Customer Reviews

The St. Louis Cardinals - Greatest Games of Busch Stadium 1966-2005

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I got my set last week and the only time I'm not watching it is when I'm watching us play live.

It's great to have all of these classic games on DVD and be able to experience once again all of these classic moments that helped shape the history of the franchise and Busch Stadium itself.

The games are presented as they were seen on telivision with the commercial breaks edited out. The footage was taken from the original master tapes and do contain some minor visual and audio imperfections, as mentioned at the beginning of each disc. They are nothing to worry about however as they don't take away any of the joy of being able to see these games again.

Each game comes in it's own slim case and the covers for each game have the box scores and other stats and trivia facts.

The sixth disc, game 7 of the 2004 NLCS, contains all the special features including Hall of Fame moments, interviews and the Fox footage of Jim Edmonds' dramatic game winning homer in Game 6.

This is a set that no Cardinals fan with a DVD player should be without.

In 1968, I was ten years old and living with my grandparents. I can remember sprinting home from school to watch the end of the first game of the World Series with the pitching match-up of 31-game winner Denny McLain and NL strikeout and ERA king Bob Gibson. By the time I got home, McLain was already out of the game! Of course, Gibson goes on to set the WS strikeout record dramatically in the top of the ninth inning. What's so great now is that I'm watching it 40 years later on a 42" plasma and not Grandma's crappy old b&w tv! You can see the sweat dripping off Gibson in that HOT Busch Stadium October game. See two classic teams (Kaline, Maris, Brock, Gibson, Flood, McCarver), hear Curt Gowdy and Harry Cary describe the action, look into the stands and see everyone in white shirts and skinny black ties!! See Gibson strikeout 17 Tigers! This game alone is worth the price of the set! You won't be disappointed!

I purchases this DVD set for my husband for our 5 year anniversary. He absolutely loves it! Hours upon hours of Cardinals Baseball. What could be better!

At less than $10 per disc, this is a great collection for Cardinals fans. It will bring back a lot of memories!

Each fan will have a "favorite" amongst this group of 6 games, but my favorite was the 1982 World Series Game 7. After Bruce Sutter closes out the Cards winner, you get to see thousands of fans storm the field as "We Win" displays on the outfield scoreboard. I have vivid memories of this scene, even though I was only 5 years old when it happened.

One bummer is that these are the national broadcasts so they don't include local announcers on the call. But don't worry, as most of the great calls are captured as bonuses to the 6th disc. For example, the 1985 game with Ozzie Smith hitting the bottom-of-ninth winner just isn't the same without Jack Buck calling the hit (Go crazy folks!). But the bonus material includes the complete at-bat with Jack Buck on the call, including the announcers saying "this one has extra innings written all over it" and "Ozzie not the long ball threat from the left side". A priceless moment.

Another thing I like about the series is that the inside cover of each disc has inning-by-inning details so you can forward to the relevant parts if you are impatient.

Enjoy the memories!

