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What: “Battle Lines: 1988 World Series, Game One”

Where: ESPN Classic, Sunday, 6 and 9 p.m.

Need a lift? If you’re a Dodger fan, this is it. Sure, you’ve seen Kirk Gibson’s home run in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series many times. But not quite like this, not this in-depth or complete. This edition of “Battle Lines,” a one-hour show that was formerly ESPN Classic’s “Game of the Week,” is devoted to the game-winning, ninth-inning homer.

The Times’ Bill Plaschke, on the show, says, “In the modern era, this may have been the most dramatic single swing in baseball because of all the things around it.”

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The 1988 Dodgers weren’t highly regarded, but they did have the hottest pitcher in baseball in Orel Hershiser, who at the end of the season broke Don Drysdale’s record of 56 consecutive shutout innings by reaching 59.

The Dodgers managed to get past the New York Mets and into the World Series, but no one gave them much of a chance against the Oakland A’s and the “Bash Brothers,” Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco.

“I’m not being funny about this, but those two clubs don’t belong in the same ballpark,” Sparky Anderson is shown saying at the time.

TV reporter Bob Costas was assigned to the Dodger dugout and was stationed there in the ninth inning of Game 1. Costas says he remembers Lasorda telling him, “He thinks he can give it one more swing.”

At the end of the show, scenes from the Robert Redford film “The Natural” are interspersed with shots of Gibson’s homer and gimpy trip around the bases. As it turns out, Gibson’s homer was more unbelievable than Roy Hobbs’.

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