Lee Lowenfish

A sloppy but often dramatic World Series came to a quiet close late on Wed night Oct 30 when oft-injured starting RHP Walker Buehler came out of the Dodger bullpen to earn a 1-2-3 save in a come-from-behind 7-6 victory that enabled LAD to win their seventh World Series championship since they abandoned Brooklyn 67 years ago - a mere two years after Brooklyn won its only WS in 1955. 

 

Game 1 this year, won on Freddie Freeman's historic walkoff grand slam, and the concluding Game 5 will go down as classics in World Series history. 

 

Yankee defense had been erratic all year.  It bit them fatally in the top of the 5th inning of Game 5 when two errors of commission and one unrecorded error of omission set the stage for the sudden evaporation of the Yanks' early 5-0 lead. It had been built on 3 HRs - the first by slumping Aaron Judge - and one sweet manufactured run not often seen in the Bronx this year - a double, 4-3 groundout getting runner to third, and SF. 

  

Yankee ace Gerrit Cole had a no-hitter going into the top of the 5th when the perennial pest Enrique "Kike" Hernandez smashed a solid single. Then Tommy Edman stroked a medium-hard-hit line drive to center field that went off Judge's glove for an error, his first of the season and a very rare one in his career.

 

Perhaps Judge was distracted by Kike running on the pitch despite his team trailing by five runs. Just an inning or two earlier, Judge had made a sensational running catch to rob Series MVP Freddie Freeman of his fifth homer in the Series.  

 

With two on and none out, Kike hustled to third on catcher Will Smith's grounder to shortstop Anthony Volpe. The young veteran short-hopped his throw to inexperienced third baseman Jazz Chisholm who couldn't pick it up for a force play. 

 

With bases loaded, Cole bore down and struck out both second baseman Gavin Lux and DH Shohei Ohtani. The amazingly talented Japanese star most likely will need shoulder surgery after his ill-advised poor slide into second base on an unnecessary stolen base attempt earlier in the Series. 

 

Up stepped Mookie Betts who had endured his own batting slump after returning from two months on the injured list after a broken hand caused by a HBP. 

He hit a spinning grounder to the right of first baseman Anthony Rizzo who is a shell of himself from injuries and age.  He didn't move quickly towards first base and Cole was late breaking, a cardial sin for any pitcher.  As he almost always does, Betts hustled down the first base line and easily beat Cole to the bag as a run scored.

 

You don't give a plucky and talented team like the Dodgers three extra outs.  Though he got ahead in the count, Cole gave up a two-run single to Freeman and then a two-run double to Teoscar Hernandez that tied the score. 

 

The Yankees did regain the lead in the bottom of the 6th on two walks, a HBP, and a sacrifice fly by catcher Austin Wells. But in the climactic top of the 8th, two singles, the first by who else? Kike Hernandez; a catcher's interference call against Wells; and two sacrifice flies, the last by Mookie Betts, produced the winning margin. 

 

It's a somewhat interesting factoid that the last out of the 2024 season was made when Buehler struck out Alex Verdugo, the last player in the majors from the trade that brought Betts to LA from Boston.  Most Boston fans that I know still have a warm place in their hearts for Betts who emerged in the Boston system as a second baseman, switched ro right field, and then started this season as the Dodger shortstop before his injury.

 

When he talks to the press, Mookie exudes modesty and even vulnerability.  He credited a chat with Freeman that relaxed him before his game-winning RBI.

Aaron Judge seems like another stand-up fellow when talking to the press.  He was quite honest - perhaps too honest - about how his post-season failures were beginning to gnaw at him. He also took the blame for his rare error that opened the floodgates. 

 

You may be wondering what the great W.R.Burnett has to do with all of this.  Well, growing up in the Midwest in the first decades of the twentieth century, he evidently became a baseball fan.  Resettling in LA in 1929 for the rest of his life after his novel LITTLE CAESAR became a sensation and adapted for the screen, the enormously prolific Burnett only wrote one book on baseball, THE ROAR OF THE CROWD: CONVERSATIONS WITH AN EX-BIG LEAGUER (NY, Clarkson Potter, 1964).

