Lee Lowenfish

The Dog Days of August have given way to the September Stretch Drive in Major League Baseball. Before I look at what September and October may hold for the contenders and pretenders, let me mention a couple of highlights from my whirlwind trip in mid-August to the new ballparks in Pittsburgh, Washington, and Philadelphia.

**PNC Park in Pittsburgh ranks deservedly high among the new ballparks in MLB.
I attended a Monday night game Pirates game against fellow contender/pretender Braves - hard to say which way either team is going though Pittsburgh is far closer to top than Atlanta where Washington is running away with NL East.

More than 31,000 attended a game in which there was no particular promotion. They stayed rooting despite a six-run first for Atlanta. Pirates even brought the tying run to plate in 6th inning but bad base-running did them in.

Sound system was mercifully not too loud so one could converse with a neighbor. Like at the best of minor league parks, there was constant activity on the field during the half-inning breaks. But again nothing too loud or in bad taste.

Sight lines and concessions are very good. The location on the three rivers that surround the verdant city of Pittsburgh is very lovely.

Lots of sculptures dot the outside of the park including one of Roberto Clemente and a jubilant cap-waving Bill Mazeroski after his glorious 1960 World Series-winning home run over Yankees. And there are a lot of restaurants in the area that make a fan want to stay around for a long time.

**Nats Park in the Navy Yard SE section of Washington, D.C. is not as homey as PNC Park. But of course Washington is not as homey a city as Pittsburgh. There is some grandeur to the park but the seats are not as close to the field as in Pittsburgh.

As a New Yorker I felt at home seeing Danny Meyer’s Shake Shack and Blue Smoke
available. But there is too much cuteness in the names of the other concessions – Pop Fly Popcorn, Steak of the Union, and the like.

I wore my Oriole cap to the night game against the Diamondbacks – a Washington rout determined by another early six-run inning. I received the kind of verbal abuse I often get at Yankee Stadium wearing the same cap. So there is a genuine local rivalry brewing between Washington and Baltimore which augurs well for the baseball business in the DC-Balt beltway.

**My fourth visit to Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia for a Wed. aft. day game was pleasant. The stadium has a carnival aspect with many booths outside the lower deck - former Phillie slugger Greg Luzinski has a food concession.

The day game with the Seattle Mariners proved to be the most competitive tussle I witnessed. Phillies rallied to win 4-3, showing off the kind of strong bullpen that enabled them to no-hit the Braves on Labor Day. Cole Hamels ran out of gas in both games but clearly he remains a top-of-the-rotation kind of starter.

The only sad aspect to the day was sparse attendance. Reminded me too much of the barrenness at CitiField in Flushing. It’s the price of the Phillies and the Mets no longer being contenders.


And now time to analyze what we may expect in September on eve of playoffs:
The Washington Nationals have the best record in the National League and a comfortable lead in the NL East. The other spots are wide open with this historically-minded New Yorker looking forward to another Giant-Dodger showdown in the NL West while the Cardinals-Pirates-Brewers battle for the NL Central crown.

Returning to contention after some down years in the AL West, the California Angels have the best record in baseball. They stunningly swept a four-game home series against the Oakland Athletics the weekend before Labor Day.

So many pundits anointed the A’s as a Series lock when they made July trades for Cubs pitchers Jeff Samardzija and Jason Hammel and Red Sox ace Jon Lester.
Journeyman Hammel finally delivered an overpowering performance on Labor Day holding surprise contender Seattle to three hits in a 6-1 victory.

Samardzija and Lester have pitched well in their new rental uniforms – both will probably leave as free agents in the off-season – but Oakland has stopped hitting consistently. They probably miss their Cuban star and cleanup hitter Yoenis Cespedes.

The A’s now likely face a one-game play-in wild card elimination to just make the playoffs. But so much can change in September.

Thus discussion of “magic numbers” to clinch make me nervous. Never far from my mind is the specter of Boston’s 7-20 record in September 2011 that cost Boston manager Terry Francona his job.

An excellent manager of players and personalities, Francona resurfaced in Cleveland in 2013 and a great September led them into the wild card game that they lost to Tampa Bay. The Indians are lurking in the hunt for the same game in 2014.

So are the Yankees who still have eight games remaining with the AL East leading-Orioles who trail the Angels by three games for best record in the AL. The Orioles are a feel-good story with sterling contributions from unheralded players like career minor league catcher Caleb Joseph and perpetual fringe outfielder-first baseman Steve Pearce.

“Give Pearce A Chance” could be the motto for the 2014 Orioles but he has been sidelined for a few days with a dread abdominal injury that the team hopes is minor.

The Birds’ roster does seem to have the “deep depth” that legendary late manager Earl Weaver craved. But, please, not too many magic number prognostications – though as of this writing it is 19 – the number of combined Oriole wins and Yankee losses to bring Baltimore its first AL East crown since 1997.

