Lee Lowenfish

Happy International Tango Day, December 11 - get out of your chairs, sedentary dear readers, and move those puppies.  How do I know it is International Tango Day? Because I saw it on the internet so it must be true, right? 

 

Humor must be our constant companion these days and weeks and months ahead.  So let me start with the hilarious Onion headline that popped up the other

day on the internet:  MORE PARENTS SAY ALLOWING CHILD TO PLAY FOOTBALL NOT WORTH RISE OF BEING DRAFTED BY JETS. 

 

New York is going through a truly horrible pro football season with the Jets and Giants simply incapable of playing winning football.  The Giants have an injured and thin roster but the Jets were supposed to be a good team.  Owner Woody Johnson forgot or more likely never understood that relying on aging QB Aaron Rodgers wouldn't lead them to the promised land.  

 

So I don't begrudge the excitement of Mets fans who are celebrating the acquisition of Juan Soto as a free agent with the extraordinary amount of money, a reported $765 million spread out over 15 years. If Soto deems it necessary, he can opt out after 5 years. The blow to the crosstown Yankees no doubt felt like an extra bonus. 

 

But as I was finishing this blog on Tues evening Dec 10, the news came that the Yankees' first return salvo has been signing away from the Atlanta Braves, gifted though somewhat fragile southpaw Max Fried to a eight-year contract for reportedly "only" 27 million a year.  There will likely be more big ticket acquisitions by the Bronx Bombers. 

 

Super-agent Scott Boras and most of the local and national media are applauding the high stakes competition between Mets owner Steve Cohen and Hal Steinbrenner. Smooth-talking Boras even lauds the "goliaths" that we either love or hate so everybody's happy. 

 

I beg to differ. I cannot hail the likelihood of big market domination in MLB. Maybe commissioner Rob Manfred and minions yearn for a Yankee-Dodger or Yankee-Met World Series every year but not me.  I can tolerate a Yankee-Dodger World Series, let's say every 43 years.

 

I am not sure that Blake Snell will become a real ace for the Dodgers, but he is certainly an improvement to their oft-injured starting corps.  At a far lower price versatile middle infielder-outfielder Tommy Edman just re-upped for five years.  It is so hard to project the future of a player, which is why I revere the eyes-and-ears scouting profession. But even I could see in the Cape Cod summer league almost 10 years ago when Edman was still a Stanford collegian that he was a future major leaguer.

 

The common wisdom is that Dodgers are acting within the rules to backload most of their contracts - so, for example, Shohei Ohtani is only being paid $2 million a year to minimize the team's luxury tax penalty.  It is still not good that the smaller markets have little chance to bid for the best players. 

 

I think back to the early 1920s when the Yankees and the Giants squared off in three World Series in a row from 1921 through 1923.  In 1922 Branch Rickey in his fourth full year of running the cash-poor St. Louis Cardinals - multi-tasking in the roles of both field manager and top baseball executive - he had the team in the pennant race until late July.  Then the Yankees picked up third baseman Joe Dugan from the Bosox and the Giants pitcher Hugh McQuillan from the Boston Braves and they went on to win the pennants. 

 

Rickey railed to a St. Louis Rotary Club gathering: "How can those teams without unlimited resources in their deposit boxes have a chance to compete fairly?"

(Source:  my biography BRANCH RICKEY: BASEBALL'S FEROCIOUS GENTLEMAN, P. 135). Newly-installed commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis said that nothing could be done about these acquisitions, but soon thereafter MLB implemented the June 15th deadline - only waiver deals and no trades allowed after that date. A few years after free agency came in after the 1976 season, the deadline was pushed back to late August.  Now it is the end of the July with some of the fat cats wanting the chance to get additions as late as early September.  

  

End of history lesson but more to come in future posts.  On the current Orioles front, I am not sure that Tyler O'Neill is an improvement on homegrown Anthony Santander in right field.  I definitely am a little aghast that they signed defensively challenged Gary Sanchez to be the backup catcher replacing the gritty James McCann who is older but certainly a better receiver.  But I guess the Birds seem to be counting on a revival of Adley Rutschman from his very sub-par second half of the season. 

 

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!   

On the movie front, those film buffs who envy those of us living in the New York area can drool at this news about a Robert Siodmak Festival at the two theaters at Lincoln Center on W 65th Street west of Broadway, W Dec 11 through Th Dec 19.   Siodmak was a German exile from Nazism in the 1930s who became in the 1940s and early 1950s one of the leading if underappreciated directors of Noir Films.   

