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. 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm glad that there will be a full season of MLB ahead of us although as an Oriole fan I'm not looking forward to another season of losing.  

 

I just hope that the possible salary arbitration hearings of Trey Mancini and John Means (not Cedric Mullins as I mispoke in earlier edition) don't lead to bitter feelings and the departure from Baltimore of two of our more likable players.

 

Talented but inconsistent reliever Tanner Scott also is up for arbitration and if they trade him, i wouldn't mind.  The Mets don't have a left-handed reliever as of the morning of March 15.  I'd be glad to trade him for let's see - Jeff McNeil. LOL

 

**Mancini is a survivor of colon cancer who plays with super intensity. Probably beats up on himself more than he should, but he truly cares which is more than I can say for a lot of

players and certainly owners.  

 

**Mullins is not eligible for arbitration until after 2022.  He had a breakout offensive year in 2021 and has always been a top-notch center fielder.  We also recently learned that before last season he had surgery to alleviate the worst symptoms of the intestinal disorder known as Crohn's disease. 

 

**Southpaw John Means, the only somewhat proven starter on the Birds staff, is eligible for arbitration.  Hard to see how they could let him go but in an age where starters rarely go more than five innings, some genius in the front office might pitch an idea that we don't need starters at all.

 

Makers of the T-shirt JOHN MEANS WELL would be disappointed. So would I and my ideal T-shirt MEANS FINDS WAYS.  He did throw a no-hitter last May though the rest of his season was marred by injury and mediocrity. 

 

In the new Basic Agreement, the Rule 5 draft of bargain basement players discarded by other teams - the specialty of the house with the current Oriole front office crew - has been canceled for at least 2022. So maybe the Orioles won't be tempted to trade these good contributors and good citizens.

 

I've heard only good things about our rookie switch-hitting catcher Adley Rutschman so I certainly wish him well. But we still have no reliable infield defense (or offense) up the middle, a giant hole at third base, and no reliable starting pitching.

 

Just heard the news that Cincinnati traded two of its best offensive players, outfielder Jesse Winker and third baseman Eugenio Suarez, to Seattle for mediocre major leaguers and

the ever-popular "prospects".  

 

Very sad to see that before the pitch is thrown in the delayed but full 2022 season, Baltimore, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh have no chnce of competing. Oakland is starting a fire sale by trading Matt Olson to Atlanta for "prospects", although the players Billy Beane got seem to have more upside than those the Reds received.  

 

I've always said that every season produces a surprise team and it may happen in 2022 with the rebuilding Royals and Tigers and perhaps the Mariners.  But it is not a good situation for MLB when there is a permanent underclass. The addition of 12 teams to the playoffs will likely mean very little to baseball's have-nots.

 

I remind folks again - there is plenty of affordable minor league, high school, and college baseball to see in the coming months.  In the NYC metro area, Columbia, Rutgers, St. John's, and Seton Hall always have competitive programs.

 

The new Staten Island Ferry Hawks open their home schedule on Tu May 3, and the Yankees' Double A farm club Somerset Patriots and the Mets' High-Single A Brooklyn Cyclones farm club both open on Tu Apr 12 for a slate of six games through Easter Sunday Apr 17. 

 

Turning to basketball and the upcoming "March Madness",  Columbia's women basketball will start its first-ever post-season play with a home matchup in the WNIT (Women's NIT) against Holy Cross at 7p on Wed Mar 16.

 

The Lions routed Yale last weekend in the semi-final of the Ivy League tournament, but after battling Princeton to a tie in the first quarter of the final, they fell behind by 12 at the half.  They briefly cut the lead to 8 points with about 7 minutes to go, but a Princeton timeout stopped the surge.

 

Wisconsin's Cinderella men's team is in danger of turning into a pumpkin.  They have lost two in a row for the first time all season.  They enter the first round of March Madness on Fri March 18 at 950p EDT on TBS against Colgate in Milwaukee. 

 

It's virtually a home game for Wisconsin, but if newly named Big Ten Player of the Year Johnny Davis has another mediocre game as he did in the Big Ten tournament against Michigan State, this dream season will end abruptly.  

 

Davis is dealing with a chronic ankle injury that may be affecting his play.  It says here that the biggest factor is the pressure of being voted Big Ten Player of the Year and an expected NBA lottery pick is getting to him mentally.  

 

The Badgers were picked for 10th in pre-season polls. They don't have a deep roster so everyone in addition to Davis must step up.

 

The Film Forum on Houston Street in lower Manhattan is one of my favorite movie theaters.

Now open again for customers (fully-masked!), I saw yesterday the documentary about the late radio personality Steve Post.  

 

"Playing In The FM Band" is a definite must-see. The film, produced and directed by former WBAI station manager Rosemarie Reed, will go down as a memorable and indispensable tribute to one of the founders of free form radio in the 1960s. 

 

 

I came to WBAI to host and produce a sports show in November 1982 just after Post left to become a morning host and classical music jockey at the more sedate WNYC.  

 

We learn in the film that Post dealt with colon cancer from the age of 38,  the same age his mother got the disease.  He survived more than 30 years but his mother left this vale of tears when he was only 10.  

 

This calamity - and his father's unusual cooking habits that I'll only tease you with - undoubtedly contributed to Post's acerbic cynicism. The strength of the movie is its focus on his achievement as a pioneer in radio in NYC in the tumultuous age of the 1960s and beyond.

 

I was really impressed with the pacing of the film, which is the challenge in films that rely

on talking heads. I only wish that the credits at the end of the film moved more slowly - they rarely do, one of my pet peeves.  

 

Andy Lanset, director of WNYC archives, has dug up remarkable material, especially Bayard Rustin, the underappreciated civil rights leader, singing movement songs in a haunting high tenor voice.

 

Kudos to the original music of David Amram that augment some great irreverent songs from the 1960s and beyond. And the artists whose animations keep the story flowing with humor.  

 

What else can I say about the film except see it while it lasts at Film Forum through at least

Thursday March 24.  Any film that makes Post's first mentor at station, Larry Josephson, come across as avuncular and benign is a true work of art. 

 

That's all for now. Here's to the extra hour of sunlight that Daylight Saving Time has brought us, and let it brighten our spirits as spring happily looms on the horizon.  May it shine on the beleaguered people of Ukraine facing the awful scourge of Putin's unprovoked invasion. 

 

Always remember:  Take it easy but take it!