Lee Lowenfish

Shortly after midnight on Mon Oct 24, YED - Yankee Elimination Day - was celebrated for the thirteenth year in a row as the Houston Astros completed a sweep of the Yankees, winning a back-and-forth game, 6-5, at Yankee Stadium.  

 

The Yankees have not been in the World Series since they beat the Phillies in six games in 2009. It

was manager Joe Girardi's rookie year as skipper. He wore #27 to highlight the 27th world title he was confident would come to the Bronx.  

 

Starting in 2010, he tempted fate by switching to #28 but that title has never come.  

When Aaron Boone replaced Girardi before the 2018 season, he was more modest in his uni choice of #17, but the title drought continues.  

 

The Yankees did win the AL East in 2022 for the first time since 2017, but trust me - there will be no AL East banner raised at Yankee Stadium next year.  It is World Series Title or bust in Yankee land though

Hal Steinbrenner, George's younger son, seems committed to keeping Aaron Boone as manager.

 

If I read tea leaves correctly, though, he is yet to endorse re-hiring of Brian Cashman whose contract as general manager expired with the end of the Yankee season.  Most media people think Cashman will

return since he has been associated with the Steinbrenner family since they ran a horse business in

Florida. 

  

The big decision facing the team is the free agency of Aaron Judge that will happen less than a week after the end of the World Series. I would be surprised if the Yankees let Judge leave as a free agent.  

 

He's a rare home-grown star in the Cashman regime, and he should be an eternal member of the Yankee

pantheon. He is a rarity indeed, someone who draws praise from many YED celebrants, including yours truly. 

 

In one of the interesting twists that make baseball history so intriguing, Joe Girardi, after staying visible by doing the almost-obligatory baseball TV commentary, was hired by the Phillies in 2020. He was dismissed after Philadelphia started 2022 at 22-29.  

 

Rob Thomson, Girardi's longtime assistant with both the Yankees and Phillies, led the team to the playoffs with 65 victories of his own. They swept the Cardinals in two games in the wild card round and dispatched the defending world champion Braves and surprise-conqueror of Dodgers, San Diego Padres, in five games each.

 

Houston is undefeated in 2022 post-season play and is favored, but I think the Phillies will give them a tussle. With timely home runs and unbridled passion, Bryce Harper is seemingly on a mission to prove that he is worth his mega-contract. 

 

Unable to play the field because of an injured arm, he can still serve as the DH and Houston will have to

contain him.  I have never loved the DH, but baseball needs its stars on the field.    

 

If Philadelphia splits the first two games in Houston this weekend, look out for what the raucous Phillie

fans might do to will their local heroes to victory in the middle three games of the Series. Not unlike

what the Mets did to the Orioles in 1969. 

 

But I want Dusty Baker to win his first World Series as a manager - the Astros lost last year to the Braves in six games and in 2002 his Giants fell in seven games to the Angels. Astros ace Justin Verlander has a lot to prove, too, since he is 0-6 in previous Series games. 

 

On the music scene, on the same October 24 that YED was celebrated, I attended David McVicar's

production of Puccini's "Tosca" at the Metropolitan Opera. I have seen the opera many times, but never

has the love story between diva Floria Tosca and artist and freedom fighter Mario Cavaradossi 

been presented more convincingly.

 

Mario was sung beautifully by Montclair NJ  tenor Michael Fabiano, whose first appearance on stage was greeted with a lot of home town applause.  Polish soprano Aleksandra Kurzak in the title role was also in top form.

 

Singing the role of police chief Scarpia, one of opera's most loathsome villains, baritone George Gagnidze from Tbilisi, Georgia was in chillingly good voice.  Carlo Rizzi, from Rome, Italy, led the great Met Opera orchestra with customary aplomb.   

 

There are three more chances to see this production.

Th Oct 27 at 730p

M Oct 31 at 8p with veteran Roberto Alagna singing Mario

F Nov 4 at 730p, again with Alagna.

 

In the spring, a new cast and conductor will again perform "Tosca".

Th Mar 30 at 730p

Su Apr 2 at 3p

Wed Apr 5 at 730p

Sa Apr 8 1p - national radio broadcast

Wed Apr 12 730p

Sa Apr 15 at 8p

 

For more information including availablity of rush tickets, see www.metopera.org

 

That's all for now.  Always remember:  Take it easy but take it, and more than ever,

stay positive, test negative.

