Lee Lowenfish

Once it became clear that the 2025 Orioles lacked the pitching and any consistency in other aspects of the game, it became inevitable that 31-year-old center fielder

Cedric Mullins would be traded by the July 31 deadline.  After all, he is a free agent after the season and his salaries have gone up through salary arbitration for the past

four seasons and he was likely to want a bigger (but not extravagant) longer free agent contract.  I guess it didn't help when it became known that Mullins recently was voted to the Players Association executive board. The storm clouds for another owners' lockout before the 2027 season are definitely forming.       

 

It is still a sad day for Oriole fandom because the 13th-round draft pick from Campbell University had emerged as a versatile player, quiet team leader, and fan favorite.. In 2021, he hit 30 homers and stole 30 bases on a bad Oriole team. He had the courage earlier to abandon switch-hitting and even accepted demotion to the minors to get his act together as solely a left-handed hitter. In a personal note, he did make a public admission that he was dealing with Crohn's disease but he kept it low key at a time when teammate Trey Mancini was dealing with a life-threatening cancer.  (Mancini played Triple-A ball this year but has no clear route back to majors.) 

 

Mullins used his great speed to become a stolen base threat and an often-spectacular fielder.  The analytics geniuses - who have an algorithm for everything and a limited feel for baseball itself - downgraded Mullins' arm and maybe criticized some of his routes to fly balls, but he sure went out with a bang this past weekend with timely hitting and two spectacular catches as the Orioles narrowly missed a 4-game sweep of the first-place Blue Jays.  

 

Word came just after my ode to Cedric that two more Oriole mainstays, first baseman/outfielder/DH Ryan O'Hearn and first-year-Oriole outfielder Ramon Laureano. had been traded to San Diego.  O'Hearn is a free agent after the season who revived his career in Oriole orange and black and was the team's only representative in the 2025 All-Star Game.  Laureano had a two-year contract and had so many big hits and outfield assists this year that his trade even surprised many analysts.

 

Last night (Wed July 30), we also said goodbye to infielder Ramon Urias, one of GM's Mike Elias' earliest and best pickups as a Cardinal farmhand. He was a Gold Glove winner at third base and could acquit himself well at any infield position.  He had surprising power, too. And at the Thursday deadline, the Tigers picked up RHP Charlie Morton, the 41-year-old curve ball master who rebounded from a terrible start to 2025 to become a reliable starter again.    

 

I haven't even mentioned most of the bullpen has been traded and perhaps the saddest news of all came in late July when closer Felix "The Mountain" Bautista suffered a serious shoulder injury, still not fully diagnosed, that could well keep him out for the rest of the season. The only somewhat good news is that starter Kyle Bradish is pitching in minor league games after missing over a year. (I'm happy to report, too, that Isaac Mattson who came from the Angels in the same trade for the now-retired Dylan Bundy has been working well in the Pittsburgh bullpen and with their closer Dave Bednar now traded to Yankees Mattson might get a shot of that role.)  

 

What shocks the system of this Oriole loyalist for over a half-century is that the Orioles have received no major league ready players but only "prospects," most of whom will likely become "suspects" before too long.  Many of the pitchers seem to be 6' 5" up to 6 8" which likely means they'll take extra time to develop if they ever develop. Attendance was way down in Baltimore for the Toronto series which featured some of the best baseball played by the Orioles all season with O'Hearn and Laureano as well as Mullins contributing mightily.  But the decisions to break up the team and save money were obviously made earlier.     

 

The only two people that mattered in the decision were "President of Baseball Operations" Mike Elias and new owner David Rubenstein who is finding out in his second full year at the helm that it is not easy being held accountable in an industry that operates in the fishbowl of public passion. Maybe Elias and Rubenstein felt lucky that Arizona outbid them for Corbin Burnes last winter and Burnes now is out through next year with Tommy John surgery. Maybe they felt glad that Toronto outbid them for former Oriole Anthony Santander who has been unproductive and now injured for his new team. I'd like to see him contribute in Toronto before too long. Team is doing fine without him

but another big bat never hurts.

 

The trick in baseball management is to keep on trying and be willing to spend if you know the makeup of the player and not just what the new-fangled algorithms tell you.

