in the 2004 series film on the same disk, there is plenty of coverage of individual achievements as well as team accomplishments. These two series films are well researched and well edited, interspersed with a lot of interview footage of current and past players, managers, owners, sportswriters and others with insight into the teams, players and games. The 2004 film is similar to a very good DVD produced seven years ago by the New England Sports Network and Major League Baseball Productions, “Faith Rewarded: The Historic Season of the 2004 Boston Red Sox.” This new version of the same basic story has many of the same interview snippets and game videos, but a different overall emphasis, more on the playoffs and less on the 2004 regular season and how the team developed during that season.

Both the 2004 and 2007 World Series films on this new DVD are good documentaries that are well edited with a lot of good interview material from a variety of sources. This DVD rates an A.

Each of the two films on the disk is accessed through the disk menu. The only other option in the menu is chapter selections for each film. There are no closed captions and no subtitles for either of these films. Unlike MLB documentaries from earlier years, high definition source material was available for these films and it shows in the video quality, even on the DVD. The two films are a little different, however, as the image size is a bit smaller on the 2004 film. This is not just an artifact of the DVD player or the TV. The image is also smaller when viewed on a computer screen, when upscaled on a bluray player, when shown on a screen from a video projector, any old way you look at it. Despite its smaller size, the image quality is good on the 2004 World Series Film. It is also good on the 2007 film. The soundtrack is two-channel stereo, nothing fancy.

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Copyright © 2011 Robert Roten. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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