Lee Lowenfish

There is certainly still a chance (mathematical) that Cleveland and the Mets can make a good series out of their matchups prior to the World Series.  But as of this writing on Thursday afternoon Oct 17, the Mets will have to clean up their game defensively and start their bats producing again. Even if they rediscover their magic sauce, down two games to one, they'll have to win it in LA. 

 

As for the Yankees-In-Guardians series (I've decided that since most of us folks of a certain age can't help calling them Indians, let's at least reclaim the

first syllable of the old name, OK?), Cleveland's lack of starting pitching has really been exposed.  I hope home-cooking allows at least one win and more chances for us to marvel at Steven Kwan, their great left fielder/leadoff man who has made Oregon State proud (in ways that the Orioles' Adley Rutschman could not duplicate this season). 

 

Here's the back story on why a Yankee-Dodger World Series is my least favorite of any Fall Classic.  I think my character was definitely shaped (warped?) by growing up a New York Giant fan when the Yankees and Brooklyn Dodgers were seemingly in every World Series - to be exact, 1947, 1949, 1952-53, 1955-1956. As a National League fan, I pulled for the Dodgers in the World Series, but it certainly wasn't like rooting for your team. 

 

1955 was the only World Series the Brooklyn Dodgers ever won. The outrageously entitled Yankee fans still insist that blip happened only because Mickey Mantle was injured.  In a wound in the heart that still exists in most of the Flatbush Faithful older generation, almost exactly two years after Johnny Podres shut out the Yankees in Game 7, the Dodgers were on their way to Los Angeles. 

 

The Giants accompanied the Dodgers to the West Coast settling in San Francisco. To give you an idea of how much of a blow the departure of the historic NL franchises meant to NYC fans, the Yankees with the NYC market all to themselves drew fewer fans in 1958 than they did in 1957.  It didn't stop the Bronx Bombers from avenging their 7-game 1957 World Series loss to the Milwaukee Braves by overcoming a 3-1 games deficit in 1958 to beat the Braves. 

 

Fortunately with expansion, a Yankee-LA Dodger WS matchup hasn't happened that often and the LAD in 1963 and 1981 actually won two World Series

over the NYY.  But the Yankees did beat the Dodgers in back-to-back 1977-1978 World Series.  I

 

I remember 1977 painfully because the Orioles won 97 games in the first year of free agency.  They lost Reggie Jackson to the Yankees and Bobby Grich and Don Baylor to the Angels, but they stayed in the pennant race until the last weekend of regular season. 

 

On Friday night as I watching the Tigers' lefty John Hiller beat the Yankees at the second incarnation of Yankee Stadium, the Red Sox eliminated the Birds at Fenway in a slugfest.  I was watching the score throughout the game whenever the scoreboard deigned to show it. Shortly after the Tigers won, I looked at the scoreboard and it read "Bost 12 Balt 8 - F".

 

It turned out it was fake news. As I was coming home in the subway, a fan told me that final score was 12-11 and Al Bumbry had made the last out with tying run on second. How much disappointment can a fan take?!  The next afternoon, the Orioles eliminated the Red Sox.  Elliott Maddox, only briefly with the Orioles, insouciantly caught the last out, a routine fly ball to center. 

 

I was so bummed out that I vowed not to watch the World Series at all.  During Game 1, I went to see Win Wenders' neo-noir movie "The American Friend".  But when every time I glimpsed the mustache of actor Bruno Ganz I thought of Thurman Munson, I decided, "If the Yankees are still on my mind at the movies, I might as well watch the games." I did but with little passion. Reggie Jackson hit 3 home runs in the final game.  Ho-hum. 

 

47 years after that 1977 World Series, I think I've attained A LITTLE philosophical distance from my earlier self.  I don't really hate any of the players on NYY/LAA. And I find it amusing that the boobirds at Yankee Stadium will have to cheer at the success of their targets in recent years who are really producing now, Gian-Carlo Stanton, Gleyber Torres, and Alex Verdugo (a former Dodger who will have extra incentive against LAA).

 

You never know in baseball so I hope that the remaining LCS games have some memorable moments.  Like the last two games of the Cleveland-Detroit division series. When David Fry's pinch-hit home run silenced Detroit's Comerica Park in Game 4 forcing a return to Cleveland's Progressive Field for Game 5.

And Lane Thomas, former Cardinals farmhand and Nats outfielder, hit a grand slam off the brilliant southpaw Tarik Skubal, this year's likely AL Cy Young winner. 

