Lee Lowenfish

Time for a bit of a curveball to open this blog. It's short notice I know, but must tell you about TCM (Turner Classic Movies cable channel) hosting a day of baseball films on Thursday June 13.  So instead of putting the list at end of blog,here is the lineup with an * for something esp. worthy of watching, not necessarily for excellence but for its contribution to the era in which it was made. 

 

6A "The Great American Pastime" (1956)  David Wayne leaves his job to take over a Little League team to come closer to his son (he hopes).

 

730A "Ladies' Day" (1943)  The marriage of Eddie Albert will supposedly help his team win.  With Lupe Velez and Ann Miller.

 

*845A "Death on the Diamond" (1934)  I don't recall TCM ever airing this one. Robert Young plays a handsome young St. Louis Cardinals pitcher with the hots for team secretary Madge Evans. But there is a killer on the loose.  Who can it be? With fine character actors Nat Pendleton and Ted Healy (of producing "Three Stooges" fame).  Uncredited Gashouse Gang outfielder Ernie Orsatti has a cameo role getting killed between third and home.  I'm not saying it is a great film, but it is different and this was the era when many Americans were fascinated by gangsters.

 

*1000A "Fireman Save My Child" (1932)  The first of Joe E Brown's baseball trilogy.  Brown's character is more interested in selling his fire-preventing invention than playing but you get a good sample of both. Brown was a great athlete, a circus acrobat at an early age and almost a major league quality second baseman but he chose the right profession. 

 

*1130A  "Alibi Ike" (1935)  The third of Brown's baseball trilogy (the second and his personal favorite "Elmer The Great" - 1933 - is somehow not included today.)  Based loosely on Ring Lardner's story written before WW I, Brown's manager is William Frawley in his pre-Fred Mertz stage. (Both Brown and Frawley had clauses written into their Hollywood contracts that forbade them from working on movies during the World Series which they usually attended. So did George Raft.)  Brown's love interest is Olivia DeHavilland in her debut film.  Actually she completed "A Midsummer Night's Dream" also with Brown earlier in 1935 but this film was released first. 

 

*1P "Speedy" (1928) A Harold Lloyd classic with a memorable scene of awed taxi driver Harold driving Babe Ruth to a game at Yankee Stadium. Lou Gehrig can be briefly spotted as they scoot up Amsterdam Ave.

 

*230P "The Babe Ruth Story" (1948).  Hastily finished so Babe could see it before he passed away in August 1948.  William Bendix isn't very good as Babe - Jack Carson would have been better but was unavailable.  Claire Trevor could have played Claire Ruth as a noir character but she doesn't.  Charles Bickford doesn't age one bit as Brother Matthias at the beginning of film and near the end, but what I would give to have a voice and presence like Bickford whose Hollywood career started in the silent movies in 1924.  His fate has been to be forgotten like Vern Bickford who was a competent third banana to Spahn and Sain on Boston Braves.  If you want to see newscaster H. V. Kaltenborn playing himself, this is for you.  And as a document looking backward during increasingly nervous Cold War times, I think you should see it.  I plan to see it again because I have a weakness for corn about baseball. 

 

*430P "The Jackie Robinson Story" (1950) with JR playing himself, Ruby Dee as Rachel Robinson, and competent character actor Minor Watson as Branch Rickey.  Minor may not have been a major actor but he isn't bad though Harrison Ford in 2013's "42" was better.

 

*6p "The Stratton Story" (1949) the film that cemented Jimmy Stewart's ascent to stardom.  June Allyson plays the loving wife who encourages husband Monty Stratton back to the minor league game after a hunting accident ends his major league career.  Jimmie Dykes plays himself and in what I believe is his last role Frank Morgan, the Wizard in "The Wizard of Oz,"  plays the scout the originally signs him.  Screenplay by Guy Trosper who was nominated for an Oscar.  Trosper later wrote such notable films as "The Birdman of Alcatraz" and adapted "The Spy Who Came In From The Cold".

 

 

One more TCM sports note - 

Sa Jun 15 345P "The Winning Team" (1952) Ronald Reagan portrays Grover Cleveland Alexander with Doris Day as his wife. "The Stratton Story" serves as the template for this film - the loving helpmate-wife who helps a baseball-playing husband through his crises.  I've only seen this film once and want to look at it again. 