 

Burnett never was a baseball player - he did briefly play freshman football at Ohio State where his grandfather had been the mayor of Columbus and his father had worked closely with Governor James Cox, who lost the 1920 Presidential election to Warren Harding. 

 

But W. R. (William Riley) understood how hard a game baseball was to play.  Check out this passage from ROAR OF THE GAME on slumps that could give Mookie and Judge and any struggling hitter some solace:  "[There is] just no explanation for a slump and no ready remedy."  Except, he insisted, to battle through it with the optimistic spirit which is 75% of baseball:  "There is only one attitude to take in the batter's box - the pitcher is a bum, and you're going to murder him" (pp. 93-94)

 

You get a chance to see one of Burnett's stories on Noir Alley this Sunday Nov 3 at 1230A and 10A - "Nobody Lives Forever" (1946) starring John Garfield with

Geraldine Fitzgerald and Faye Emerson as the women in this handsome gangster's life that he tries to balance with predictably disastrous results.  The absorbing novel of the same name was republished earlier this year by Stark House Noir Classics in Eureka, California. 

 

Except for "Million Dollar Mermaid" (1952) with Esther Williams playing champion swimmner Annette Kellerman on W aft Nov 6 215P EDT, there are no movies with sports content to list. But here are some of the other memorable ones coming up shortly.

 

F Nov 1 8P "Being There" (1979) Peter Sellers as gardener who runs for President.  With Shirley MacLaine and Melvyn Douglas

 

Sa Nov 2 8P "A Face In The Crowd" (1957) Andy Griffith's powerhouse performance as guitar-slinging Lonesome Rhodes with Patricia Neal/Walter Matthau/Lee Remick in her debut

  followed at 10P by Billy Wilder's acerbic "Ace In The Hole" (1951) with Kirk Douglas as cynical reporter ready to milk a tragedy for all its worth

 

Su Nov 3p after the repeat performance of "Nobody Lives Forever" get this lineup:

12N  a classic Hitchcock: "North by Northwest" (1957) Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason

230P Bette Davis in "Payment on Demand" (1951)

415P Joan Crawford in "The Damned Don't Cry" (1950)

6P a classic Orson Welles: "Touch of Evil" (1958) with Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh

and then for something shall we say slightly mellower, 2 with Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo:

8P "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" (1947) also with Boris Karloff

10P "A Song Is Born" (1948) also with Benny Goodman and his musicians - (revival of the better "Ball of Fire" (1941) with Gary Cooper/Barbara Stanwyck)

 

M Nov 4 two classic John Cassavetes/Gena Rowlands films

8P "Woman Under The Influence" (1974)

10P "Gloria" (1980)

 

A belated congrats to the NY Liberty who won their first WNBA title with a thrilling, nay heart-stopping, overtime victory over the Minnesota Lynx. Kudos to Liberty coach Australian-born Sandy Brondello and also to outstanding Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve who led the USA National Team to its stirring gold medal win over France in the Paris 2024 Olympics (corrections from an early edition of this blog). 

 

That's all for now.  Regardless of how the election turns out, I'll be back on this post before too long.  In the meantime, always remember:

Stay positive, test negative; Take it easy but take it; and make sure to turn your clocks back by 2AM on Sun Nov 3. 

 

 

 

 

 

Going to baseball day games at Yankee Stadium is not exactly becoming a habit, but on the Fourth of July I journeyed via swift air-conditioned NYC

Transit Authority buses to see the Yankees lose for the second time in three Thursdays. (I took my June 27 birthday off to enjoy a fine meal at Amor

Cubano, a fine restaurant in Spanish Harlem.) 

 

What I had never seen before was that after the first pitch of the July 4th game, a routine 6-3 grounder to short, Cincinnati manager David Bell protested that Yankee shortstop Anthony Volpe had started the play on the first base side of second base (a no-no since the infield shift was banned a few years ago). The protest was turned down and the Reds lost their right to challenge calls for the rest of the game. 