The 2025 Orioles were obviously a flawed team inundated with injuries - even announcer Ben McDonald fell 35 feet out of a tree while deer hunting! - and hampered by underperforming younger players.  I have always understood that evaluating players is the hardest job in baseball but you always need some veteran stability in a successful organization. 

 

I have no idea where such leadership will be coming from on the Baltimore current roster.  For the rest of the season, as someone who needs to root for someone not simply against a certain historically arrogant team in pinstripes, I'll have a lot of players to root for in different unis: Cedric in Queens, Urias in Houston, venerable Charlie Morton now in the Motor City, and O'Hearn and Laureano in SD where the Padres start August only 3 games behind the EEW (Evil Empire West) Dodgers who were relatively quiet at the trade deadline. 

 

And here's a shout-out to a couple of new baseball names that have entered the MLB universe: WARMING BERNABEL corner infielder for the Rockies who arrived in Colorado when Ryan McMahon was traded to the Yankees and already has two homers, and RYAN GUSTO, pitcher for the Houston Astros.

 

Happy August to all and stay positive, test negative & take it easy but take it.     

 

 

"I always thought I was the guy sitting in my chair on home wanting to experience this," Brian Snitker, manager of the world champion Braves, told Hazel Mae, a Blue Jays' TV reporter,  just moments after Atlanta won the World Series.  

 

For a fellow who said he was "numb," Snitker sure expressed himself beautifully.  Smelling the roses after 45 years in the same organization, usually at the important but rarely-recognized lower levels, his is a very nice story. 

 

Here are a few more:

**Southpaw reliever Tyler Matzek virtually unhittable throughout the post-season. Signed to a big bonus by the Rockies, he was in the 2015 starting rotation for Colorado until his wildness led to a deep slide to baseball's underworld, including a year without playing at all.  

 

Through the help of a former player turned sports psychologist, Matzek made the slow climb back through independent leagues.  As he told Scott Miller in the Oct 27 NYTimes, he ultimately chose to "fight" over "flight" or freeze." 

 

**Closer Will Smith finished every one of the World Series victories and others throughout the three rounds of playoffs.  Originally a KC Royal, then a Brewer and a Giant, Smith lost 7

games in regular season but was flawless in the playoffs.

 

We can put to rest the home run he served to Dodger catcher Will Smith in last year's playoffs that contributed to Atlanta's narrowly missing the 2020 World Series.

 

**The NLCS MVP Eddie Rosario and World Series MVP Jorge Soler were both late additions at the trade deadline.  Their slugging, and Rosario's remarkable catch of A. J. Pollock's line drive late in Game 4, will be forever etched in Braves lore.

 

**Here's to Max Fried who with Ian Anderson restored some glitter and glamor to the still-important craft of starting pitching.  With veteran Charlie Morton knocked out with a broken leg suffered early in Game 1, they rose to the occasion in Games 5 and 6. 

 

Even if Anderson was taken out after 5 no-hit fairly stressful innings and Fried had a shutout going after 6. The days of the complete game may be gone forever but sure was

nice to see starters getting at least into the 5th and 6th. 

 

**Here's to the great infield of the Braves.  Two of them are essentially local boys,

third baseman Austin Riley from Hernando, Mississippi and shortstop Dansby Swanson from nearby Marietta, Georgia.  

 

Shortstop Ozzie Albies hails from Curacao - he struggled at the plate until Snitker dropped him to 7th in the order in Game 6 and he relaxed and sparked two rallies. 

 

Last but certainly not least is Freddie Freeman the slugging first baseman from SoCal, the longest tenured Brave.  How fitting that the last out of 2021 was your basic 6-3 from Swanson to Freeman.

 

If the Braves don't sign Freeman as he enters free agency, it will be a blow not only to their fan base but to those of us, however naively, still believe in the old adage, "The grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence." 

 
Let's not forget Astros manager Dusty Baker who plans to be back next year for a third try at his first World Series title.  He remains the only manager to take FIVE teams to the playoffs and is a surefire Hall of Famer in my opinion especially if you add in his fine playing career.  

 

For some reason Cooperstown's Hall of Fame does not consider a person's record as both player and manager.  Which is why Gil Hodges is still outside, something that could change in the next Veterans Committee voting released next month. 

