Lee Lowenfish

The news during the weekend of December 20 that Rickey Henderson had died just a few days shy of his 66th birthday on Christmas Day hit the baseball

world very hard.  It was another hard blow after the recent loss of near-Hall of Famers Luis Tiant and Fernando Valenzuela and estimable Rocky Colavito and earlier in 2024 the departures of Hall of Fame immortals Willie Mays and Orlando Cepeda. 

 

I never engaged in a one-on-one with Rickey, but when he was with the Mets in 2000 and I was a WNYC sports commentator, I saw him in the clubhouse taking issue with a NY Post reporter who had questioned his hustle on the field. Rickey didn't stoop to the physical threatening of Bobby Bonilla or the bleach-spraying of Bret Saberhagen (both onetime Mets), but he said firmly that nobody should ever question his playing hard or his love of the game. 

 

I have always thought that Rickey's time in New York got off on a wrong note in 1985 when he was on the disabled list for the first weeks of season and he reportedly said to an inquiring reporter, "I ain't got no time for no press." Meanwhile, across town in Queens, another newcomer, Gary Carter, blasted an extra-inning Opening Day walkoff HR against the St. Louis Cardinals, and the next year he was one of the leaders on the 1986 World Champs.  Rickey's NYY teams were always good but never made the then-shorter playoffs and he was traded back to Oakland in mid-1989.    

 

Of course Rickey's statistics were worthy of first ballot Hall of Fame election in 2009. Not only the all-time base stealer but 3,055 career hits, .401 on base percentage and .820 OPS on-base + slugging average. But the outpouring of sympathy comes from the unique character of the man. Check out Rickey's Hall of Fame induction speech in 2009. It is a classic in which he began by noting that if Satchel Paige could start in the majors at age 45, he would play as long as his body held out. His last major league season was 2003, making it 25 in all (not counting his 2004-2005 in independent ball.) 

 

Rickey went on to praise his mother Bobbie who had insisted he give up football although he wanted to play for his adopted home town Oakland Raiders.  "I guess mom knows best," he said, smiling and nodding to her, his wife, and his daughters.  He thanked his Babe Ruth League coach for bribing him with donuts and hot chocolate to get him out of bed and to the ballpark. And his HS guidance counselor for giving him a quarter for every hit, stolen base, and run scored he made in a local game.

 

He thanked Jack "JJ" Guinn, the scout who signed him for the Oakland A's and ignored the nay-sayers who thought a position player couldn't succeed throwing left and batting right. He praised his first minor league manager Tom Trebelhorn, a future Milwaukee Brewers skipper, for teaching him how to slide and take leads from first base. Remembering the day in July 1979 when A's owner Charlie Finley phoned and told him to report to the majors, Rickey chuckled, "Charlie, wherever you at and that donkey, thank you for the opportunity." 

 

RIP Rickey Nelson Henley Henderson - maybe his entertaining originality was preordained when he was born in a family Oldsmobile in Chicago as his mother was being rushed to the hospital and Ricky Nelson music was on the car radio. 

 

HERE'S A COUPLE OF TOUCHING MOMENTS FROM THE END OF THE BASEBALL SEASON: 

**At the end of the Yankees-Royals divisional baseball series, Yankees DH Giancarlo Stanton put a consoling arm around a tearful Bobby Witt Jr. after the Bronx Bombers had eliminated KC. Giancarlo must have been telling the rising superstar shortstop that there will be other chances for him to be on the winning side. 

 

**Isaiah Kiner-Falefa, Pirates (and former Rangers-Yankees) shortstop turned down a $250,000 bonus for playing in a certain number of games so that Pittsburgh rookies just called up from the minors could see some major league action. In this age of blatant greed on all sides, Falefa's gesture deserves a tip of the cap.  Last I looked, Isaiah, who will turn 30 in March, was still a free agent - he is the kind of grinder that every winning team needs.

 

My first post of the New Year will speculate more deeply on off-season maneuvers by MLB teams. I must say now that I don't know what the Cleveland Guardians are doing in trading superior middle infielder Andres Gimenez to the Blue Jays and slugging first baseman Josh Naylor to the Diamondbacks without a seemingly adequate return.  Gimenez's bat has slipped but his defense is world class.  The reverse is true about the burly but productive Naylor who is still only 27.

