Baseball

CHICAGO – I have defended the 2K Sports baseball games in the past, even personally preferring the “Major League Baseball 2K10” edition for gameplay during last year’s baseball season over Sony’s “MLB 10 The Show,” but this year my denial defenses have fallen to an incredibly faulty release, one full of glitches and generally annoying design decisions.

CHICAGO – Sports games are like automobiles — every year produces a new release but it’s bound to drive in much the same manner as last year’s model. It’s especially rare for a bestselling, highly-acclaimed franchise to make radical changes in an attempt for an even higher level of greatness. And yet that’s exactly what’s happened with Sony’s “MLB 11 The Show,” one of the best sports games ever made.

CHICAGO – Steroids, interleague play, expanded playoffs, the Red Sox finally winning, McGwire vs. Sosa, Bonds vs. the world, the strike, the influx of Hispanic players, The Yankees, The Braves, and, of course, the continued futility of the Cubs — the last two decades of baseball have been two of the most notable in the history of this timeless sport. It only makes sense that the great documentarian Ken Burns would update his 18.5-hour opus about the sport with “Baseball: The Tenth Inning,” now available on Blu-ray and DVD.

CHICAGO – The 1957 Little League team from Monterrey, Mexico, was the first non-U.S. team to win that league’s World Series. That is a fact. “The Perfect Game” creates a story based on that fact that is as improbable as a team from Mars winning the big game.

CHICAGO – Timed perfectly for both the start of the 2010 Major League Baseball season and with Father’s Day only a few months away, MLB’s “The Essential Games of the Detroit Tigers” box set is the perfect gift idea for the member of your family who follows America’s pasttime, even if they’re not the biggest fan of one of the most popular sports teams of the last century.

CHICAGO – As the baseball season winds to a close, take some time to catch up with one of the best dramas of the year and one of the best movies made about the changing face of the sport in Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden’s fantastic “Sugar”. This is a film that gets better with each viewing and as it lingers in the memory. Now on Blu-Ray and DVD, don’t miss “Sugar”.