My closing words this week come from the Angels’ new closer, Huston Street, a veteran of many teams and someone with a fine athletic lineage – his father James Street was an outstanding championship-winning U. of Texas-Austin quarterback.

“The media’s job is to remember. My job is to forget . . . everything but the next pitch.”
 Read More 

It caught my eye while recently surfing the internet. Toronto left-hander Mark Buehrle was tipping his cap to White Sox fans in Chicago after being knocked out of the box in the bottom of the 6th inning.

Buehrle was signed and developed by the Chisox and was a key mound stalwart when they won the World Series in 2005. He left for the Florida Marlins as a free agent and then was traded to Toronto but obviously a lot of his heart was left in the Windy City.

It seemed that Buehrle was fighting back tears as he saluted the Chicago fans, who also cheered his first inning appearance on the mound. His emotion reminded me of something wise that Ken Griffey Sr. said as his son – the fabled Ken Griffey Jr. – was contemplating leaving Seattle for free agency. “The team that signs you cares the most about you,” Griffey Sr. noted sagely.

The younger Griffey ultimately opted to OK a trade to Cincinnati where he grew up. However, because of accumulated injuries and the ravages of age, he never had the impact that he had in Seattle.

David Price, the Rays’ southpaw ace traded to Detroit at the July 31st deadline, received a similar heartwarming welcome on August 21 when he pitched in Tampa for the first time as a member of the opposition. Whatta game Price pitched, too, a one-hitter but he lost it 1-0 on an unearned run in the first inning.

Tampa Bay was the scene for another poignant baseball moment a week ago when Alex Cobb of the Rays faced off against Brandon McCarthy of the Yankees. Both pitchers have bounced back, literally, from being hit on the head with line drives – Cobb last year in June and McCarthy in September 2012 while pitching for the Oakland A’s.

Never underestimate the courage of pro athletes in any sport to get out there on the firing line as soon as possible from an injury, however serious. It is what is meant by being a competitor and “getting it.” Kudos to David Adler, a writer for mlb.com in Tampa Bay, who made a point to note the back story of the Cobb-McCarthy matchup that Cobb won though McCarthy pitched very well. Cobb, whose front leg gyrations are even more pronounced than most Japanese pitchers, was the hurler who bested Price 1-0 in that classic recent game.

COULD THE DEADLINE DEALS BE BACKFIRING?
Too early to bash media darling general managers Billy Beane of the A’s (who traded center fielder Yoenis Cespedes for ace southpaw Jon Lester) and Dave Dombrowski who traded his center fielder Austin Jackson for Price. Both A’s and Tigers have struggled mightily since the deals but plenty of time to correct their ships. After all, it is still August with more than three dozen games (two NFL regular seasons) to play before the playoffs start.

There remains a wise old adage, "Sometimes the trades you don't make are the best ones."
And never forget that players are not robots and may not seamlessly fit into their new environment. Nor forget the side-effect of trades being telling your existing players that they may not be good enough to win it all.

EARLY THOUGHTS ON THE NEW COMMISSIONER
On the labor relations front in baseball, the election of Rob Manfred to replace Bud Selig as commissioner is good news for those who never want the continuity of the baseball season to be disrupted again.

There was a last-minute attempt, evidently masterminded by White Sox and Chicago Bulls basketball owner Jerry Reinsdorf, to prevent the seamless transfer of power from Bud Selig to Manfred. It got no traction and the vote to approve Manfred was made unanimous by the 30 baseball owners before their meeting broke up in Baltimore on Thursday August 14.

Manfred is an experienced lawyer who arrived in baseball in the early 1990s. He was witness to the nuclear summer of 1994 when the players went on strike and in early September the owners unilaterally cancelled the playoffs and the World Series.
Manfred soon rose to power as the chief management labor negotiator and has been instrumental in the two decades of labor peace that ensured and looks like will continue for the foreseeable future.

He has kept his personal preferences close to the vest. It will certainly be interesting to see where he comes down on such issues as the increasing length of games, the continuing failure to attract younger audiences to the game, and the four-decade-old-and-still-counting split on the designated hitter used in one major league and not the other.

Personally I have never liked the DH but with interleague games every day now it becomes an increasing disadvantage for American League pitchers to hit when they are not trained to do so. Also I have been convinced by the argument that since the DH is not utilized in World Series game in National League parks, it does put the American League at a distinct disadvantage.

As for increasing the pace of the game, I'm all for a clock to be utilized at all major league ballparks limiting a pitcher's dallying before throwing a ball. Such a clock exists in college conferences these days - 12 seconds in some cases - and it would be a good start.

That’s all for now – next edition of the YIBF Journal comments on my travels on the road to varying baseball spots from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia, Washington DC to Manchester, New Hampshire and the New York outer boroughs.

Always remember: Take it easy but take it!  Read More