 

As it turned out. they didn't need it as they led all the way in an 8-4 victory and a 3-game sweep of the slumping Yankess who for the time being are in second place behind my Orioles - lots of baseball to play, I remind myself.

 

I saw another rare occurrence later in the game.  With a 5-2 lead in the bottom of the 5th, Manager Bell brought the infield in with a Yankee on

third base and one out.  "The baseball book" - which the late Earl Weaver scorned and most of today's analytics people do, too - says you don't bring the infield in with a lead so early in the game. It can lead to a big inning if infielders are moved much closer to home plate.

 

Maybe if you have on your side sensational shortstop (and promising switch-hitter) Elly de la Cruz, you can tempt fate. Because he threw out a Yankee runner at home plate on a hot grounder and the Reds never were threatened again. 

 

Cincinnati is one of those teams that though under .500 still has playoff aspirations in the 12-team tournament coming up in October. They have a positive run-differential (meaning they have scored more runs than they have given up.) Pitching and defense will tell the story and they are youthful and athletic. 

 

If you haven't noticed, the Astros, Cardinals, and Red Sox already have soared over .500 after bad starts.  It will make the trading deadline of July 30 very interesting (and nerve-wracking for fans and unsettling for players who will have to change employers and residences with little say in the matter).

 

Here's a word of caution on that deadline. It will be a big media story throughout July, but rarely does a trade make a huge difference in the outcome of a pennant race.  I still believe knowing your own farm system and rewarding those who can help the parent club is the best way to build a winner.

Let's call it IBP - Improvement By Promotion, OK? 

 

Yet like everything in baseball, there are no guarantees.  The Orioles thought that Jackson Holliday could make the jump to MLB as a 20-year-old,

but they had to send him back to the minors.  He's doing OK but not sensationally. He is learning a new position, second base, because it seems that Gunnar Henderson will monopolize shortstop for the foreseeable future.

 

Fortunately, the tandem of veteran Jorge Mateo and rising young star Jordan Westburg has handled second base very well for the Orioles with another veteran Ramon Urias now and then filling in. It is hard for even the Prince of Paranoia to criticize the decisions of GM Mike Elias (so far). 

 

He surprised a lot of people by bringing back both Mateo and Urias in 2024 and they have both contributed, especially speedy and savvy Mateo who alas will never be a consistent hitter but he can turn a game around with his legs.  I am also enjoying whal it seems will be the last Oriole season of Anthony Santander, who like Mateo was signed as a teenager - Anthony out of Venezuela by Cleveland and Mateo out of the Dominican Republic by the Yankees.   

 

I love it when players persevere to become key contributors. And I recently read that Anthony and Jorge, who incidentally the Padres also gave up on, have become chess-playing buddies in the clubhouse!  

 

Baltimore obviously needs a more consistent relief corps and another reliable starter, but so do most contenders. Meanwhile, Oriole rookie southpaw Cade Povich - a native of Omaha, Nebraska and not related to Shirley or Maury Povich - has been a godsend.  I repeat again - it is so easy to root for someone you've developed from day one after the draft . . . and rescued from the waiver wire and other areas of the baseball scrap heap. 

 

For example, 34-year-old Venezuelan starter Albert Suarez who has stepped up to become a fairly reliable member of the rotation after several years playing in Korea and Japan.  I love that manager Brandon Hyde is challenging his starters  to work deep into games because - this is not original but it is so accurate - THE BEST BULLPEN IS A STARTER THAT GOES 7 INNINGS.   

 

This will probably be my last post until after I return from teaching my almost-annual class in Baseball and American Culture at the Chautauqua Institution in the southwestern corner of New York State near Jamestown NY which is now the home with the National Comedy Center.

 

My theme this year is "Baseball Fandom" and I've been delving into a bevy of different sources.  New Oriole owner David Rubenstein is certainly

making his mark as the Delirious Fan Owner - DFO another acronym I've just coined. 

