Lee Lowenfish

Shortly after midnight on Mon Oct 24, YED - Yankee Elimination Day - was celebrated for the thirteenth year in a row as the Houston Astros completed a sweep of the Yankees, winning a back-and-forth game, 6-5, at Yankee Stadium.  

 

The Yankees have not been in the World Series since they beat the Phillies in six games in 2009. It

was manager Joe Girardi's rookie year as skipper. He wore #27 to highlight the 27th world title he was confident would come to the Bronx.  

 

Starting in 2010, he tempted fate by switching to #28 but that title has never come.  

When Aaron Boone replaced Girardi before the 2018 season, he was more modest in his uni choice of #17, but the title drought continues.  

 

The Yankees did win the AL East in 2022 for the first time since 2017, but trust me - there will be no AL East banner raised at Yankee Stadium next year.  It is World Series Title or bust in Yankee land though

Hal Steinbrenner, George's younger son, seems committed to keeping Aaron Boone as manager.

 

If I read tea leaves correctly, though, he is yet to endorse re-hiring of Brian Cashman whose contract as general manager expired with the end of the Yankee season.  Most media people think Cashman will

return since he has been associated with the Steinbrenner family since they ran a horse business in

Florida. 

  

The big decision facing the team is the free agency of Aaron Judge that will happen less than a week after the end of the World Series. I would be surprised if the Yankees let Judge leave as a free agent.  

 

He's a rare home-grown star in the Cashman regime, and he should be an eternal member of the Yankee

pantheon. He is a rarity indeed, someone who draws praise from many YED celebrants, including yours truly. 

 

In one of the interesting twists that make baseball history so intriguing, Joe Girardi, after staying visible by doing the almost-obligatory baseball TV commentary, was hired by the Phillies in 2020. He was dismissed after Philadelphia started 2022 at 22-29.  

 

Rob Thomson, Girardi's longtime assistant with both the Yankees and Phillies, led the team to the playoffs with 65 victories of his own. They swept the Cardinals in two games in the wild card round and dispatched the defending world champion Braves and surprise-conqueror of Dodgers, San Diego Padres, in five games each.

 

Houston is undefeated in 2022 post-season play and is favored, but I think the Phillies will give them a tussle. With timely home runs and unbridled passion, Bryce Harper is seemingly on a mission to prove that he is worth his mega-contract. 

 

Unable to play the field because of an injured arm, he can still serve as the DH and Houston will have to

contain him.  I have never loved the DH, but baseball needs its stars on the field.    

 

If Philadelphia splits the first two games in Houston this weekend, look out for what the raucous Phillie

fans might do to will their local heroes to victory in the middle three games of the Series. Not unlike

what the Mets did to the Orioles in 1969. 

 

But I want Dusty Baker to win his first World Series as a manager - the Astros lost last year to the Braves in six games and in 2002 his Giants fell in seven games to the Angels. Astros ace Justin Verlander has a lot to prove, too, since he is 0-6 in previous Series games. 

 

On the music scene, on the same October 24 that YED was celebrated, I attended David McVicar's

production of Puccini's "Tosca" at the Metropolitan Opera. I have seen the opera many times, but never

has the love story between diva Floria Tosca and artist and freedom fighter Mario Cavaradossi 

been presented more convincingly.

 

Mario was sung beautifully by Montclair NJ  tenor Michael Fabiano, whose first appearance on stage was greeted with a lot of home town applause.  Polish soprano Aleksandra Kurzak in the title role was also in top form.

 

Singing the role of police chief Scarpia, one of opera's most loathsome villains, baritone George Gagnidze from Tbilisi, Georgia was in chillingly good voice.  Carlo Rizzi, from Rome, Italy, led the great Met Opera orchestra with customary aplomb.   

 

There are three more chances to see this production.

Th Oct 27 at 730p

M Oct 31 at 8p with veteran Roberto Alagna singing Mario

F Nov 4 at 730p, again with Alagna.

 

In the spring, a new cast and conductor will again perform "Tosca".

Th Mar 30 at 730p

Su Apr 2 at 3p

Wed Apr 5 at 730p

Sa Apr 8 1p - national radio broadcast

Wed Apr 12 730p

Sa Apr 15 at 8p

 

For more information including availablity of rush tickets, see www.metopera.org

 

That's all for now.  Always remember:  Take it easy but take it, and more than ever,

stay positive, test negative.

As we approach the year-end holidays, let's cross fingers that those who didn't practice social distancing and mask-wearing over the Thanksgiving holiday don't pay an awful price and infect others.

 
As for my Thanksgiving, I made my first trip to the North Fork of Long Island staying in Greenport, a scant 80 miles from the Big Apple. The onetime seaport town is on the upgrade with many tasty restaurants and stores while maintaining its cozy maritime flavor.

 
A first-ever trip to nearby historic Shelter Island was also memorable. After a short car ferry ride, with Maria smoothly at the wheel, we found ourselves riding on the undulating roads of that precious slice of land. Even passed a Shelter Island Country Club and golf course "open to the public".   

 

Meanwhile, the best news out of baseball came a week before Thanksgiving when Kim Ng was named the general manager of the Miami Marlins. 