 

But I must take the time now to list the Sydney Greenstreet films celebrating his 145th birthday that will be on TCM Fri Dec 27 from 845A until 8P.  The day is sentimental for me because it is my half-birthday and also the birthday of my late sister Carol Ann Lowenfish Norton who would have been 86 on Dec 27.  She always knew the game was in my blood although after attending an Orioles game with me in Baltimore, she looked around at the crowd and wrote in a suburban newspaper that the national pastime was not baseball but eating.  

 

845A "That Way With Women" (1947) with Dane Clark and Martha Vickers, Lauren Bacall's precocious little sister in "The Big Sleep" from the year before.

 

*1015A "The Maltese Falcon" (1941) the first Greenstreet-Peter Lorre collaboration.  Starring Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor. John Huston's first directorial hit and watch for his father Walter Huston making a cameo as the man that brings the falcon to Bogart's office.

 

12N "Background to Danger" (1943) set in Turkey directed by Raoul Walsh with Brenda Marshall and George Raft

 

130P "Conflict" (1945) with Bogart and the underappreciated Alexis Smith years before she became a Broadway musical star

 

3P "Mask of Dimitrios" (1944) with Zachary Scott (just before he treats Joan Crawford and Ann Blyth badly in "Mildred Pierce") and Faye Emerson (several years before she hosts with then-husband bandleader Skitch Henderson "Faye and Skitch", a NYC talk show in the early days of TV  

 

*445P "Three Strangers" (1946) with Geraldine Fitzgerald. Ireland's temporary gift to America (she played a memorable bitchy character in Siodmak's "Strange Affair of Uncle Harry" that I saw last week at the director Robert Siodmak Retrospective) and Peter Lorre.  A wish for the new year is made by three strangers.

 

630P "The Verdict" (1946) based on an Israel Zangwill story about a prosecutor who sentences an innocent man to death. With Lorre & Joan Lorring.

 

Sun Dec 29 has quite a lineup, too, starting at 12:15A with Noir Alley's "Postman Never Rings Twice" (1946) James Cain's classic story directed by

Tay Garnett with John Garfield and Lana Turner as the illicit lovers/Cecil Kellaway as the victimized husband/Leon Ames as the prosecutor. Repeated at 10A

 

12N "Ball of Fire" (1942) the original one directed by Howard Hawks with tough gal Barbara Stanwyck loosening up the linguistic professors including Gary Cooper.  Dana Andrews in a rare comic role as Stanwyck's mob boyfriend.

 

And the day ends back-to-back:

8P "Mildred Pierce" (1945) followed I hope by Carol Burnett bringing along her spoof of the movie

 

1030P "Double Indemnity" (1944) with Fred MacMurray/Stanwyck as the illicit lovers and Edward G Robinson sadly figuring it out - the Noir that started it all although I'd vote for Alan Ladd/Veronica Lake in "This Gun For Hire" (1942) with Robert Preston years before his Harold Hill days in "Music Man". One senses the hand of screenwriter W.R. Burnett all over this movie

 

That's all for now.  Here are the mantras, please follow them in these turbulent years of history that I hope won't engulf us all.  But understanding and appreciating the history of baseball, movies, and music will certainly help if only for consolation. 

So all together now:  Stay positive, test negative, and a new one:  stay healthy and stay sane.

 

And as always, take it easy but take it.   Happy New Year!!

 

 

 

 

Playoff-starved Baltimore Oriole fans know there will be post-season games in October for the first time in 9 seasons. Pennant fever is so high in Charm City that I've heard that the city is already getting decorated in Oriole orange and black. 

 

But the race for the AL East division title against Tampa Bay with the coveted first round bye at stake was still undecided as the last week of the regular season began. Yesterday (Sunday Sept 24) the Orioles salvaged a split in a 4-game series with the Guardians with a relatively easy 5-1 victory behind 7 strong innings by veteran starter Kyle Gibson. 