 

 AND NOW SOME NOTES ON BASEBALL ON MANY LEVELS AS THE SUMMER SOLSTICE LOOMS:

Congrats to the three winners of the NYC PSAL high school championships.

At the Triple A level, Grand Street Campus beat John Jay, 2-0, at Yankee Stadium on Monday afternoon June 10.  The two Brooklyn schools put on a memorable pitcher's battle. 

 

The prior weekend, the Double A title went to East Side Com. over Lafayette, 6-5.

The Single A title went to Brandeis over top-seeded American Studies, 15-0.  (The designations refer to the enrollment of the schools.)

 

Matchups for the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska, are set. They will consist of 4 ACC teams and 4 SEC teams. With one exception, all games will be on the main ESPN channel. 

On Fri June 14 North Carolina meets Virginia at 2P

Top-seeded Tennessee meets Florida State, trying for first CWS title after many tries, at 7P 

 

On Sat June 15 second-seeded Kentucky, first time ever reaching this level, vs. NC State at 2P

Texas A & M vs. Florida, perennial contender but finished regular season only 1 game over .500, at 7P

 

The finals will be a best of three:

Sat June 22 730P

Sun June 23 2P - the one game on ABC

Mon June 24 7P (if necessary). 

  

As for MLB with under 100 games to play, the disparity between good teams and bad teams seems to be growing.  2022 was the

first season in MLB history when 4 teams won more than an hundred games and 4 teams lost more than a hundred.  It looks like we are headed that way in 2024 again. 

 

Too many ownerships don't really care about winning for a variety of reasons.  Among them are revenue-sharing that losing teams get anyway and also, probably the most important reason in my opinion, building a winning culture is very hard.  

 

As an Oriole fan that lived through a lot of dark years, I am enjoying this season and the last two actually as they emerged from darkness into contention.  How long they can stay up there with pitchers seemingly being injured every day is a concern.  But there is no doubt

that they have built a team of good players who really want to win and are increasingly showing that they know how to do it. 

 

There is one telltale sign that remains true - watch the teams that respond quickly to opponents scoring runs by putting up their own

runs on the scoreboard and you'll find strong evidence of that elusive winning culture.  The Yankees have that feeling this year too and the three game series in NYC June 18-19-20 will  be a good test for both teams.

 

That's all for this time.  Next time more details on the 35th Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture that I attended last month.  I was glad to give a case that player-manager-scout Birdie Tebbetts needs to be remembered as Baseball's Last Idealist.

 

In my next blogs, I will also look forward to my class in mid-July at the blessed Chautauqua Institution in southwest NY State near

Jamestown and the home of the National Comedy Center.  My theme this year is Fandom in American Culture: From Early 20th Century Kranks to Modern BIRGers and CORFers (BIRG means Basking In Reflected Glory; CORF means Cancelling Over Repeated Failure.)

 

Always remember - take it easy but take it, and Stay Positive, Test Negative!   

 

 

 

 

There is nothing like time spent at the Chautauqua Institution to recharge one's batteries and affirm one's belief in life and culture.

 

During the first week of August, I taught again my Baseball and American Culture class on the venerable lovely campus in far southwestern New York State near Jamestown, the site of the National Comedy Center and the Lucy-Desi Museum. (Lucille Ball grew up in nearby Celeron and I am happy to report that since 2016 a new and far better statue of Lucy has been erected.) 

 

My Chautauqua students as always ran the gamut of backgrounds: Houston Astro and Cleveland Indian fans. Devoted lovers of college baseball. A fellow who grew up in the same building where Carl Furillo lived when he starred for Brooklyn's Boys of Summer. A woman whose grandfather played for Connie Mack's Philadelphia A's and whose mother as an infant was held in the arms of Ty Cobb. 

 

My theme this year was that despite the Black Sox scandal, baseball remained dominant through the Jazz Age, the Great Depression, World War II and the first Cold War Years. 

By the 1950s, westward expansion of the major leagues was long overdue, but an enormous wound was inflicted on New York when Walter O'Malley engineered the shift of the Dodgers and Giants to Los Angeles and San Francisco. 

 

I continue to be amazed that WESLEY Branch Rickey never spoke at Chautauqua which was founded after the Civil War as a retreat for Methodist Sunday school teacher. I guess he was too busy building farm systems in three major league cities and doing volunteer work for his alma mater Ohio Wesleyan and his fraternity Delta Tau Delta.