 

Two pitches in succession turned around Skubal's season. First, a bases loaded HBP to Jose Ramirez and then Thomas' line drive HR that gave Cleveland the lead they would not relinquish.  It pays to watch the game closely - things can happen in a twinkling. 

 

I heard a wonderful story from a friend whose mother-in-law lives in an assisted living facility in Cleveland.  She was dutifully going to 4p Saturday Mass when the game was not yet final.  The service was delayed slightly to make sure the team had won and then it opened with a nun on piano playing a rousing version of"Take Me Out To The Ballgame". 

 

Speaking of rousing performances, how about that WNBA final between the New York Liberty and the Minnesota Lynx!  On their sixth visit to the finals as a WNBA charter member, the Liberty need one more victory either Fri night Oct 18 or back home in Brooklyn on Sun night Oct 20 to earn their first title.

 

This series has not been for the weak in heart.  The Liberty blew double-digit leads in the first two games at home, salvaging a split. The Lynx led all the

way in Game 3 until they didn't late in 4th quarter.  Only a 28-foot straight away jump shot by Sabrina Ionescu kept Game 3 from going into overtime. 

 

Another star from the Northwest like Steven Kwan, Ionesco, the former Oregon Ducks sensation, gave credit to her preparation for her ability to sink 

that shot.  It reminds me of the saying I once saw in the Tampa Bay Rays clubhouse or maybe on one of the their T-shirts:

"Champions Are Made When Nobody Is Looking." 

 

That's all for now - stay positive, test negative, still my mantra, and take it easy but take it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's never easy when a team you've poured your marrow into it ends its season abruptly.  It's not that Oriole fans weren't prepared for the sudden exit of the Orioles from the post-season. Anyone who witnessed their decline to mediocrity since mid-June had to worry when the Kansas City Royals, or any good team, came to Baltimore. 

 

Sure enough, after surviving two late season seven-game losing streaks, the Royals did knock us out. They won two low-scoring games, 1-0 and 2-1, to extend Baltimore's post-season losing streak to 10 games (stretched over 10 seasons). The offensive drought was so palpable that after tying the last game in the 5th inning but failing to score again with bases loaded and no out, the Birds did not mount another threat. 

 

So I am reduced to being a relatively unemotional spectator of what promises to be four exciting best-of-five divisional series.   It is definitely a less fulfilling feeling, but on the morning that the second round of playoffs begin, Sat Oct 5, here are some thoughts on the upcoming games. 

 

Although MLB officials are almost brazen in hoping for a Dodger-Yankee World Series, I am happy for the amazing transition of the AL Central, once the doormat of baseball, into three playoff teams.  Two of them, perennial contender Cleveland and upstart Detroit, will meet head on in what could be a Rust Belt classic.

In the other ALDS, Kansas City resumes its playoff rivalry with the Yankees that made for exciting baseball in the late 1970s and 1980.

 

One of the most happy memories in my life as a Yankee hater is watching on television George Brett's 9th inning homer off Goose Gossage in the final game of the Royals' sweep of the Yankees in the 1980 ALCS. Silencing a raucous home crowd has to be a thrill of a lifetime for any competitor. Brett is now 71 and he is very happy that the only team he ever played for and now advises has another shot at the Bronx Bombers.

 

In shortstop Bobby Witt Jr., Kansas City has a budding superstar who plays the game with exceptional talent and evident joy. As I watched Witt on field and in the dugout, I kept thinking of Branch Rickey's description of Willie Mays:  "The secret to his success is the frivolity in his blood stream." 

 

Witt was drafted second in the first round of the 2019 draft behind Orioles switch-hitting catcher Adley Rutschman whose production nearly vanished in the second half of this season. The Royals play solid defense up the middle with Witt, Kyle Isbel in center, and second baseman Michael Massey who made a sensational play in Kansas City's series-clinching win over the Orioles. 

 

Veteran catcher Salvador Perez, the one holdover from their 2015 World Series conquerors of the Mets, has been the leader that every young team needs.

He has an able backup in Felix Fermin but Perez probably can't DH this series because first baseman Vinny Pasquantino has rushed back from a hand

injury and cannot yet play in the field. 

 

All of the Royals I've mentioned are home-grown. Somewhere in the great beyond, Art Stewart, the Royals late scouting director, must be smiling.  I was

so pleased to build a chapter around Stewart in my book about scouts, BASEBALL'S ENDANGERED SPECIES.  

 

The Yankees with their potent duo of Aaron Judge and Juan Soto will obviously be favored.  They might have the starting pitching in Gerrit Cole and 

southpaw Carlos Rodon and either of their home grown Luis Gil or Clarke Schmidt to contain Witt Jr and the rest of a lineup that has not been deep or potent.

