Lee Lowenfish

Blame me, Oriole fans. The Prince of Paranoia went out of character and conceived a new alter ego, Agent 161 031 221, in the wake of the Orioles' 17-5 rout of the Yankees on Thursday afternoon June 20.  That was the line score on a day the Birds scored in every inning but the 4th. 

 

It was my first jaunt to Yankee Stadium this season and I never expected a laugher, but once Juan Soto didn't react to Gunnar Henderson's first-pitch liner to right and it became a double, the die seemingly was cast on this very steamy afternoon.

 

It was a rare off-day for the Yankees' surprise ace so far, Luis Gil, who came in with a 9-1 record and a low ERA.  He was knocked out during a six-run Oriole second inning and Yankee relievers didn't fare much better.

 

I didn't really expect future games would be so easy.  I knew that the Astros are improving and are loaded with talent with championship pedigree and a good farm system. But I didn't expect a sweep this past weekend at Minute Maid Park, especially with our two best starters working the first two games, Grayson Rodriguez and Corbin Burnes. 

 

A sweep is what happened because the baseball gods are very capricious and are wary of overconfidence. Rodriguez seemed in control on Friday night with a 3-2 lead in the bottom of the 5th, but with two out and two on - both well-stroked singles on fastballs - he hung an off-speed pitch to center fielder Jake Meyers and in a twinkling it was 5-3 Astros.

 

This is Grayson's first full year in the majors so he remains a young pitcher, but with three Baltimore starters out for the year and longer - Kyle Bradish, John Means and Tyler Wells - Rodriguez needs to step up.  He didn't get an out in the bottom of the 6th and the rout was on. 

 

The Orioles did make Friday's game interesting with a barrage of 7th and 8th inning homers but that only cut the deficit to 14-11. To coin a phrase (LOL), "Close only counts in horseshoes and grenades." 

 

In the Sa/Su day games, Houston starters Ronel Franco, who pitched a no-hitter earlier in season, and veteran southpaw Framber Valdez simply outpitched Baltimore's ace Corbin Burnes and reclamation project Albert Suarez. 

 

The Astros are now only two games under .500 and just five games in lost column behind the first-place AL West Mariners. Houston has lost their share of pitchers for the season, too, notably Jose Urquiddy and Cristian Javier and are also temporarily missing powerful right fielder Kyle Tucker, but they still have a potent lineup from top to bottom. 

 

Next up for the Orioles at home are the Cleveland Guardians who have lost two less games than the Orioles at 49-26 and are leading the AL Central 

by 7 games in the loss column over Minnesota.  The Texas Rangers come into Baltimore the last weekend of June and they are now only 3 games

below .500 and Max Scherzer was excellent in his first start of the season on Sun Jun 23. 

  

There is no word but EPIDEMIC to describe what is happening to pitchers this season.  There is no easy explanation except that the reward system for amateur signings and big contracts is heavily weighted towards Velocity and Spin Rate.  Until organizations stress Pitchability and Durability, the casualty rate will go on and on.  

 

AND NOW THE TRIBUTES TO MAYS AND SUTHERLAND:

The timing of the passing of Willie Mays was eerily appropriate.  Mays died on Tues June 19 at the age of 93 as MLB was preparing to celebrate the Negro leagues at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama. MLBTV was covering a minor league game at Rickwood when the TV coverage was interrupted with the news of Mays' death.  Rickwood later hosted an exciting MLB game between the surging Cardinals and the sagging Giants. 

 

A tip of the cap to Richard Goldstein whose NY Times obituary of Mays contained a fact I didn't know.  Condoleeza Rice's mother taught Willie at Fairfield Ala. Industrial HS.  She was tolerant of some of his absences because of his baseball responsibilities.  (I knew that Condi's father was one of the recipients of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from A Birmingham Jail" - the senior Rice did not believe that educated Blacks should take part in demonstrations.) 

 

Another kudo to Anthony Castrovince of mlb.com for his June 12 piece, "How Hollywood Saved Rickwood Field." In a twist of remarkable irony, it turns out that when Ron Shelton was looking for a site to film his bio-pic "Cobb" in the early 1990s, he chose Rickwood Field because it dates back to 1910 during the heyday of Cobb's career. 

 

"Cobb" is not a great movie, marred by Shelton's reliance on sportswriter Al Stump's questionable recounting of interviews in the last year of Cobb's life.  Yet this connection made me think of something Branch Rickey said in his only book, THE AMERICAN DIAMOND:  The only player he ever saw that had a greater will to win than Jackie Robinson was Ty Cobb. 

 

Rickey also once uttered a potent description of Willie Mays:  "The secret to his success is the frivolity in his bloodstream."  I don't have many memories of games that Mays played as a New York Giant, but I do remember going with my father to the Polo Grounds to see pre-game fielding and batting practice at the Polo Grounds.  During every pre-game fielding drill, Mays showed off his cannon of an arm in throws to home, third, and second.

  

Here's one other Mays story to share.  Sometime before the pandemic, I won a raffle at a NYC Baseball Writers Association dinner.  The prize was a painting of me and my favorite NY ballplayer. I sent a photo of yours truly to artist John Pennisi and I have the result framed in my living room with a caption added by the artist.

 

Lee:  "Say Hey Willie, Leo says if Thomson gets on, I'm pinch-hittin' for you."

Willie: "Lee, how did you get on the field?" 

 

Here's also a fond farewell to actor Donald Sutherland, 88, who passed away two days after Mays on Jun 20.  He too deservedly received of a front page obit in NY Times (though understandably not nearly as large). 

 

I never met Sutherland but I loved his work on film including "M*A*S*H,"  "Klute," and the remake of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers". How could a sports fan like me ever forget Sutherland's character who gets so infested with the alien pods that he loses interest in the NBA finals.  (That was in early 1980s when the entertainment aspect of NBA hadn't take over, but that's another story.) 

 

Sutherland was a genuine baseball fan and as a native of Canada, he especially adored the Expos who entered MLB in 1969. I love the story of Sutherland on a film assignment in Europe in October 1981, spending a few hundred dollars on a phone call to North America so he could follow a radio broadcast of the Expos-Dodgers NLCS playoff.  He was a true fan and never used his celebrity to draw attention. 

 

That's all for now.  Next time I post i'll be an 83-year-old.  Just remembered that 1983 was the last world championship year of the Orioles.  The Prince of Paranoia doesn't really believe in omens or jinxes but I just may retire Agent 161 031 221. 

 

Stay positive test negative, and take it easy but take it over.

 

 

 

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!