 

I was able to do the next best thing - show my students "The Old Ball Game," a 45-minute documentary about baseball history narrated by Rickey in 1964 a year before his death. It's readily available on YouTube.

 

I was also pleased with the student response when I showed "Elmer the Great" (1933), the second of Joe E. Brown's baseball trilogy. Produced at the height of his fame in the 1930s,  

"Elmer" was Brown's favorite among the dozens of films he made in Hollywood.

 

No wonder. He gets to display his skills as a lefthanded-hitting second baseman that were good enough in his earlier days to attract pro scouts.

 

He brings a tenderness to Elmer Kane that is a needed balance to his other side, the egomaniacal athlete.  "Elmer" was based on Ring Lardner's "Hurry Kane" as was 1935's "Alibi Ike," the third of the baseball trilogy that had young Olivia deHavilland as Brown's love interest and Bill Frawley (the future Fred Mertz in "I Love Lucy") as Brown's manager. ("Fireman, Save My Child," the first in the trilogy, is now also available on DVD.) 

 

As far as seeing live baseball in the Chautauqua area, I missed by one day seeing the Jamestown Tarp Skunks in the Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League playoffs.  A huge crowd of 1400 saw the Skunks fall one run short of advancing to the final round but its first year of competition was a huge success. 

 

I didn't have easy access to television during my blissful week in Chautauqua, but I did follow at times on my computer the exploits of the plucky underdogs Team Israel and Team USA in the Olympics.  Though Team Israel won only one game in five, they fought valiantly and will savor the experience forever.  

 

It must be noted that the loss of their final game was excruciating.  International rules call for not one "ghost runner" in extra innings but TWO.  With runners on first and second in the bottom of the 10th against South Korea, a relief pitcher threw just two pitches, each one hitting a batter and thus ending Team israel's inspired run.

 

Team USA surprised the pundits by getting all the way to the final game against host Japan.  But in a score identical to the women's softball loss to the Japanese, 2-0, the Americans lost.  Again with nothing to be ashamed of.  

 

The Woerioles have plenty to be ashamed of but I won't go there. Too much to love about life in the dog days of August.  Wide-open race in NL East as Mets fall behind Braves and Phillies.  Second wild-card up for grabs as Padres falter and Reds fitfully make their move.

 

Yankees still very much alive despite gut-wrenching losses.  Games against the Red Sox starting Tu Aug 17 will be important. Oakland still with chance to catch Houston in AL West and holding second wild card at the moment. 

 

Can't stop talking about the Chautauqua experience so here's some more comments.  

The lecture and musical offerings were as always bountiful.

 

My favorite morning lecture was delivered by world-renowned primatologist Frans de Waal, a leader in his field, an entertaining lecturer, and the author of the current book, "Mama's Last Hug" and earlier "Chimpanzee Politics."

 

The Chautauqua Opera Company performed two memorable operas.  "Scalia and Ginsburg," Derrick Wang's witty and incisive one-hour creation, made its debut in 2013 when both late Supreme Court justices and opera lovers were able to attend.  

 

Mezzo-soprano Kelly Guerra as RBG and Chauncey Parker as Scalia inhabited their roles with aplomb. As did the crucial third character, Michael Colman as the Commentator.  I think the role was conceived as a homage to the ominous Commandant in Mozart's "Don Giovanni".

  

"As the 'Cosi' Crumbles," the debut opera, is a humorous examination of what standard opera would look like if the voices were shifted. Although I was disappointed that the beautiful trio, "May the Winds Be Gentle," from Mozart's "Cosi Fan Tutte," was not part of the production, I thoroughly enjoyed the idea of singers getting the chance singing arias written for different voices.  

 

The selections from "Madame Butterfly" were particularly moving. Burly stentorian baritone Yazid Gray's rendition of "Cara Nome" from "Rigoletto" was memorable. A bluesy back beat in the final measures added to the fun and frolic.  

 

After singing Scalia, Chauncey Parker directed "Cosi Crumbles". Kelly Guerra and Michael Colman were again in the cast along with spectacular soprano Chasiti Lashay, tenor Jared Esquerra and baritone Yazid Gray.  