 
Ng (pronounced Ang) will be the first woman to reach that exalted level in major league baseball, and she is probably the most qualified person ever to reach the top. 

 
After starring as a softball shortstop at Ridgewood High in New Jersey and the University of Chicago, she entered baseball as a White Sox intern and has risen rapidly in the ranks. She was a top assistant to Yankee GM Brian Cashman during their most recent dynasty in the late 1990s through 2001.  

 
Since early this century Ng has worked in top level MLB's executive positions while always being on the short list of GM candidates. She didn't let her failure to win other openings get her down. 

 

The oldest of five Ng girls, she brings a universally respected love of baseball in all its nuances. Kudos to Derek Jeter, Marlins president and part-owner who witnessed Ng's abilities first-hand while playing for the Yankees, for encouraging Bruce Sherman, the Marlins principal owner, to break the glass ceiling. 

 
In this time of great uncertainty, no one knows for sure when the Marlins and the 29 other MLB teams will start the 2021 season.  It seems unlikely that a full 162

game can be played which is fine by me. 

 
The season is far too long anyway.  So to steal from columnist Jimmy Cannon, here's my "Nobody Asked Me, But" list of changes I'd like to see in baseball's future.

 

**CHANGE 1:  A regular season of a maximum 154 games or even 144, 140, or fewer.  Baseball did very nicely with 154 games from 1903 to 1960 and every team playing every other in its league 22 times, 11 at home and 11 on road. 

 

Of course, with expansion from the 1960s through the late 1990s, we now have

30 teams and 6 divisions and additional wild cards. Commissioner Rob Manfred reportedly wants 14 teams to make the playoffs in the future.

 

If we continue to devalue the regular season, I say at least let's shorten it.  

 
**CHANGE 2 - I'm not a knee jerk advocate of "cancel culture," but I can see the value in adding a more deserving name to the MVP trophy than baseball's first commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis.  Landis didn't create baseball segregation but he sure tacitly enforced it.   

 
Why not honor the late Frank Robinson who is still the only man to win the MVP in both leagues?  First with the Cincinnati Reds in 1961 and then the Baltimore Orioles in 1966.

 

He played the game hard and passionately. The first Black manager in MLB with the Cleveland Indians, he was a very creditable manager for other teams. 

 
As an Oriole fan, I still think F. Robby's Game 6 tagging up and scoring from third base on a very short fly ball to Vic Davalillo in center field to extend the 1971 World Series to a seventh game is one of the greatest hustle plays I've ever seen. 

 

**CHANGE 3  Instead of starting an extra-inning game with a runner on second base and no one out, the gimmick currently used, why not allow for ties in the standings?  Hockey has lived with it for generations.  Even pro football allows for it.  There are enough games in a baseball regular season that a tie won't seem

like a devastating loss.  

 
**CHANGE 4  Modify the DH rule so a National League pinch-hitter can be used for a pitcher one time in a game without the pitcher being forced out of the lineup. Sadly, I guess the designated hitter in the AL is with us for the indefinite future.  

 
I have never thought that the disparity in the rule between the leagues was a detriment.  Except that American League pitchers were at a great disadvantage when they had to hit and AL teams lost a presumably big DH bat when the rule was not in effect in World Series road games. 

 

These changes won't guarantee any immediate uptick in spectatorship and participation.  But the more the drama of the game of running and throwing and

outguessing hitters instead of overpowering them is emphasized, I think the better the chance there will be of a resurgence of interest. 

 

And now before I bid adieu, here's some December tips for films on Turner Classic Movie. You never know what gems pop up on TCM.

 

On Sun night Nov 29, I stumbled into "Running On Empty" (1988 dir. by Sidney Lumet) with the marvelous cast of Judd Hirsch, Christine Lahti, River Phoenix, and Martha Plimpton. The fictionalized film based on the actual travails of radical activists living life on the run after violent anti-imperialist activities in the late 1960s/early 1970s holds up very well.

 

So here's my recommendations for early December on TCM:  

 

Th Dec 3 8p "Baby Face" (1933) Barbara Stanywick rises to the top using her

feminine wiles and encouraged by a mentor who quotes Nietzsche! Left in the dust in small roles are John Wayne and Douglas Dumbrille. 

 

Sat Dec 5 starting at 330p if you are into marathon watching or recording, 

Billy Wilder's "The Apartment" with Lemmon, MacLaine, MacMurray;  "It Happened on Fifth Ave," a progressive fantasy from 1947 set during the housing storage; "The Maltese Falcon" this week's "Essential"; followed by the first "Thin Man" and Eddie Muller's Noir Alley choice, "Tomorrow Is Another Day" with Ruth Roman and Steve Cochran. 

 

Sun Dec 6 is a mini-marathon starting at 6p with "Christmas in Connecticut" with Stanwyck and Sidney Greenstreet, and then two films with Marilyn Monroe, "The Seven Year Itch" with Tom Ewell and "Gentleman Prefer Blondes" with Jane Russell.

 

Fri Dec 11 8p is a 2015 documentary "Marsha Hunt's Sweet Adversity" about the blacklisted actress who used her later career to foster good causes.  She has drawn effusive praise from Eddie Muller which is as good a recommendation one can get. 

 

That's all for now on baseball and film.  Always remember:  Take it easy but take it!