 

Rubenstein has splashed with Dr. Splash in the outfield bleachers at Camden Yards - Splash is a fanatic fan bringing back memories of Wild Bill Hagy in Section 34 of Memorial Stadium, the last time Orioles had a genuine contender over 40 years ago.  Rubenstein has also danced on the dugout with the Bird mascot during the 7th Inning Stretch.  (I just hope in the off-season he will ante up the shekels for both Santander and staff ace Corbin Burnes, but the Prince of Paranoia will wait until after the season to deal with that anxiety.) 

 

In addition to discussing in my class the writings of Rogers Angell and Kahn, Wilfred Sheed, and sharing the lyrical excerpts from Richard Greenberg's play "Take Me Out", I want to show the wild taxicab ride that Harold Lloyd takes Babe Ruth to Yankee Stadium in the 1928 classic "Speedy". 

(For more info on my class, running July 15-19 from 330-5P in the heart of the campus in 201B Hultquist - google Chautauqua Institution Special Studies Week 4 Classes.) 

 

And now we've come full circle because here's the info about the bus ride I took to the Stadium:  M4 or M5 bus to Broadway/157th St.  Cross street to west side and walk a curved half-block to Morgan Place stop of Bx6.  It takes you past the old Polo Grounds site, across the bridge over the Harlem River into the Bronx and the famous address of River Ave and E 161 Street.  Bus runs about every 12-15 minutes and is nicely air-conditioned too.

 

Here are some TCM Tips for much of the rest of July:

M Jul 8 230P - "Sapphire" (1959) rarely shown.  Basil Dearden directs a searing murder mystery about a British woman who had been "passing" as white.  

M July 8  8P "Scarface" (1932) Howard Hawks directs Paul Muni/Ann Dvorak in a pioneering gangster movie - too mannered for me but classic.

M July 8  1030P "The Roaring Twenties" (1939) Raoul Walsh directs Jimmy Cagney, Bogart in supporting role, classic last line by Gladys George

         

And now the sports-related films:

F July 12 1015P  "Slap Shot" (1977)  George Roy Hill - "Butch Cassidy", "The Sting"  - directs Paul Newman as minor league hockey coach

 

Sa July 13 8P  "Elmer the Great" (1933) Mervyn Leroy directs Joe E Brown in Brown's favorite baseball movie - opening scene draws you in.

Sa July 13 8p "Eight Men Out" (1988)  John Sayles directs an earnest, well-acted though not very accurate Black Sox Scandal movie

 

Su July 14 two classic noirs back to back:

 8P "The Killers" (1946) based on Hemingway story - Robert Siodmak directs young Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner among others 

10P "Criss Cross" (1949) R. Siodmak directs Lancaster and Yvonne DeCarlo among others

 

Th July 18 8P  "36 Hours" (1964)  George Seaton directs James Garner as WW 2 POW with amnesia who Germans are brainwashing

1015P "Grand Prix" (1966) John Frankenheimer auto racing movie with James Garner and Eva Marie Saint who plays brainwasher in "36 Hrs"                    

Su July 21 8P "Chariots of Fire" (1981) deserved Oscar-winning film about British Olympic runners of early 20th century

1015P "Jim Thorpe-All American" (1951) Michael Curtiz directs Burt Lancaster in one of his better roles

 

M July 22 945P "Boys Town" (1938)  Spencer Tracy as Father Flanagan saving Mickey Rooney from delinquency

 

Tu July 23 8P "Slippery When Wet" (1958)  documentary on surfers in Oahu

 

Th July 25 8P "The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming" (1966)  Norman Jewison directs a hilarious satire from a more irreverent time

    of our history with Carl Reiner, Alan Arkin, and Eva Marie Saint (TCM's Star of Month, Thursday in July)

 

That's all for now.  And here's a different closing line.  THE ELECTION OUTCOME IS NOT FOREORDAINED.  MAKE SURE YOU ARE REGISTERED

TO VOTE AND DON'T LET MASS MEDIA LEAD YOU TO TOTAL NEGATIVISM AND COMPLETE CYNICISM.