 

Here is a partial list. Some films are at Bunin Monroe Center 144 W 65th St, others at bigger Walter Reade Theatre across street. 

For info, contact email.ticketing@filmlc.org or 212/875-5825

W Dec 11 630P & Sa Dec 14 230P  "Phantom Lady" (1944) with Franchot Tone/Ella Raines/Elisha Cook Jr./Thomas Gomez

W Dec 11 845P & Sa Dec 14 830P  "Criss Cross" (1949) perhaps his best Noir with Burt Lancaster/Yvonne DeCarlo/Dan Duryea

Th Dec 12 630P & F Dec 13 830P "The Killers" (1946) based on Hemingway story with Burt Lancaster/Ava Gardner

Th Dec 12 845P & F Dec 13 630P "The Suspect" (1944) Set in 1902 England with Charles Laughton as mousy gent pining for Ella Raines

Sa Dec 14 430P & W Dec 18 645P "The Spiral Staircase" (1946) with Dorothy McGuire/Ethel Barrymore/George Brent/Kent Smith

Su Dec 15 230P "People On Sunday" (1930) filmed in Berlin with directors R. Siodmak, Edgar Ulmer, young Billy Wilder

Su Dec 15 430P & W Dec 18 830P  "Son of Dracula" (1943) with Lon Chaney Jr. in New Orleans trying to act like Dad 

Su Dec 15 630P & Th Dec 19 2P "Strange Affair of Uncle Harry" (1946) with George Sanders pining for Ella Raines    

Su Dec 16 1P & Dec 19 630P (not in 4-K restoration) "File on Thelma Jordan" (1950) with Barbara Stanwyck/Wendell Corey

Tu Dec 18 6P & Dec 19 845P "The Cry of The City" (1948) with Victor Mature trying to go straight and Richard Conte going the other way

 

On TCM, Mickey Rooney Thursdays this month has the following films of interest for boxing and car and horse racing fans:

All on Th Dec 12 2P "Killer McCoy" (1946) with Brian Donlevy/Ann Blyth in presumably less malicious role than as Joan Crawford's daughter in "Mildred Pierce" 

6P "The Big Wheel" (1949) with Thomas Mitchell/Mary Hatcher 

8P "National Velvet" (1945) with Elizabeth Taylor/Donald Crisp, directed by Clarence Brown

 

And here's a music documentary note: 

Wed Dec 11 at 8P on Netflix - "The Only Girl In the Orchestra" 33-minute documentary on Orrin O'Brien,

recently-retired outstanding bassist in the NY Philharmonic and the first woman hired by the orchestra. 

 

That's all for now - stay positive, test negative remains my mantra & as always, Take It Easy But Take It! 

I have long believed that you shouldn't make prognostications about a season until Memorial Day at the earliest. But, after all, this season started in Korea before winter was over and already the White Sox, Marlins, and Rockies are not likely to ever glimpse .500 all season. 

  

As an Oriole fan, I like their record, solidly more than 10 games over .500 and perhaps the best is yet to come. But they remain very streaky offensively and the pitching staff remains a work in progress. 

 

Temporarily at least, closer Craig Kimbrel has lost his spot because of inconsistent performances.  He did give a refreshingly original explanation for his wildness and his penchant for giving up big hits: "I lost my lanes," he said, making a comparison to bowling.

 

I know that the Dodgers' Mookie Betts is a great bowler but I have never heard him connect the two sports. In this past weekend's series win over the Diamondbacks, the defending National League champion,  Kimbrel's two appearances in non-closing roles were far better. We'll see if he returns to the pressure-packed closing role soon.

 

During the series against Arizona, Anthony Santander, the switch-hitting right fielder from Venezuela, began to show signs of offensive consistency. He hit a 8th inning tying HR in Sat's extra-inning win and blasted an opposite field double in the Sun loss to Dback ace Zac Gallen. (Slumping 2023 NL rookie of the year Corbin Carroll came to life in that victory stroking the ball all over the field and running wild on the bases - he even beat out a relatively routine grounder to shortstop when in a rare lapse Gunnar Henderson, last year's AL ROY, took too much time throwing to first base.)

 

Santander (pronounced with emphasis on the "der") is a quiet but imposing leader of the Orioles and he is so easy to root for. (I wrote this before I saw his YouTube Mother's Day greeting to his mother which made him even more endearing.)   