 

Overall director Cara Consilvio has put together an impressive staff. Steven Osgood conducted both operas and gave informative introductions. The original music for "Cosi Crumbles" was created by Jasmine Barnes, Sage Bond, and Frances Pollock.

 

Pollock's seven-minute piece, "God is Dead, Schoenberg Is Dead, But Love Will Come," was premiered with the excellent Chautauqua Orchestra conducted by Rossen Milanov on Thursday night August 5.  She mixes effectively mournful strains composed during the height of the pandemic with fragments of "Smile," the song created by Charlie Chaplin for his classic 1936 film "Modern Times."   

 

Before I close, here are some tips for TCM viewing in the weeks while Eddie Muller's Noir Alley is off for "Summer of Stars" programming. He returns on Sep 5 - see below. 

 

There are not many films with sports themes remaining in August but bearing mention are:

W Aug 18 530p "The Natural" (1984) based on the Bernard Malamud story with Robert Redford, Kim Basinger and Glenn Close.

 

Sa Aug 21 2p "Woman of the Year" (1942), the first Tracy-Hepburn collaboration with Spencer as a sportswriter and Katherine as world-traveling journalist (inspired by Dorothy Thompson)

 

For Noir devotees and esp. Gloria Grahame fans, catch this binge-fest!

Tu Aug 17 4p "Odds Against Tomorrow" (1959, set on location in NYC and Hudson NY)

6p "Human Desire" (1954 with Glenn Ford, Broderick Crawford, dir. by Fritz Lang)

8p "The Big Heat" (1953 with G.Ford, Jocelyn Brando - Marlon's sister -, dir. by Lang)

10p "In A Lonely Place" (1950, Bogart as temperamental writer, Frank Lovejoy/Jeff Donnell as his friends, Grahame in key substantial role as Bogie's girlfriend - dir. by Nicholas Ray).

 

Su Aug 22 1245p "Witness for the Prosecution" (1957) twists galore in this classic based on Agatha Christie story and directed by Billy Wilder.  With Marlene Dietrich, Charles Laughton, Tyrone Power, that suave sinister character actor Henry Daniell, and others. 

 

8p "Blood and Sand" (1941) T. Power returns and has to deal with Linda Darnell and Rita Hayworth - it's a hard job but someone had to do it.  Dir. Reuben Mamoulian of NY stage.

 

M Aug 23 12:15a  Power again as a carnival performer in "Nightmare Alley" (1947)

945a "At The Circus" (1939) the Marx Brothers in not one of their best but Eve Arden is in it

 

W Aug 25  Jane Wyman Day has 4p Hitchcock's "Stage Fright" (1958)

8p "Johnny Belinda" (1948) Wyman's Oscar

 

Tu Aug 26 10p "The Mating Game" (1959) with Debbie Reynolds and Tony Randall.  Probably Paul Douglas's last film. He had signed for Wilder's "Apartment" but died and Fred MacMurray got the role as the louse. 

 

F Aug 27 215a  "Night Song" (1947) Dana Andrews as blind concert pianist, Merle Oberon pretends to be blind to get close to him.  Hoagy Carmichael/Artur Rubinstein perform.

 

Sa Aug 28  late 1960s shoot-em-ups for the Vietnam era starring Lee Marvin and others

8p "Point Blank" dir. John Boorman with Angie Dickinson and post-Bat Guano Keenan Wynn

10p "The Professionals" dir. Richard Brooks

 

Sun Aug 29  3:45p  Hitchcock's "Gaslight" with I. Bergman/G. Peck/Ch. Boyer

6p "Casblanca" (1943)

 

M Aug 30 James Cagney Day incl. 12N "Midsummer Night's Dream" (1935) with cast of

stars including Mickey Rooney as Puck, Olivia DeHavilland, and Joe E Brown stealing show as Flute

4p "White Heat" (1949) the post-World War II Cagney gangster.  In prison dining scene look for Jim Thorpe as an extra.

 

Tu Aug 31 8p "Best Years of Our Lives" (1946) - still hard not to cry and sigh at this one 

Th Sep 2 8p "The Comic" Carl Reiner directs Dick Van Dyke, Michele Lee, Mickey Rooney

 

Su Sep 5 12M, repeated at 10A - return of Noir Alley - Robert Preston in "Cloudburst" (1952)

 

That's all for now.  As always, take it easy but take it, and please: 

STAY POSITIVE, TEST NEGATIVE