Finally after nine months I've completed the three World Series DVD boxsets that were released last year, concluding with maybe the two most forgotten games in World Series history.

1975 World Series Game 7 - Reds 4, Red Sox 3 (boxscore and play account)

-They have some cancer kid throw out the first pitch, or at least they say "represents kids with cancer" so I don't know if the kid actually had cancer or if it was just someone's kid from the Red Sox front office and they needed an excuse to let him throw the first pitch. If he actually did have cancer all I could think of was that was pretty fucked up to make the cancer kid wait until a possible Game 7 to throw the first pitch.

-Some guy named Ned Martin calls the first half of the game and he was a longtime announcer for the Red Sox but I've never heard of him. He seemed like a bit of a homer or at least more so than Dick Stockton or Marty Brennaman.

-Don Gullet had zero control in this one, walking in two runs with the bases loaded in the 3rd.

-Bill Lee shockingly almost comes up with a huge bases loaded hit with two outs in the 5th as he crushed one to center, catching the slick fielding Cesar Geronimo a bit off guard as he was obvioulsy playing shallow but recovers to get the final out and prevent the Red Sox from potentially blowing the game open.

-Lee made a fatal mistake in the 6th against Tony Perez. Lee would occasionally throw a slow moving, eephus type, curveball. In Perez's first at bat Lee would freeze him for a called strike with this pitch. It was the only time in the game he'd throw this pitch yet he throws it a second time to Perez in the 6th, who of course seeing it once had the timing down and launched it over the Green Monster to cut the Sox lead to one.

-It's amazing that a Game 7 that was decided in the 9th inning would be completely forgotten but because of Game 6 that's what happened. Joe Morgan hit a little bloop, similar to Luis Gonzalez's hit in Game 7 of 2001, off of Jim Burton to score Pete Rose with the winning run. Rose led off the inning with a walk, Geronimo sacraficed him to 2nd, pinch hitter Dan Driessen grounded one to the right side to advance Rose to 3rd, and then came Morgan's winning hit. I think it is this sequence that created the "manufacturing runs" monster that Joe Morgan is today.

-Nothing too interesting in the extras on this disk with no additional, original game clips like the other two sets. Only thing of note would be Carlton Fisk's postgame interview after Game 6 but not sure why they didn't just tack it on to the Game 6 disk. Here's a list of the extras:

1. Championship Rally

2. Pre-Game Introductions of the Reds (before Game 3)

3. Pre-Game 1: Pete Rose, Carl Yastrzemski

4. Pre-Game 3: Johnny Bench, Carlton Fisk

5. Pre-Game 7: Sparky Anderson, Darrell Johnson

6. Postgame 6: Carlton Fisk

7. Johnny Bench: The Big Red Machine

8. Pete Rose: Game 6

9. Pete Rose: Thrill of Game 7

10. Carlton Fisk: Homerun in Game 6

11. Carlton Fisk: Red Sox Beat Reds 3 Game to 4

12. Luis Tiant: Fisk's Homerun

13. Fred Lynn: Fisk's Homerun

14. Fred Lynn: Impact on Major League Baseball

15. Marty Brenneman: Game 6 the Best Ever

16. Joe Morgan: Game 6

17. Tony Perez: Reds Dominance

18. Tony Perez: Unmatchable World Series

19. Tony Perez: Game 7 Comeback

20. Tony Perez: Great Cincinnati Fans

21. Tony Perez: The Big Red Machine

1986 World Series Game 7 - Mets 8, Red Sox 5 (boxscore and play account)

-Game was delayed by rain for one day which appeared to be a big break for the Red Sox as it allowed them to bring back Bruce Hurst and skip over Oil Can Boyd.

-First time on the set the vid quality was some what poor for the first two innings but it is fine after that.

-Bill Buckner gets a loud ovation when he comes up for his first at bat. Now that's just mean.

-This was the postseason for homeruns off of outfielder's mits as Darryl Strawberry becomes the 3rd when a Rich Gedman shot in the 2nd goes off of his mit although it would have been a great catch by Strawberry if he had come up with it. Ron Darling hadn't allowed an earned run in his first two starts but was roughed up here as the Gedman homerun came right after a Dwight Evans homer.

-Back in Game 5 Gedman had seen six pitches from Sid Fernandez and swung and miss at all six. Here in the 5th inning against Fernandez again he swings and misses at his first and then takes strike three.

-Vin Scully mentions that Bruce Hurst had been named World Series MVP before the Mets miracle comeback in Game 6. This was kind of surprising to me as I figured Dave Henderson or Marty Barrett would gave won it although it would have been hard to argue with Hurst. It was just about after this conversation about Hurst that things come unraveled for him and the Red Sox in the 6th.

-Calvin Schiraldi was the real goat of this series as he follows up his awful performance in Game 6 with another one here. He pitches the 7th giving up a lead off homerun to Ray Knight to give the Mets the lead, a single to Lenny Dykstra, a wild pitch on a pitch out, which then would allow Dykstra to score on a hit by Rafael Santana.

-Red Sox stormed back in the 8th with two runs and had the tying run on 2nd with none out but Jesse Orosco, who was only about 51 at this time, saved the day to get the Mets out of the inning. Orosco would then have an rbi single in the bottom of the inning.

-Some idiot threw a smoke bomb on the field with two out in the 9th, delaying the final out for several minutes.

-All the extras were on a seperate bonus disk that I went over back in June.

That's it. Again it is good to see MLB actually doing something better than the NFL for once by releasing these sets. Although the two selections that have been announced so far for release this year (1987 & 1977) have been dissapointing choices, I'll definitely still be picking them up. Next up I'll try to start watching the Notre Dame set I picked up a couple of months ago but not sure yet how many writes up I'll do for that one, if any.