They've added veterans Yuli Gurriel and Tommy Pham and they will have to step up.  

 

The Tigers-Guardians series should be equally interesting.  As a sentimentalist, I'd like to see Cleveland win its World Series since 1948.

Switch-hitting third baseman Jose Ramirez has been a tremendously productive regular season player who has yet to shine in playoffs but his re-signing with

Cleveland when a free agent was a big boost to that franchise.  They also feature the most lights-out closer in all the playoffs, Emmanuel Clase.

 

Yet it's hard not to pull for the Tigers who have roared into contention since August. They won two series from the Orioles in this period and I must apologize to  RHP Beau Brieskie, who I dissed as "immortal" in a prior blog when he shot down the Birds in a key moment. Manager A.J. Hinch, who led the tainted 2017 Astros to the World Series title and then accepted a one-year suspension for not stopping the sign-stealing escapade, has deftly led this young and fearless team. 

 

They seem to produce a new hero every game and the likely AL Cy Young award-winner in southpaw Tarik Skubal.  They swept the Astros in Houston with a stirring come-from-behind 8th inning rally.  How the Guardians handle Skubal in game two should be a harbinger of how this series plays out. [Update: The Guardians shut out the Tigers, 7-0, in game one making Skubal's start in Game 2 vital for Detroit before they head home for the middle two games.] 

 

I rarely make public predictions but what is a blog for anyway!  I go for the home field advantage in picking the Tigers, who play the 3rd and 4th games at raucous Comerica Park, in 4.  But I fear that the Yankees might win in 4 at Kansas City. But don't go to any of the betting web sites and blame me.

 

Speaking of come-from-behind rallies, the Mets have cornered the market in the NL.  If not for DH Shohei Ohtani breaking all kinds of offensive records for the Dodgers, shortstop Francisco Lindor should be the hands-down MVP.  He still might win it if we voted on what valuable really means.  To me it is how much a

team relies on not just his statistics but his leadership. And how the team does what you are out of the lineup.

 

I never was a big fan of Lindor's fancy clothes and changing hairstyles.  Production on the field and impact in the clubhouse outside of public view have always been what matters to me.  In these areas Lindor this year has been sensational.  The Mets floundered in mid-September when he missed some games because of a bad back.  When he returned they soared again. 

 

After his huge home run in Atlanta that clinched a spot in the playoffs, he provided a memorable answer to the inevitable question about how he felt after he hit it:  "My back is aching and I am tired."  

 

The drama continued for the Mets when first baseman Pete Alonso hit another dramatic 9th inning HR to eliminate the scrappy young Milwaukee Brewers. 

Now the Mets go into the lair of their arch-rival Phillies who have dominant starting pitching.  Can they slay another dragon?  Going only by intuition,

I say yes in 5 games. Again don't go to the betting site.

 

In the final division series, we have another arch-rivalry with the San Diego Padres going into Dodger Stadium. The Friars just lost a key starting pitcher Joe

Musgrove who will need Tommy John surgery and that is a big blow.  The Dodgters are not deep in starting pitching but they have a formidable lineup

starting with Ohtani and then Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman.  And a lot of grinders in newcomer Tommy Edman, Kike Hernandez, Max Muncy, even slumping Chris Taylor if he is on the roster. If closer Michael Kopech continues his resurgence, Dodgers look very tough to me.  Could be a sweep but I hope not. 

 

 

In closing, I want to remember Pete Rose who died on Sep 30 at age 83 at his home in Las Vegas. He had just spent a weekend with some of his Big Red Machine teammates in Cincinnati.  He was in failing health with high blood pressure and hardening of the arteries.

 

I never really talked with Rose. I did have him sign one of the many books written for him as a gift for my nephew then a teenager. He did not make

eye contact with me but shifted his eyes constantly as if on the lookout for creditors. I have no doubt he loved baseball to the marrow and like maybe most retired players could never adjust to life after the game. 

 

I don't want the public to ignore another death that occurred on the same day, basketball great Dikembe Mutombo of brain cancer in Atlanta at the age of 58.

Many times an NBA All-Star and member of the All-Defensive team, Mutombo went on to become a genuine philanthropist and humanitarian.  He helped build hospitals in his native Republic of the Congo and he possessed an engaging personality. His wagging index finger at both rivals and in TV commercials will

always elicit a smile. 

 

That's all for now. Always remember:  Take it easy but take it and Stay Positive Test Negative.