Lee Lowenfish

I'm posting a little before midnight on Sunday Oct. 17.  The Braves just went 2-0 up on the Dodgers in the NLCS with another dramatic walk-off bottom of the 9th win. 

 

Former Minnesota Twin Eddie Rosario started the tying rally in the 8th with some daring base-running encouraged by third base coach Ron Washington.  And then Rosario stroked the single past Dodgers shortstop Corey Seager that won the game in the 9th.

 

The Braves lost 2-0 and 3-1 leads to the Dodgers in last year's NLCS so this series is not over.  Yet there is nothing like the exhilaration of a comeback win for player and fan alike.  

 

Once the Yankees were convincingly eliminated by the Red Sox in the AL Wild Card game,

I had no team to viscerally root against. But the Dodgers with their huge payroll can be an easy target. 

 

I will say this - until these last two games in Atlanta, they were behaving admirably like a defending champion.  They chased the surprising Giants all season, losing their quest for their ninth straight NL West title on the last day of the regular season.

 

After winning the Wild Card game over the Cardinals, LAD ultimately caught SF in the final game of the best-of-five NL Division Series on Th night Oct 14.

 

For eight innings it was an extremely well-played taut game. Scoreless until the top of the 6th, LA drew first blood with a double down the left field line by free-agent-to-be Seager. It scored Mookie Betts, the former Red Sox star, who went four-for-four and demonstrated that he is probably healthy again. 

 

I had hoped that the Dodgers might get too cute by starting an "opener" in Corey Knebel, the former Brewers reliever and University of Texas Longhorn.  But Knebel and successor Brustar Graterol put up one zero each.  

 

Julio Urias, baseball's only 20-game winner in 2021, entered in the 3rd. Urias, the young Mexican who arrived in the majors at the age of 19, was virtually flawless until Giants journeyman outfielder Darin Ruf led off the bottom of 6th and homered deep to center field to tie the game.  

 

Answering runs is SO important in baseball and this was an immediate response. I love stories like Ruf's, a onetime Phillie who played in Korea for three years and returned in 2020 and this year has become a key member of this year's Giants' many platoons.

 

Not known as a good defensive player at either first base or outfield, Ruf also made two fine plays to keep singles from becoming doubles. He epitomized the kind of under-the-radar players that made the 2021 Giants so appealing.

 

Young Giants starter Logan Webb threw seven solid innings giving up only the one run. 

He hails from Rocklin, California near Sacramento, only 100 miles from SF's ballpark. Honored earlier in the week at the elementary school in his home town, he didn't let his new-found fame affect his concentration on the mound. 

 

As many people feared (including yours truly), the Giants bullpen was not as effective as the Dodgers' group. The Giants dodged a jam in top of 8th, but Camilo Doval, the Giants newly-anointed young closer, hit Justin Turner to start the top of the 9th.

 

After a single by rookie Gavin Lux moved Turner to second, the former NL MVP Cody Bellinger drove in Turner with a solid single to right-center with what proved to be the NLDS-winning RBI.

 

In my last blog, I said that Bellinger might make up for his injury-plagued poor regular season by filling the void left by injured Max Muncy.  His reawakening may be happening.

 

The Dodgers won the game, 2-1, when Max Scherzer got his first career save despite an error by third baseman Justin Turner that gave the Giants hope with one out.  But there would be no more amazing show of Giants' resilience.  

 

After a routine second out, the Giants' season ended when versatile journeyman Wilmer Flores was called out on strikes by first base ump Gabe Morales.  Replay confirmed what most of us watching at home already knew - Flores did not swing.  

 

Yet I find it highly unlikely that the Giants could have rallied against Scherzer.  He wasn't sharp pitching on two days rest, but his arsenal of pitches kept the Giant hitters off balance.  

 

Scherzer is a free agent after the World Series, and he and his agent Scott Boras are lobbying for another big contract for the 37-year-old winner of 3 Cy Young pitching awards with perhaps a 4th in 2021.  

