Lee Lowenfish

I'm posting a little before midnight on Sunday Oct. 17.  The Braves just went 2-0 up on the Dodgers in the NLCS with another dramatic walk-off bottom of the 9th win. 

 

Former Minnesota Twin Eddie Rosario started the tying rally in the 8th with some daring base-running encouraged by third base coach Ron Washington.  And then Rosario stroked the single past Dodgers shortstop Corey Seager that won the game in the 9th.

 

The Braves lost 2-0 and 3-1 leads to the Dodgers in last year's NLCS so this series is not over.  Yet there is nothing like the exhilaration of a comeback win for player and fan alike.  

 

Once the Yankees were convincingly eliminated by the Red Sox in the AL Wild Card game,

I had no team to viscerally root against. But the Dodgers with their huge payroll can be an easy target. 

 

I will say this - until these last two games in Atlanta, they were behaving admirably like a defending champion.  They chased the surprising Giants all season, losing their quest for their ninth straight NL West title on the last day of the regular season.

 

After winning the Wild Card game over the Cardinals, LAD ultimately caught SF in the final game of the best-of-five NL Division Series on Th night Oct 14.

 

For eight innings it was an extremely well-played taut game. Scoreless until the top of the 6th, LA drew first blood with a double down the left field line by free-agent-to-be Seager. It scored Mookie Betts, the former Red Sox star, who went four-for-four and demonstrated that he is probably healthy again. 

 

I had hoped that the Dodgers might get too cute by starting an "opener" in Corey Knebel, the former Brewers reliever and University of Texas Longhorn.  But Knebel and successor Brustar Graterol put up one zero each.  

 

Julio Urias, baseball's only 20-game winner in 2021, entered in the 3rd. Urias, the young Mexican who arrived in the majors at the age of 19, was virtually flawless until Giants journeyman outfielder Darin Ruf led off the bottom of 6th and homered deep to center field to tie the game.  

 

Answering runs is SO important in baseball and this was an immediate response. I love stories like Ruf's, a onetime Phillie who played in Korea for three years and returned in 2020 and this year has become a key member of this year's Giants' many platoons.

 

Not known as a good defensive player at either first base or outfield, Ruf also made two fine plays to keep singles from becoming doubles. He epitomized the kind of under-the-radar players that made the 2021 Giants so appealing.

 

Young Giants starter Logan Webb threw seven solid innings giving up only the one run. 

He hails from Rocklin, California near Sacramento, only 100 miles from SF's ballpark. Honored earlier in the week at the elementary school in his home town, he didn't let his new-found fame affect his concentration on the mound. 

 

As many people feared (including yours truly), the Giants bullpen was not as effective as the Dodgers' group. The Giants dodged a jam in top of 8th, but Camilo Doval, the Giants newly-anointed young closer, hit Justin Turner to start the top of the 9th.

 

After a single by rookie Gavin Lux moved Turner to second, the former NL MVP Cody Bellinger drove in Turner with a solid single to right-center with what proved to be the NLDS-winning RBI.

 

In my last blog, I said that Bellinger might make up for his injury-plagued poor regular season by filling the void left by injured Max Muncy.  His reawakening may be happening.

 

The Dodgers won the game, 2-1, when Max Scherzer got his first career save despite an error by third baseman Justin Turner that gave the Giants hope with one out.  But there would be no more amazing show of Giants' resilience.  

 

After a routine second out, the Giants' season ended when versatile journeyman Wilmer Flores was called out on strikes by first base ump Gabe Morales.  Replay confirmed what most of us watching at home already knew - Flores did not swing.  

 

Yet I find it highly unlikely that the Giants could have rallied against Scherzer.  He wasn't sharp pitching on two days rest, but his arsenal of pitches kept the Giant hitters off balance.  

 

Scherzer is a free agent after the World Series, and he and his agent Scott Boras are lobbying for another big contract for the 37-year-old winner of 3 Cy Young pitching awards with perhaps a 4th in 2021.  

 

I don't care what salary Scherzer will make, but I don't like players' economic demands rubbed in my face.   The Astros' Justin Verlander, out all year recovering from Tommy John surgery, tweeted the other day that Houston should give shortstop Carlos Correa anything he wants during his upcoming free agency.  

 

Verlander will be on the market himself after the Series with his full recovery uncertain but his competitiveness undoubtedly remaining very high.   But please don't rub all your salary and guaranteed year demands in my face. 

 

Given the long history of animosity between players and owners - see my three editions of THE IMPERFECT DIAMOND and works by many others - I'm not betting against a lockout after Dec. 1 when the current Basic Agreement has expired.  But not now for these tiresome discussions.

  

Turning to the ALCS, the series could well turn on the unavailability of Houston's ace Lance McCullers Jr.  Framber Valdez and Luis Garcia, the Astros starters used in the first two games, did not pitch well. 

