A consumer's guide to the best and worst of sports media and merchandise. Ground rules: If it can be read, played, heard, observed, worn, viewed, dialed or downloaded, it's in play here.

A consumer’s guide to the best and worst of sports media and merchandise. Ground rules: If it can be read, played, heard, observed, worn, viewed, dialed or downloaded, it’s in play here.

By MIKE DiGIOVANNA

Jan. 13, 1997 12 AM PT

What: Videotape: “This Week in Baseball: 20 Years of Unforgettable

Plays & Bloopers”

Still soured by years of labor unrest, free agency and skyrocketing salaries in baseball? Then plop a Little Leaguer on the sofa, pop this into the VCR, and that bitterness is sure to melt quicker than late-April snow.

In the time it takes most American League teams to complete an inning and a half, “This Week in Baseball” packs 20 years of baseball’s most bizarre, most hilarious and most outrageous moments into a video that may have you rolling off the couch.

At least, that’s what my 8-year-old son nearly did during a viewing. He laughed so hard and so often that by the time “TWIB” crowned Jose Canseco’s fly-ball-bouncing-off-his-head-and-over-the-wall-for-a- homer as its 20-year blooper, the mother of all bloopers, tears were in his eyes.

Remember the time Keith Hernandez whacked a one-hopper to pitcher Terry Mulholland, who, upon realizing the ball was wedged so tightly in his glove he couldn’t extract it, ran toward first and tossed his mitt--with the ball in it--to the first baseman for the out? “TWIB” has got it.

And how about the time third baseman Lenny Randle got down on his chest and blew a slow roller foul? Or the time Kevin Mitchell over-ran a fly ball in the left-field corner, reached up and made a bare-handed catch? Or the time Mike Schmidt scored on a wild pitch against the Mets . . . from first base?

“TWIB” has got it all. Well, maybe too much. An appearance by Marge Schott and her obnoxious Saint Bernard would have been best left on the cutting-room floor--why spoil the moment?--but there’s more than enough bone-crushing collisions and eye-popping defensive plays to drown out the Cincinnati Red owner.

And if you prefer baseball’s lighter side, “TWIB” comes through with the likes of Chris Sabo batting with his zipper open, Frank Viola taking the mound with a lump of shaving cream on his cap, Don Mattingly sneaking a handful of popcorn from an unsuspecting youngster and Schmidt reaching into the crowd for a popup and coming out with both the ball and a bag of peanuts.

As the late, great Mel Allen would have said, “Man alive, how about that?”