First of all I want to state that I'm not a Cardinals fan, Im a Yankee fan but most importantly Im a fan of baseball and MLB. These are great games, legendary games that all take place in the former Busch Stadium that was torn down after the 2005 season. The box set includes six games: (1) 1968 WS Tigers vs. Cardinals Game 1 Bob Gibson vs. 31 game winner Deny McLain, a game in which Gibson struck out 17. (2) 1982 WS Brewers vs. Cardinals Game 7... the clincher. (3) 1985 NLCS Dodgers vs. Cardinals Game 5. (4) 1987 WS Twins vs. Cardinals Game 3. (5) Mark McGwires' 62nd home run game overthrowing Roger Maris... the then single season home run leader. (6) 2004 NLCS Astros vs. Cardinals Game 7 that put them in the WS against the Red Sox.
These are all great games especially to Redbird fans and baseball fans in general, the problem is that the quality is just awful. A&E distributes some great box sets including the Red Sox 2004 World Series, The Mets 1986 World Series, the Yankees Fall Classic Collection, the 1975 Reds World Series, The 1979 Pirates Worls Series, The 2005 White Sox World Series and all the vintage world series DVDs that they produced. The quality in these games are really awful. I was very excited about the Gibson, McLain game until I found it it was in black and white because when you watch clips of the 1968 WS, its in color. That was the first disappoitment. The second was the 2004 NLCS game, that game was shot in HD, yet it wasnt on DVD, the quality was bad. McGwire's 62nd HR was also low quality, it wasnt that great. The other games are fine and watchable because they really couldnt be remastered, they looked exactly like they did when they first came out in the 80s, but the 1st game and the last 2 for quality weren't great at all. I have the 2005 White Sox WS collection, now that is high quality, compare the "Greatest games of Busch Stadium" to the White Sox Collection and you'll see a huge difference. The White Sox collection is like your watching a movie. The Cardinals collection has great games but has many imperfections, i guess that's why when you first put on 1 of the 6 DVDs it has a little message talking about the flaws and imperfections because it definitely shows. The Bonus features help leviate the tension that you get while watching the low quality of the games. Is it worth the money? Yes if you a diehard Card fan... if not, well do what I did, when you get a good deal on it, buy it, but its not worth the cover price.

The cool thing about this DVD set is that I was at 4 of these 6 games in person---the Ozzie "Go Crazy home run vs LA in the 1985 NLCS; the 1987 World Series game vs Twins; the McGwire 62nd HR; and the 2004 NLCS clincher vs the Astros. And I should have been at the 1982 Game 7 WS game---I was a poor college student though so I was watching at a bar just a few blocks away and WAS there for the street celebration afterwards, so that almost counts. Not bad being at 4 of the 6 greatest Busch Stadium games ever. I wish they would have included a few more, like the 1987 Tommy Herr grand slam seat cushion home run vs the Pond Scum Mets (which I was at); one of the 1967 World Series games vs the Red Sox; Game 7 of the 1987 NLCS vs the Giants (I was there); and Game 6 of the 2004 NLCS vs the Astros when Edmonds hit his dramatic extra inning HR(I was there also).

What is disappointing is that they don't include pre game buildup/intro which would be especially nice for the World Series games. I know space is limited, but I would have paid a bit more for more stuff.

Overall this isnt a bad product from MLB. Although they continued their habit of using the same games on multiple sets. Game 3 of the 1987 World Series shouldnt have been included in this set. I would've added game 6 of the 2004 NLCS against Houston a game they won in extra innings or the Forsch no hitter game. The highlight of the set is seeing Bob Gibson in his prime in 1968 and the Ozzie Smith game winning homerun.

Not only has TV-on-DVD worked well for me for television series, it has also worked well for sports. As I have read elsewhere on the Net, I have seen the complaints about how FOX has ruined baseball's television coverage, what with the constant clutter, videogame-style presentation, etc. Last year, I purchased this 6-disc set of some of the greatest baseball games of the old Busch Stadium, home of the St. Louis Cardinals. This set came from A&E and New Video. It has games from three World Series that St. Louis was in: the '68 Series (Game 1), '82 Series (Game 7), and '87 Series (Game 3) (the first two from NBC, and the last from ABC).

It also has one other game from NBC, and that is Game 5 of the '85 NLCS against L.A. (where Ozzie Smith hit that dramatic walk-off game-winner in the bottom of the 9th).

It also has two FOX games: the 1998 McGwire game where he shattered the Maris HR record by hitting #62, and Game 7 of the '04 NLCS against Houston, where St. Louis advanced to the World Series against Boston.

The FOX games were okay, but the first four games in this set would stand to me as being some of the best of baseball's television coverage, because in those four games, there was absolutely no clutter on the screen-- it was baseball as it was meant to be seen.

Unfortunately, MLB saw fit to put their logo on the top right of the screen as a watermark, and there was no captioning either-- however, those aspects and the FOX games are the only things that detract from this fine package.