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! 

 

 

For those of us who get irritated if not downright incensed by the prevalence of new-fangled statistics in baseball today - launch angles, exit velocities, spin rates - the game itself still nourishes us.  

 

John Means' no-hitter against the Mariners last week is a case in point. Oriole fans like yours truly are looking for any rays of light these days. 

 

Means' 113-pitch gem against the Mariners last Wed afternoon May 5 sure provided it.  It was not a fluke even if the Mariners are not a good offensive team. 

 

Means has been pitching very well since the end of last season.  But he had never gone beyond the seventh inning in his career or thrown more than 101 pitches.  He even said after the game that getting into the eighth inning was a big thrill. 

 

Means makes his first start against the resurgent Mets at CitiField this coming Tues May 11.  I'll be there with an in-person report next time around.

 

Am crossing fingers that Means doesn't think he has to pitch a gem every time out.  So boo to Oriole broadcaster Hall of Famer Jim Palmer, the last Bird to throw a no-hitter back in 1969.

 

Palmer has been talking too much about how Means' life will be changed and he'll know that anytime he's out on the mound he can do it again.

 

Happily, Means seems like a refreshingly grounded young man. Raised in Olathe, Kansas near Kansas City, he was an eleventh-round draft choice out of West Viriginia U. He never expected this kind of success but I think he can handle it with firm humility.

 

Everything he has said publicly indicates he knows baseball is a game by game, batter by batter, and pitch by pitch operation.  Never get caught up in the big picture of the forest or else the trees will crash around you. 

 

Tyler Kepner had a lovely lede in discussing Means' achievement in the Friday May 7 New York Times. "Throwing a no-hitter, one could say, is like lassoing the moon."        

 

The thought stayed with me when watching "The Right Stuff" on TV on Saturday night.

"Punch a hole in the sky!" Barbara Hershey tells Sam Shepard just before he goes out to break the sound barrier.  

 

Hershey was playing the wife of Chuck Yaeger, played by Shepard. The film holds up well - Philip Kaufman's 1983 adaptation of Tom Wolfe's classic book about the first bunch of astronauts. Clips of Bill Dana as Jose Jiminez, the first Hispanic astronaut, are shown from Ed Sullivan's show.  

 

(I remember Dana from the Steve Allen Show. "What are you going to do in outer space all by yourself?"

"I plan to cry a lot.")

 

Tyler Kepner is on a roll.  When Albert Pujols was suddenly released by the Angels last week, he remembered what Pujols told him four years ago:  "You don't retire. The game retires you."

 

He is at least 41 years old and a shadow of his former self. I realize it is very hard for an athlete to admit when it is time to hang up one's spikes. But how many more record-breaking GIDPs does Pujols need to get the message?  

 

I also wish Miguel Cabrera of the lowly Tigers would also decide to retire. He seems likely to fall short of his goal of 3000 hits, being 124 shy after the rainout on May 9.

 

Unfortunately, neither Angels owner Arte Moreno nor Detroit's Ilitch family worked out a deal where each player could have retired gracefully by the end of the year. And feted for their undoubtedly Hall of Fame careers.

 

Meanwhile, the Yankees have righted their ship with improved starting pitching and just enough hitting.  They are two over .500 after games of May 9.  

 

For those wondering how their longtime starter Masahiro Tanaka is doing in Japan, he pitched seven innings in his latest effort even if it was a loss. Tanaka is back pitching for the Rakuten Eagles, his first pro team that he joined as a teenager before he signed with the Yankees in 2014.  

 

The last stats I saw had his record at 2-2 with 3 walks, 20 strikeouts and a 3.00 ERA. Amazingly, he is not yet 34 so he obviously feels he has a lot more left in the tank.  

 

Jun Ogawa, a devoted fan and student of Japanese baseball, reported the news to me about Tanaka's last outing.  You will hear more from Jun in the weeks ahead.  

 

While working in the computer field in LA in the late 20th century, Jun became a devoted fan of the Dodgers. Like most Dodger followers, he is concerned about their current slump.

 

They started 13-2 but astonishingly, the defending world champions have not won back-to-back games since Apr 16-17.  They are barely above .500 as I post.

 

Blake Treinen is currently the only reliable reliver. The loss of young phenom Dustin May to TJ surgery and the extended absence of former MVP Cody Bellinger have not helped. The Dodger individual offensive stats don't look bad but the elixir of winning has certainly been missing.

 

Still a long way to go and no team is running away with anything anywhere in this MLB season. So sit back and enjoy the unpredictable drama of baseball.  So I say YIBBA (Yours In Baseball Before Analytics).  

.  

A follower of YIBBA believes that starting pitchers should want to go deep into games - it doesn't have to be a possible no-hitter for a pitcher to expect to reach the 100-pitch mark.  Why not make 120 the outer edge?  Why not enforce penalties against pitchers and hitters who dawdle before each pitch?

 

What is today doesn't have to be tomorrow. So I say loud and clear, YIBBA, YIBBA, YIBBA!

 

Before I go, what would be this blog without a few TCM reminders:

M May 10 10p Norma Shearer in "Marie Antoinette" 1938

 

W May 12 915a Katherine Hepburn documentary

 

Sa May 15 12N "The Set-Up" great boxing movie with Robert Ryan 1949

  8p "The Big Heat" 1953 Fritz Lang directs Glenn Ford-Gloria Grahame, odd allies fighting gangsters 

 12M The return of Noir Alley with "Touch of Evil" 1953 Orson Welles directs, stars w. Janet Leigh/Charlton Heston

 

Coming Tues May 18 8p "Fatso" 1980  Anne Bancroft directs and stars with Dom DeLuise in dieting spoof

 

Wed May 19 6p "They Live By Night" 1948  Nicholas Ray's gripping tale of young Farley Granger and Cathy O'Donnell on the run from the law

 

8p "Judgment at Nuremberg" 1961  Stanley Kramer's 3-hour drama with Spencer Tracy/Richard Widmark/Marlene Dietrich

 

Th May 20 8:15a  "Fireman's Ball" 1967 one of Milos Forman's last films before he fled Czechosloakia

  930a "Operation Madball" 1957 with Jack Lemmon and Ernie Kovacs

 

Fri May 21 1030p Samuel Fuller's "Crimson Kimono" 1959 with James Shigeta/Victoria Shaw

 

And always remember:  Take it easy but take it!