 

Though Houston won Game One on timely home runs by their productive double play partners, Jose Altuve and Carlos Correa, the Red Sox rebounded in Game 2 with grand slams by J.D. Martinez and Rafael Devers in the first and second innings. Such a feat had never happened before in a post-season game.

 

I'd like to see manager Dusty Baker win his first World Series ring.  He has done an

excellent job of uniting his team after the sign-stealing scandal during the 2017 World Series, revealed two years later, cost general manager Jeff Luhnow his job and forced manager A.J. Hinch and bench coach Alex Cora to serve 2020 suspensions.

 

Yet the 2021 Red Sox are a likable team. Cora is back managing them (and Hinch led the Tigers to near-respectability this season).  Cora knows how to manage - he led the Red Sox to their 2018 World Series win over the Dodgers.

 

He understands how to encourage levity in the stressful world of major league baseball.

I've been getting a kick out of seeing a Bosox home run hitter get a ride on a laundry cart in the dugout.

 

The idea evidently was hatched last season when the Red Sox finished last in the shortened 60-game season, even behind the Orioles.  Coach Jason Varitek, and former Bosox star catcher, thought it might lighten the mood.  Now in a season of success, it continues to

be an amusing ritual.

 

It is hard to exaggerate the importance of genuine team-bonding activities.  The

Blue Jays, who just missed making October baseball, made a production of giving a glossy jacket with logos of the players' native countries to every home run hitter.  

  

Sometimes hijinks behind the scenes even help losing teams. The Orioles credited backup catcher Austin Wynn's buying of some sage on line for the end of their 19-game losing streak.  With the help of teammate Trey Mancini, the lighting of the incense in the clubhouse helped to lift the pall of defeat. 

 

The Dodgers will have to win four out of five now to return to the Series.  They could do that, but the Braves are pitching better than people expected, especially the bullpen.

 

The Red Sox have the next three games at Fenway so they have an edge on Houston even though the series is just tied at 1-1.  Maybe the off-day will cool off former Dodger Enrique "Kike" Hernandez who has been blasting homers and key hits at a record-breaking pace.

 

Houston must hope for that but the laundry cart rides will be ready for amazing Kike. He is starting to do to the Astros when he did to the eliminated 100-win Tampa Bay Rays. 

 

Whatever else happens in the next two weeks, I sure hope we continue to see stirring baseball. Because never forget - "the only reason to play baseball is to keep winter away."

 

Before I close, here are some sports and other movie tips from TCM for the rest of October, listed chronologically.  

 

Wed Oct 20  5:15A "This Sporting Life" (1963) - searing British drama about lower-class

rugby player with Richard Harris, Rachel Roberts, dir. Lindsay Anderson, writer David Storey

 

Th Oct 21 Rodgers and Hammerstein Day starting with "State Fair" (1945) at 1245a and resuming in prime time from 8p through Friday 1145a. 

 

Fri Oct 22 3p "Two Smart People" (1946) Jules Dassin directs Lucille Ball/Lloyd Nolan/John

Hodiak - "conniving people involved in art forgery," Leonard Maltin has described it. 

He doesn't rate it highly but Dassin was a fine director who left USA during blacklist.

 

Su Oct 24 10a Noir Alley presents North American debut of "The Beast Must Die" (1952)

   South American noir - (also on at 2a for the real night owls)

 

2p "Pat & Mike" (1952) Tracy & Hepburn in ladies golf scene with cameo by

Babe Didrikson and small key role for ex-first baseman future "Rifleman" Chuck Connors

 

345p "Sorry Wrong Number" (1948) really scary and well-done with Stanwyck 

 

530p Hitchcock's "North By Northwest" (1959) with Cary Grant/Eva Marie Saint

 

W Oct 27 930a "The Hard Way" (1942) Ida Lupino tries to protect younger sister Joan Leslie

 

4p "Shine On Harvest Moon" (1944) musical about Nora Bayes and Jack Norworth who wrote words to "Take Me Out To Ballgame".  Ann Sheridan/Dennis Morgan/Jack Carson are a good cast in undoubtedly a frothy film.

 

Th Oct 28 6:15a  "Woman of the Year" 6:15a (1942) the first Tracy-Hepburn collaboration with Tracy as sportswriter and Hepburn as influential world-traveling journalist/activist

 

Fri Oct 29  8a "Easy Living" (1949) Victor Mature (not Tyrone Power) as the football player with heart condition - some LA Rams play themselves incl. Kenny Washington

Dir. Jacques Tourneur - again, though, don't blame me for the ending.

(Audrey Young, wife of Billy Wilder, sings the title song by Leo Robin/Ralph Rainger.) 