 

I don't care what salary Scherzer will make, but I don't like players' economic demands rubbed in my face.   The Astros' Justin Verlander, out all year recovering from Tommy John surgery, tweeted the other day that Houston should give shortstop Carlos Correa anything he wants during his upcoming free agency.  

 

Verlander will be on the market himself after the Series with his full recovery uncertain but his competitiveness undoubtedly remaining very high.   But please don't rub all your salary and guaranteed year demands in my face. 

 

Given the long history of animosity between players and owners - see my three editions of THE IMPERFECT DIAMOND and works by many others - I'm not betting against a lockout after Dec. 1 when the current Basic Agreement has expired.  But not now for these tiresome discussions.

  

Turning to the ALCS, the series could well turn on the unavailability of Houston's ace Lance McCullers Jr.  Framber Valdez and Luis Garcia, the Astros starters used in the first two games, did not pitch well. 

 

Though Houston won Game One on timely home runs by their productive double play partners, Jose Altuve and Carlos Correa, the Red Sox rebounded in Game 2 with grand slams by J.D. Martinez and Rafael Devers in the first and second innings. Such a feat had never happened before in a post-season game.

 

I'd like to see manager Dusty Baker win his first World Series ring.  He has done an

excellent job of uniting his team after the sign-stealing scandal during the 2017 World Series, revealed two years later, cost general manager Jeff Luhnow his job and forced manager A.J. Hinch and bench coach Alex Cora to serve 2020 suspensions.

 

Yet the 2021 Red Sox are a likable team. Cora is back managing them (and Hinch led the Tigers to near-respectability this season).  Cora knows how to manage - he led the Red Sox to their 2018 World Series win over the Dodgers.

 

He understands how to encourage levity in the stressful world of major league baseball.

I've been getting a kick out of seeing a Bosox home run hitter get a ride on a laundry cart in the dugout.

 

The idea evidently was hatched last season when the Red Sox finished last in the shortened 60-game season, even behind the Orioles.  Coach Jason Varitek, and former Bosox star catcher, thought it might lighten the mood.  Now in a season of success, it continues to

be an amusing ritual.

 

It is hard to exaggerate the importance of genuine team-bonding activities.  The

Blue Jays, who just missed making October baseball, made a production of giving a glossy jacket with logos of the players' native countries to every home run hitter.  

  

Sometimes hijinks behind the scenes even help losing teams. The Orioles credited backup catcher Austin Wynn's buying of some sage on line for the end of their 19-game losing streak.  With the help of teammate Trey Mancini, the lighting of the incense in the clubhouse helped to lift the pall of defeat. 

 

The Dodgers will have to win four out of five now to return to the Series.  They could do that, but the Braves are pitching better than people expected, especially the bullpen.

 

The Red Sox have the next three games at Fenway so they have an edge on Houston even though the series is just tied at 1-1.  Maybe the off-day will cool off former Dodger Enrique "Kike" Hernandez who has been blasting homers and key hits at a record-breaking pace.

 

Houston must hope for that but the laundry cart rides will be ready for amazing Kike. He is starting to do to the Astros when he did to the eliminated 100-win Tampa Bay Rays. 

 

Whatever else happens in the next two weeks, I sure hope we continue to see stirring baseball. Because never forget - "the only reason to play baseball is to keep winter away."

 

Before I close, here are some sports and other movie tips from TCM for the rest of October, listed chronologically.  

 

Wed Oct 20  5:15A "This Sporting Life" (1963) - searing British drama about lower-class

rugby player with Richard Harris, Rachel Roberts, dir. Lindsay Anderson, writer David Storey

 

Th Oct 21 Rodgers and Hammerstein Day starting with "State Fair" (1945) at 1245a and resuming in prime time from 8p through Friday 1145a. 

 

Fri Oct 22 3p "Two Smart People" (1946) Jules Dassin directs Lucille Ball/Lloyd Nolan/John

Hodiak - "conniving people involved in art forgery," Leonard Maltin has described it. 

