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 SCOTT MOE

July 15, 1998 12 AM PT

What: “Major League Beat” (Polygram Video)

Price: $19.95

If you’ve ever been to a major league baseball game, you’ve seen them: those bloopers and highlights set to music, aimed to entertain fans between innings.

Well, baseball has decided to bring the highlights to the fans’ living rooms, with its new home video, “Major League Beat.”

Released to the public Tuesday, “Major League Beat” not only shows the most recent highlights and bloopers, including plays from this season, but also sets it all to music from some of the industry’s biggest names.

U2, Bryan Adams, Vanessa Williams and others contribute background music to the baseball action.

And while the music and highlights are entertaining, the video starts off slow because it devotes too much time to another musician, LL Cool J.

The first portion looks more like a music video than a highlight show, showing LL Cool J in a studio putting a song together. Then it shows him making a baseball promotional commercial with stars like Ken Griffey Jr. and Sammy Sosa.

But after that, the show quickly picks up, with the first stream of highlights shown to James Brown’s classic, “I Feel Good.”

From that point on, the video is a success, showing various categories of highlights, including bloopers, long home runs, game-winning home runs and unbelievable defensive plays.

Perhaps the best of all is an amazing grab by Kenny Lofton to rob an unfortunate Baltimore Oriole of a home run.

Along with updated highlights and current music, “Major League Beat” also has LL Cool J do brief sit-down chats with Lofton and Toronto Blue Jay reliever Randy Myers.

While the interviews provide no earth-shattering insights into the all-stars, it’s nice to see baseball players in a relaxed setting, being asked questions much different from the ones athletes are usually asked. One other winning segment in the video is a short look at vintage footage of baseball legends, with Williams’ “Oh How the Years Go By” playing in the background.

The biggest knock on “Major League Beat” is that it could have been longer. But when a video’s biggest fault is that you want more, it’s one worth watching.