 

12M "Invasion of Body Snatchers" (1978) 12M - the remake with Donald Sutherland/Brooke Adams directed by Philip Kaufman a few years before he directed "The Right Stuff"

 

Sat Oct 30 8p "Frankenstein" (1931) the original

930p "Young Frankenstein" (1974) Mel Brooks' take on it

 

Su Oct 31  12M & 10a "Cat People" 1942 - Jacques Tourneur directs Tom Conway (George Sanders' brother) and Simone Simon and Jane Randolph - this week's Noir Alley

 

330p "Pit and Pendulum" 1961 - Roger Corman directs Vincent Price

 

8p "Psycho" (1960) - not one of my favorite Hitchcock's esp. the preachy ending and

Janet Leigh's work was so much more varied than this, but still a classic film.

 

That's all for now - keeping remembering to Stay Positive, Test Negative, and

take it easy but take it! 

 

 

I saw my first minor league game of the season this past Wednesday July 21, 2021 - the visiting Altoona Curve, affiliated with the Pittsburgh Pirates, against the Somerset Patriots, the new Double-A Yankee franchise.  

 
The lovely ballpark, currently called TD Ameritrade Park, is walking distance from the Bridgewater Township stop of the NJTransit Raritan Valley line. The independent league team of the same name started playing at the stadium late last century. 

Brian Hanlon's impressive sculpture of the late former owner Steven B. Kalafer and former Yankee reliever Sparky Lyle offers a fine meeting place near the main gate.  Lyle was the first Somerset manager and is still a regular presence at the games. 

 
The top four in the Altoona lineup had a productive night, starting with Korean leadoff batter Ji-Hiwan Bae, second-place hitter Canaan Smith-Njigba, shortstop Rodolfo Castro (back in Double-A after filling in well with the parent Pirates), and cleanup hitter Mason Martin all contributed to a 9-6 Altoona win. 

 

Martin blasted his league-leading 18th homer in the first inning.  But the Patriots quickly answered with a Brandon Lockridge two-run homer. The teams swapped runs in the second inning before the Curve took charge with a 6-run fifth inning on the way to their win.

 

Both Altoona and Somerset are in the top echelon of what used to be called the Eastern League but now is called Double-A Northeast, another annoying example of the soulless rein of commissioner Rob Manfred.

 

Starting just a few days ago, Double-A has become the first minor league classification to ban the defensive shift.  It's far too early to judge how the experiment will work, but it was aesthetically pleasing to see two players on each side of second base before the ball was thrown. 

 
On the following night, Thursday July 22, it was time for this couch potato to treat himself to baseball on the tube.  I was rewarded with three wonderful examples of comeback baseball. 

 
First it was the Red Sox rallying with two out in the bottom of the 9th in the first game of a four-game series with the Yankees. The ever-clutch former Dodger Kike Hernandez delivered the big blow, a two-run double. 

 
After the Yankees scored the "ghost runner" on a sacrifice fly in top of 10th, four wild pitches from emergency closer Brooks Kriske in bottom of 10th led quickly to a tie game. A sacrifice fly by former Tampa Ray right fielder Hunter Renfroe won it for the Fenway faithful.  

 

The second drama unfolded in Cleveland earlier in the evening. Tampa Bay tied the game with 2 runs in the top of 9th and then won it in the 10th on a hit by another Mr. Clutch, the former Pirate Austin Meadows.  

 

It is no accident that Boston and Tampa are neck-in-neck for the AL East lead.  They lead all of baseball in come-from-behind wins. 

 

Austin Meadows is becoming a particularly feared hitter.  In Tampa's home day game on Wednesday July 21, Meadows delivered a two-run two-strike single to walk off the Woerioles who came ever so close to winning a series against Tampa Bay for the first time since last decade.

 
If the game had mattered in the standings - the Orioles are bound to the basement for this season and I fear the foreseeable future - it would have been a particularly excruciating loss. 

 
Holding a precarious one-run lead with men on first and second and one out, rookie first baseman Ryan Mountcastle raced away from the plate down the first base line tracking a popup that lingered underneath the blurry ceiling at indoor Tropicana Park.  

 
He didn't realize until too late that second baseman Pat Valaika was chasing the same ball.  They collided and the ball fell for a single to load the bases with one out. You can't give a good team like Tampa an extra out.

 
Going for his first career save, Oriole gifted but erratic southpaw Tanner Scott struck out the next batter but gave up the winning two-run single to Meadows on an 0-2 pitch.  

Repeat after me:  CLOSE ONLY COUNTS IN HORSESHOES AND GRENADES.

 
The third comeback win, one that lasted into the wee hours of July 23, was the most dramatic of all.  For the second night in a row, the Giants prevented Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen from securing a save. 