He doesn't rate it highly but Dassin was a fine director who left USA during blacklist.

 

Su Oct 24 10a Noir Alley presents North American debut of "The Beast Must Die" (1952)

   South American noir - (also on at 2a for the real night owls)

 

2p "Pat & Mike" (1952) Tracy & Hepburn in ladies golf scene with cameo by

Babe Didrikson and small key role for ex-first baseman future "Rifleman" Chuck Connors

 

345p "Sorry Wrong Number" (1948) really scary and well-done with Stanwyck 

 

530p Hitchcock's "North By Northwest" (1959) with Cary Grant/Eva Marie Saint

 

W Oct 27 930a "The Hard Way" (1942) Ida Lupino tries to protect younger sister Joan Leslie

 

4p "Shine On Harvest Moon" (1944) musical about Nora Bayes and Jack Norworth who wrote words to "Take Me Out To Ballgame".  Ann Sheridan/Dennis Morgan/Jack Carson are a good cast in undoubtedly a frothy film.

 

Th Oct 28 6:15a  "Woman of the Year" 6:15a (1942) the first Tracy-Hepburn collaboration with Tracy as sportswriter and Hepburn as influential world-traveling journalist/activist

 

Fri Oct 29  8a "Easy Living" (1949) Victor Mature (not Tyrone Power) as the football player with heart condition - some LA Rams play themselves incl. Kenny Washington

Dir. Jacques Tourneur - again, though, don't blame me for the ending.

(Audrey Young, wife of Billy Wilder, sings the title song by Leo Robin/Ralph Rainger.) 

 

12M "Invasion of Body Snatchers" (1978) 12M - the remake with Donald Sutherland/Brooke Adams directed by Philip Kaufman a few years before he directed "The Right Stuff"

 

Sat Oct 30 8p "Frankenstein" (1931) the original

930p "Young Frankenstein" (1974) Mel Brooks' take on it

 

Su Oct 31  12M & 10a "Cat People" 1942 - Jacques Tourneur directs Tom Conway (George Sanders' brother) and Simone Simon and Jane Randolph - this week's Noir Alley

 

330p "Pit and Pendulum" 1961 - Roger Corman directs Vincent Price

 

8p "Psycho" (1960) - not one of my favorite Hitchcock's esp. the preachy ending and

Janet Leigh's work was so much more varied than this, but still a classic film.

 

That's all for now - keeping remembering to Stay Positive, Test Negative, and

take it easy but take it! 

 

 

“I can imagine a world without baseball, but can’t imagine wanting to live in one.”
The late great sportswriter Leonard Koppett expressed that spot-on feeling in 2002 a year before he died. (Quoted by his son David in the posthumous edition of “Koppett’s Concise History of Major League Baseball," p478.)

In less than a month the greatest words in the English language will ring true again: “The pitchers and catchers have reported to spring training.” Yet I must admit as an Orioles fan I am not too excited. It’s unlikely that a team that lost 115 games in 2018 and has no recognizable strength at any position will improve significantly.

Yes, there is new management that is drenched in the analytic “advanced metric” side of the game. And I have never dismissed out of hand new information about our wonderfully confounding and complicated yet sweet and simple game of baseball.

But I also adamantly believe that you must never lose sight of character issues and aspects of the game that cannot be quantified. So I'll wait and see what happens with the new breed of "decision science" brainiacs led by new gm Mike Elias, a former Yale pitcher, and his right-hand man Sig Megdal (pronounced May-dell), a former NASA specialist who worked on, among other things, models to enhance astronaut sleeping habits.

As I write in mid-January, there are still no new teams for the marquee free agents in this year’s class, Manny Machado and Bryce Harper, both only 26. Many in the establishment sports media are wailing about the broken free agency system.