 

Gibson managed to contain former Met second baseman Andres Gimenez at the plate although the brilliant Venezuelan was a marvel in the field the

whole series.  He constantly robbed our hitters in the same spectacular way as our infield - and outfield - defenders have displayed all year.   

 

Even more encouraging for Oriole hopes was southpaw John Means who hurled one-hit 7 & a 1/3 innings on Sat night.  Out because of Tommy John surgery for almost two whole seasons, Means had a no-hitter until the 7th when that man again Gimenez homered for Cleveland's only hit. 

 

The weekend proved yet again the wisdom of the old baseball adage, "The best bullpen is a starter that goes 7 innings." Since Baltimore's breakout

closer Felix "The Mountain" Bautista went down in early August with a partial tear of his UCL (ulnar collateral ligament), the Bird bullpen has become

unsteady.   

 

By the end of the 17 games in 17 days road trip that mercifully ended on Sunday, you could sense the fatigue on the bullpen arms, not to mention the agita of those of us in front of our TV sets.  I don't even want to think about what it might have felt like if a playoff position hadn't already been secured. 

 

As it turned out, a righty-lefty combo of Yennier Cano and Cionel Perez secured the 4-1 Sat victory for Means and two lefties Danny Coulombe and DL Hall locked down the Sunday 5-1 win for Gibson.  Felix The Mountain has been throwing bullpen sessions but I would consider it very doubtful that he can return this season.  He is traveling with the team and though on the IL, you know the presence of the 6' 7 280 pounder who was signed by the Marlins at 16 and is only 28 means a lot to his teammates. 

 

AL and NL wild cards are still be determined this week and it is still wide open with only Tampa Bay definitely in although they will miss two recently injured stars, first baseman Yandy Diaz and second baseman Brandon Lowe.  The schedule has the Red Sox in the spoiler role, playing two at home with Tampa Tu and W and then four on the road in Baltimore. 

 

The Orioles play two at home with Washington before greeting the divisional rival Bosox for the last four at home.  The earliest Baltimore can clinch is Wed with a magic number of 3 (any combination of Balt. wins and TB losses).  

 

Oriole manager Brandon Hyde has been critical of the schedule that put Birds on the road for those 17 games in 17 days.  He hopes for a correction in

the future but how about the Diamondbacks having to make TWO trips to New York in the last weeks of the season. 

 

They didn't too well in the Big City and now find themselves in tie with Cubs for last wild cards with the dangerous Phillies already assured of a place in the tournament. The Reds and Marlins still have chances too, the Giants much less so. 

 

Toronto could be the sleeper team in the AL.  They have been winning series in September and just took a big one at Tampa.  They end season at home against Tampa Bay but first must play the Yankees who are likely to pitch Gerrit Cole on Wed or Thurs.  Stay tuned for some great drama in the AL East.

As well as the AL West where Houston, shockingly swept at home by 102-loss Royals, and Seattle are basically in a Survivor series before Texas

visits Seattle and Houston goes to Arizona to end season. 

 

Let me close with a couple of TCM sporting tips. 

Th Sep 28 8p "A Night At The Opera" (1935) the Marx Brothers classic with a memorable rendition of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame"

 

Su Oct 1 1215A repeated at 10P - "Whiplash" (1948)   A Noir Alley presentation with as seemingly as preposterous a script for even Noir.

But could be a lot of unintended fun.  Dane Clark is a painter turned boxer gets into a triangle with Alexis Smith and Zachary Scott who becomes Clark's manager and names him Mike Angelo. You can't beat the supporting players, Eve Arden and S. K. "Cuddles" Sakall. (Obviously this film has no relation to the "Whiplash" of a few years ago about music that won an Oscar for J. K. Simmons.)

 

Su Oct 1 1015P  "On Moonlight Bay" (1951) - Doris Day as the tomboy who falls in love with next door neighbor Gordon McRae.  In addition to the title tune, we hear "Pack Up Your Troubles In Your Old Kit Bag, and Smile, Smile, Smile".  Those of a certain age will remember this song as I believe the theme song on WOR Radio's morning "Rambling With Gambling" show. 

 

That's all for now.  Take it easy but take it and stay positive, test negative.