 

Astros pitching coach Brent Strom won't be returning in the same role.  The 73-year-old Strom is tired of the travel, but he may help out their impressive young pitchers in both

majors and minors at some point next season.

 

Strom did a fine job with the young Astro starters but the loss of their ace before the Series, Lance McCullers Jr., ultimately proved too much to overcome.

 

Now it's time to see if the warring sides of players and owners can hammer out a new collective bargaining agreement so spring training and the regular season start on time

in 2022.  Expect saber rattling on both sides, but at a juncture in our history when baseball is losing fans, another work stoppage would be ill-advised, to understate the issue.

 

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT:

There have been some notable passings in the arts recently that need mentioning.

 

**Satirist Mort Sahl, 94, in Mill Valley, Calif. on Oct 26.  I attended probably Sahl's last NYC performance in 2004 at the now-defunct B.B.King's blues club in Times Square. 

 

The iconoclastic Sahl, who became famous as a social critic during the Eisenhower years of the 1950s, claimed that Ronald Reagan was the last US President to have a sense of humor.  

 

Before the Soviet Union fell, according to Sahl, Reagan told a joke about a man in Russia who buys an automobile and asks when it will come. 

"Ten years," he is told.

"Morning or afternoon?" he inquires.

"Why do you want to know?"

"Because the refrigerator is coming in the morning."

 

**Classical conductor Bernard Haitink, 92, on Oct 21 in London, England. Leading Amsterdam's Concertgebouw Orchestra from 1956 to 1988, its principal conductor from 1963, he was well known around the world for his no-frills but passionate musicianship. 

 

I attended an all-Beethoven Haitink Carnegie Hall concert late last century.  The stirring

opening bars of the "Eroica" Symphony #3 had just begun when all of a sudden Haitink stopped and whirled around, pointing his baton at people talking in a box in the second tier.

 

The audience gasped, the clueless dolts hushed, and the concert resumed. A moment never to be forgotten. 

 

**Finally, Jo-Carroll Dennison, 97, Oct 18 in the San Jacinto Mtns. east of LA.  She had been the oldest-living Miss America winning the pageant in 1942. 

 

Katharine Q. Seelye's late October obit in the NY Times had fascinating details.  Born in Arizona into a traveling medicine show family, Dennison became during WW II the second most popular pinup girl of servicemen after Betty Grable.

 

Was married to comic actor Phil Silvers from 1945-1950 (before his "Sgt. Bilko" years). Appeared opposite Larry Parks in the "Jolson Story" (1946). Had limited schooling but she got educated on tips from Leonard Bernstein and Ray Bradbury.  

 

Became a feminist long before #MeToo.  Wrote an autobiography in her last years,

"Finding My LIttle Red Hat". 

 

Last but not least, here are some TCM tips for November which is Sydney Greenstreet

month. The John Huston-Bogart-Mary Astor "Maltese Falcon" was already on, but Wed evenings Nov 10-17-24 will feature his work. 

 

Sports pickings are rather slim in November but on Su Nov 21 at 615p there is

"Stealing Home" (1988) with Mark Harmon/Blair Brown/Jodie Foster. It's about a ballplayer who returns home after the suicide of a friend.  Have not seen it so I'm curious.

 

And speaking of Blair Brown, don't let a less than favorable NYTimes review of Simon Stephens' "Morning Sun" keep you away from seeing the three-character play at Manhattan Theatre Club - it's located on lower level of the City Center (on W 55 St between 6-7 Aves.)

 

Blair Brown plays the mother, Edie Falco the daughter, and Marin Ireland the granddaughter in a moving play about the three generations of women in our unsettled times.  It may

start a little talky but as it moves on, thanks to good directing by Lila Neugebauer, you really get into the characters of these women. 

 

Edie Falco is quite a remarkable actress.  She adds Charlotte (Charley) to her formidable resume that includes Carmela Soprano and Nurse Jackie with hopefully many more roles to come.

 

That's all for now as the long off-season of baseball has begun and my rooting is focused on

my alma mater's teams, especially Columbia football and women's basketball and Wisconsin football and basketball.

 

Always remember:  Take it easy but take it, and stay positive and test negative.