In fact, I think the issue rests more in a player agent rivalry as much as in a broken system. Dan Lozano represents Machado, the same agent that conned Angels owner Arte Moreno into a 10-year deal with now-fading Albert Pujols.

Harper, who was on the cover of Sports Illustrated 10 years ago as a 16-year-old and his ego has soared since, is in the stable of Scott Boras. Boras' professed hero is Marvin Miller, the Players Association leader who was always confident some owner would break down and give what the player(s) wanted.

In 2019, however, it is light years from the heyday of Miller and his unheralded chief counsel Dick Moss who shepherded players through legal thickets to free agency.
Players now are far richer and perhaps sated, and managements are getting smarter.

After seeing Machado and Harper play for six years with their former teams (the Orioles and Dodgers for Manny, the Nationals for Bryce), it is clear that while both are great numbers producers, they are not the kind of leaders that make everyone on the team better.

If owners and managements are getting more careful about committing multi-million dollars in long term contracts, I am not complaining. As always, though, it is hard to side with the fat cat owners against players whose skills are extremely perishable.

So with well over a hundred serviceable veterans still unsigned, I hope it isn’t like last year when the Players Association had to hastily put together a spring training base in Florida for those still without contracts.

Turning to another big off-field subject, the Hall of Fame will announce next week the results of the regular voting for the Cooperstown class of 2019. Mariano Rivera will be virtually a unanimous choice.

Three other candidates have strong cases. Former stellar Oriole and Yankee RHP Mike Mussina compiled a 270-153 record with a 3.68 ERA. His walk-strikeout ratio was a superb mere 785 BBs and 2813 K's. His WHIP (combining walks and hits per inning) was an outstanding 1.192.

Even better stats were accumulated by the late outstanding RHP Roy Halladay who lost his life in his private plane accident in 2017. With the Blue Jays and Phillies, Halladay went 203-105, 3.38 ERA, WHIP 1.178, and an impressive BB/K ratio of 592/2117.

The case for the outstanding Mariners designated hitter Edgar Martinez is also strong but perhaps not as strong because his injuries confined him to a DH role for most of his career. He hit .312 for a career, very impressive in the age of multiple relievers. Slugging average of .309 with 2247 hits, 309 HRs and 2161. Also over his career he drew more walks 1283 than strikeouts 1202.

His stats to me are more favorable than Harold Baines were and Baines was elected
to the shrine last month in a vote by a special Veterans Committee. The former White Sox-Ranger-Oriole hit .289, slugged .465 with 384 HRs and 1628 in a 20-year career, much of it like Edgar M. limited to the DH role because of injury. He also had a negative BB/SO ratio of 1062/1441.

When eligible in the regular vote of the writers, Baines didn't receive even ten per cent of any vote. With his former White Sox manager Tony LaRussa on the veterans committee, it is hard not to see favoritism in his selection. (Longtime closer Lee Smith was also voted in last month, a less controversial choice but not one that I would have chosen.)

Baines' election brought back memories of decades ago when the affable genuine Hall of Famer Frankie Frisch openly and successfully lobbied for several of his former Giant and Cardinal teammates to get selected to Cooperstown.

A Hall of Fame should be for the truly great not the merely good or very good. But since selections almost always are turned into a popularity contest, there is not much that I can do about that.

Before I close, I am distressed to report that my alma mater college basketball teams, Columbia and Wisconsin, have hit hard times. The Badgers looked very good in the pre-Big Ten season, but they have lost their winning touch in league play.
Likely All-American fifth-year senior Ethan Happ can only do so much, especially since he has great trouble at the foul line and never shoots outside the paint.

Columbia lost its best player, gifted if erratic point guard Mike Smith, to a season-ending injury. Unlike the resurgent football team under coach Al Bagnoli that produced a winning season despite multiple injuries, basketball has not yet learned how to win.

Yet the cage season is not even half-over so I try to believe in change for the better, and, of course, I always root, root, root for my team.

That's all for now - always remember: Take it easy but take it.
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