 
Admittedly a blown call on a checked swing by first base umpire Ed Hickox played a big role. Giants substitute first baseman Darin Ruf, back from Korea after undistinguished years with Phillies, was the lucky beneficiary. The call tied the game - if Hickox had correctly called a swing, the Dodgers would have won.  

 
Dodger manager Dave Roberts was incensed and raced out of the dugout yelling at Hickox who promptly threw him out of the game. It was the second straight game the usually mild-mannered if not downright phlegmatic Roberts was thrown out. One hard and fast rule in baseball is that managers cannot dispute ball-and-strike calls. 

 

Before Roberts left the premises, he allowed the struggling Jansen to stay in the game. I guess he felt the very inexperienced well-traveled-in-short-career Phil Bickford was not a good alternative.  And he had already used Blake Treinen in the 8th inning.  

 

LaMonte Wade Jr, a productive Giants rookie, promptly blasted a two-run single to right, just in front of the newest Dodger, Billy McKinney, the journeyman originally signed by Yankees who shone earlier in the year for the Mets. 

 
McKinney kept the game alive with a two-out double in bottom of 9th. But former Rays closer Jake McGee, without any help from Me or Bobby McGee or the ghost of Janis Joplin, got a strikeout of former Oakland Athletic Sheldon Neuse (pronounced Noisy) to end the game.

 
In another example of how many so-called "little things" very often determine a game's outcome, it was Neuse playing second base who didn't stretch far enough to catch a throw from shortstop Chris Taylor on a grounder from former Yankee Thairo Estrada that enabled another Giants newcomer Jason Vosler hustling from first base to beat the throw. 

 
Cheers to Vosler from West Nyack, NY and Northeastern U in Boston who made his debut early this season and is part of the depth to replace the injured Evan Longoria at third base. He grinded out a walk against Jansen that set up in the dramatic denouement. 

 

I am waiting - not breathlessly I admit - for the moment when managers allow a pitcher who has excelled with ease in the 8th to be allowed to start the 9th. I know the ninth is different mentally, but it is still baseball.  

 

Like Roberts going from Treinen to Jansen, Yankee manager Aaron Boore lifted Luis Cessa who retired the Bosox on five pitches in bottom of 8th and turned to Chad Green in the 9th and it didn't work out.  

 

The Giants now lead the Dodgers by 3 games, 4 in the loss column, with another 3 coming up in San Francisco at end of month. The Padres are 7 games back.  At this juncture, it's hard to envision anyone catching these three for playoff spots, the NL West title plus the two wild card positions.  

 
But remember that the only word you need to understand baseball, as stated beautifully by the late pitcher Joaquin Andujar, is:  YOUNEVERKNOW, YOUNEVERKNOW! 

 

Interesting series coming up weekend of July 23-25 between AL Central-NL Central leaders who have comfortable leads, Milwaukee Brewers and Chicago White Sox. Meanwhile in tight NL East, Braves visit Mets for Monday July 26 doubleheader and three more games. Braves still can't clear .500 despite having a 15-run better run-differential than Mets, meaning they have outscored their opponents better than the Mets have done.  

 

Red Sox-Rays are neck-in-neck in AL East with Yankees hanging on perilously to hope prior to July 30 trading deadline. Toronto is returning at end of July to its home field for first time since 2019 - it might provide a boost if they get the pitching.  

 

Houston has solid lead on Athletics in AL West but with Mike Trout coming back soon and Ohtani always a presence, Angels not totally out of it either. Nor Mariners. 

 
NOTABLE PASSINGS: 

Condolences to the friends and family of Sparky Lyle's fellow Yankee reliever Dick Tidrow who passed away last week at the age of 74.  Originally signed by Cleveland (the Indians, starting 2022 the Guardians), Tidrow won World Series rings with the 1977 and 1978 Yankees. 

 

He was a great mentor to Ron Guidry. Later as a longtime member of the SF Giant front office, Tidrow's pitching evaluations were a key asset to the World Series champs of 2010-2012-2014.  

 

As far as the newly-named Guardians, it could have been worse, it could have been better.  There are ornate statues of Guardians on a bridge leading into the city that makes the choice somewhat understandable.

 
Before I close, the world of opera has suffered a series of losses, announced in just the last few days. 

Lighting designer Gil Wechsler, 79, of Alzheimers. He went from Brooklyn's Midwood HS to great fame in his chosen field, nicknamed "the prince of darkness" for his memorable sets at the Met (NY Times obit 7-23).

 

And director Graham Vick, 67, of covid (NY Times obit 7-19).  Vick was director of England's Birmingham Opera and a passionate believer that opera should be accessible to everyone not just the wealthy, entitled upper classes.    

 
That's all for now - always remember:  Take it easy but take it.  And, just as important:  

STAY POSITIVE, TEST NEGATIVE!