World Series DVD on sale Retrospective of Red Sox’s amazing season included

Just in time for the shoppers who will rise early and gather at the starting lines at the local mall’s parking lots for the annual post-Thanksgiving Day Race for the Bargain Sales Blitz, Major League Baseball is making like Santa Claus.

The video that has been 86 years in the making and will likely make its way to the top of every Boston Red Sox fan’s Christmas list is out just in time for holiday shopping.

Copies of the Official 2004 World Series DVD are hitting store shelves this week, but from the looks of the finished copy, they won’t stay on those shelves very long.

For their still-disbelieving fans, this is the video that will go a long way toward confirming the realization that the Sox are finally World Series champs.

The $19.95 DVD features 93 minutes of World Series game and highlight footage plus 25 minutes of “extras” such as a collection of interviews with writers, players, and coaches; Red Sox postseason celebration footage; and the preseason press conference introducing Terry Francona as new Red Sox manager.

It even features a retrospective of the entire Red Sox season, from a snow-covered Fenway Park in February to spring training warmups in Florida to opening day at Fenway. Then things are fast forwarded from the Sox’ slumping start to their midseason resurgence to the Nomar Garciaparra trade and into the postseason.

The DVD hits on the high points of the American League division playoff series with Anaheim and spends more time on the AL Championship Series, but fans looking to relive controversial moments such as the Mark Bellhorn shot that was initially ruled a double before being correctly called a home run and the Alex Rodriguez slap of Bronson Arroyo’s hand as the Sox pitcher tried to tag him out at first will be a bit disappointed.

This is called the official World Series DVD for a reason.

NFL Films is the standard by which all other sports production companies are measured, and it’s this standard that Major League Baseball and Q Video are judged against. Although NFL Films has been doing it longer, this video shows MLB Productions is emulating its football cousin.

Hardly anything is missed in here: from postgame and pregame quotes and interviews to newspaper headlines, from on- and off-field action to fans in the stands and signs; from radio and TV play-by-play to finding out what the principals behind the action have to say. Even former Red Sox players and Hall of Famers offer their thoughts and observations.

The DVD is narrated by Worcester, Mass., native and actor-comedian Denis Leary, a professed hockey and Red Sox fan. Although Leary could be expected and forgiven for using his signature facetious wit and sarcasm, he goes light on it, preferring instead to just simply set up certain moments and comment on others. Leary is neither too lacking nor heavy-handed with his commentary, and the result is a perfect marriage of voice and video.

There are plenty of gems to mine in this DVD, but most of them come from the locker room and behind the scenes: such as when Curt Schilling admits after his Game 1 loss to the Yankees that maybe he “cost us the series” and that he was scared to death before his memorable Game 6 start because he “didn’t want to fail again.”

Then there’s a poignant interview with former Sox great and coach Dwight Evans, who comments on the 1986 Series. Evans talks about how he went from being so sure they would win to not being able to watch any of the Series highlights, even to this day.

Evans’ interview is one of six in which former players talk about the last six Series the Sox have played in: from Smoky Joe Wood on the 1912 Series to Joe Garagiola (1946), Tim McCarver (1967), Fred Lynn and Carlton Fisk (1975), and Evans.

It’s safe to say that MLB Productions has effectively covered all the bases in this DVD.

Andrew Neff can be reached at 990-8205, 1-800-310-8600 or aneff@bangordailynews.net.