 

His emergence as a run producer and underrated outfielder has been a longtime in coming. He was signed as a teenager by Cleveland and after six years in the minors, many of them plagued by injuries, the Orioles under the previous Dan Duquette administration plucked him out of the Rule 5 Draft. He doesn't turn 30 until Oct 19.

 

He will be a free agent after the season and there has been no indication that the current adminstration under Mike Elias and Sig Mejdal want to re-sign him. When the duo was running Houston, they let even more talented Carlos Correa and George Springer walk. 

 

This may be my wistful thinking but perhaps new owner David Rubenstein will see Santander's value to the team and take an active role in keeping him around long-term. Certainly Rubenstein's first moves as an owner have been deservingly well-received.  He has spoken genuinely about his love of the Orioles from his earliest days as a native Baltimorean who remembers the team coming from the moribund shell of the St. Louis Browns before the 1954 season. 

 

He is very versed in media performance from his longtime work as a Bloomberg News talk show host. During the Friday game against Arizona, he even took a turn in the Dr. Splash Zone in the outfield seats, joining fans in watery celebration of big Baltimore hits. 

 

Budding ace Corbin Burnes will also be a free agent after the season but I'm willing to let his and Santander's contracts play out after a deep run into the post-season and ideally through a World Series parade. 

 

As for the AL East race this season with Boston perhaps a surprise third right now, it looks likely that the Yankees are here to stay especially if Gerrit Cole returns to form after his elbow injury. And Juan Soto has certainly made a difference in the Yankee lineup and the team's overall upbeat presence. 

He has to be an early favorite in the MVP race.

    

On the college baseball front, more than a few people have expressed surprise to me about Columbia's excellence in baseball that I highlighted last post. It is no sudden emergence but dates back to 2008, the third season with Brett Boretti at the helm when the Lions won their first of six championships in his reign.

 

The field is set for the double-elimination tourney that begins Fri May 17 at 11A with 2nd seed Princeton taking on 3rd seed Cornell. At 3P top-seeded

Columbia faces defending champion Penn who got in when to no surprise to yours truly, Harvard eliminated Yale last weekend.  (Nothing like an ancient rivalry of the super blue-bloods and misery loving company! Yale had to sweep the 3-game series and the Crimson won the second game, 3-2.)   

 

The winners on Friday play Sat at 3P and the losers fight for survival at 11A.  The Friday winners play at 3P.  On Sunday at 11 the survivor of the early Sat game plays the loser of the 3p game.  The winner of that elimination game plays the undefeated team at 3P. 

 

If the undefeated team loses, there is a winner take all match at noon on Mon Feb 20.   All games are at Satow Stadium Robertson Field just north of the football field NW of Bway/2018 Street.  On Mon May 27 at noon, ESPN will announce the 64 teams going to the tournament that winds up in the College World Series 8-game tournament in Omaha in mid-June.  And what does Omaha stand for? 

Opportunity

Makeup

Attitude

Hustle

Always put the team first! 

 

Meanwhile Columbia tennis has earned its first entry into the Elite Eight of NCAA men's tennis.  The Lions will meet #1 seed Ohio State on Th May 16

at 12N on the campus of Oklahoma State in Stillwater Oklahoma.  Like baseball, Columbia tennis has built a winning culture for years, first under coach Bid Goswami and now under his successor Howard Endelman, a former star Columbia player. 

 

Other matches on Thurs will feature Kentucky v Texas Christian U followed by Tennessee v Texas and finally Virginia, trying for a three-peat v Wake

Forest.  Semifinals will be on May 18 and the final May 19. 

 

Here's TCM Tips on sports movies: 

Th May 16 9A  "The Set-up" (1949) one of the great boxing movies with Robert Ryan as a battered but proud pugilist

 

Sa May 18 930A "Rookie of the Year" (1955) directed by John Ford/with John Wayne, his son Patrick Wayne, Ward Bond, Vera Miles

  originally a Screen Directors Guild half-hour TV show - aging sportswriter finds a story in son of banned ballplayer playing the game

  Script co-written by W. R. Burnett (who wrote among other classics "Little Caesar" and "Asphalt Jungle")

 

Th May 23 4p "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" (1949) with Sinatra/Gene Kelly/Esther Williams as owner of an early 20th century team

 

That's all for now.  Always remember:  Take it easy but take it, and Stay positive, test negative.