Home Run Derby - Volume 1

PRODUCT DESCRIPTION Swing For The Fence With Baseball's Greatest Legends! Journey back to baseball's Golden Era with Home Run Derby, the sport's ultimate power-hitting contest, featuring hall-of-famers such as Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, and Harmon Killebrew in the prime of their careers, slugging it out of the park for cash prizes and the honor of being named Home Run Derby Champion. AMAZON.COM A fascinating spectacle from baseball history, Home Run Derby: Volume 1 is culled from a weekly, syndicated television program that was produced from 1959 to 1961 and pitted Major League Baseball sluggers against one another in a home-run duel. Essentially, one American League and one National League player would take turns at bat in Wrigley Field, where the Pacific Coast League's Los Angeles Angels regularly played. The hitter who sent the ball most often over the wall (at 340 or so feet) in nine "innings" would win a now-paltry-looking $2,000; the loser would get $1,000. Smaller cash incentives were there for the guys who got on a roll and whacked the ball out of sight three or more consecutive times. The charm of the show is in its simplicity, and the way it seems both relaxed and tense. Competing players such as Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Ernie Banks, Hank Aaron, and Jim Lemon were far too seasoned and professional to take the program seriously. On the other hand, when they're at bat, you can see something in their eyes: they get down to business and every swing is a mighty one. The best element in the show is player interviews (with host Mark Scott, seated at a desk not far from home plate) that take place while one or another fellow is trying to get some wood on the ball. Thus, it's really a pleasure to see Mantle serenely assess his own performance or admire that of Mays or Banks. The same is true of the latter pair, and also of Aaron and Lemon, who are so gentlemanly in their appreciation of one another and so humble about their own talents that their episode is actually moving. The four segments on Home Run Derby: Volume 1 are minor gems. --Tom Keogh