The Hot Corner

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What: “Race for the Record,” a one-hour video of the 1998 baseball season.

Price: $19.95

Fresh off baseball’s greatest season, Major League Baseball home video has released its greatest video.

If you are a Mark McGwire or a Sammy Sosa fan, you will love it. If you are a into baseball nostalgia, you will too. And if you don’t like baseball, you should after watching this.

Designed to recap what it calls “The Year of the Longball,” this video does more than replay the home runs that we have seen 50 times by now.

It opens with some locker room and pregame footage of McGwire and Sosa. Then come four of the most famous postseason homers--by Bobby Thomson, Carlton Fisk, Kirk Gibson and Joe Carter.

After spring training interviews about McGwire and Ken Griffey Jr., the real show begins.

At first, I was skeptical of seeing home run after home run. The season has been over only a week, and we’re already reliving it.

But the way the highlights are put together--mixing in footage of McGwire and Sosa in their early years with Oakland and Texas, respectively; including some of 1998’s early-season home run leaders such as Vinny Castilla and Andres Galarraga; and showing some of the most memorable McGwire and Sosa blasts--made it better than I expected.

Other in-season sideshows, such as the all-star home run contest and McGwire’s batting practices, are included, as is a look at the sluggers’ slumps in August.

After a segment revisiting 1961 and the pressures Roger Maris faced on the way to 61 homers, as well as a look at Babe Ruth, it concludes with the final month of the season, and the fanfare surrounding the final days before McGwire broke Maris’ record.

“Race for the Record” also looks at McGwire and Sosa’s friendship and how chasing the record brought them together.

This video isn’t only a replay of more than 100 home runs. It’s a different look at the 1998 baseball season and is worth watching any time of the year.