I was in the womb on December 7, 1941 so have no above-ground memories of that day in infamy.   But while preparing dinner on December 7, 2020 I learned on the internet that Dick Allen, the great slugger primarily for the Phillies and White Sox, had died at age 78. 

 
What a tough year it has been for losing baseball Hall of Famers.  Tom Seaver, Bob Gibson, Lou Brock, and Joe Morgan within days of each other.  Then significant contributors Jay Johnstone, Lou Johnson, Ron Perranoski gone similarly. And now Dick Allen.

 
Allen's career numbers and accomplishments suggest possible Hall of Fame status: 15 seasons, .292 BA, .534 slugging average, 351 HR, 1119 RBI, 1964 NL Rookie of the Year, 1972 AL MVP, 7 All-Star Games.

 

From 1964-1973 his numbers were up there with future Hall of Famers Hank Aaron, Harmon Killebrew, and Willie McCovey. 

 
But Allen was fated to come into the major leagues in early Sept. 1963 less than three months before the JFK assassination.  Playing in Philadelphia - sometimes called the northern-most southern city in the U. S. -  was no picnic for a sensitive Black man, one of nine children raised in Wampum, Pa. 40 miles north of Pittsburgh.  

 

Dubbed Richie by the Philadelphia press, Dick Allen didn't like the nickname - it reminded him of being a 10-year old, Richard Goldstein noted in his NY Times obit. Allen produced as a Phillie but he followed the beat of his own drummer. 

 
Love of horses was a family tradition.  Dick's father owned working horses, and Dick's brother Hank, a major leaguer for seven seasons, trained them. One of them, Northern Wolf, finished sixth in the 1989 Kentucky Derby, the first Black-trained horse to make the "Run for the Roses" in 78 years.  

 

The end of Dick Allen's time in Philly was precipitated by his missing a 1969 Mets-Phillies doubleheader - he went instead to Monmouth track race in New Jersey. 
By the end of the season, first baseman Allen responded to Philly fan heckling by scribbling with his feet the words "Boo" and "Oct 2", the day the season ended. 

 

He was traded to St. Louis in the Curt Flood deal - Flood of course didn't report and sued baseball instead.  After the 1970 season with Cardinalsi, he was traded to the Dodgers for one season. 

 

Starting in 1972 he played three solid seasons for an understanding manager Chuck Tanner who was from New Castle near Wampum in western Pennsylvania. The White Sox press guide started listing him as Dick Allen.

 
He was traded back to Philly in 1975 and welcomed as a hero by the younger generation.  Future Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt and other teammates lauded him then and again this week.

 

Schmidt called him a first-class guy who wouldn't be treated as "a second-class citizen." In a ceremony this September the Phillies retired Allen's #15.   

 
I never talked to Dick Allen but my most vivid memory as a fan was when he was with the White Sox and he came into Baltimore around 1974.  In those days you could come early for batting practice and I saw him belt some long home runs LEFTHANDED into the shrubbery beyond the right-center field fence at Memorial Stadium.   

 
I did meet his brother Hank Allen when he was scouting for the Astros.  As

gregarious as his brother was shy and wary, Hank has an ingratiating manner

and silver-white hair that reminds me of Buck O'Neil. 

 

In a May 2017 interview with Peter Schmuck of the Baltimore Sun, Hank Allen explained the similarities between horse training and baseball scouting:  "You have to find athletes and you have to find a good mind."

 

Which leads me to my QUOTES OF THE MONTH SO FAR:

 **Actress Candice "Murphy Brown" Bergen in an interview with Maureen Dowd that I saw online and was in the NY Times Sunday Style section on December 6th.  It deals with how to maneuver through celebrity and I think it applies as well to idolized athletes:   

 
"You're semi-glorified but you're also negated. You really have to make an effort to become someone more than what your presentation is."

 
**Retired future Hall of Fame right fielder Ichiro Suzuki will be coaching high school baseball in Japan. Michael Clair on mlb.com last week quoted Ichiro this way:  

"High school baseball is 'baseball'. . . . Major league baseball is a 'contest'. . . .It's mainly how far you can hit a baseball and that is hardly baseball."  

 

Finally, please remember Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) on Dec. 16, his 250th birthday. He once said, "Those who understand my music can know no unhappiness."  Not sure it is true, but his music is certainly consoling in this time of great sickness and uncertainty. 

 

WQXR-FM 105.9 and wqxr.org plan a lot of Beethoven programming beginning on Dec. 12 through Dec. 16.

 
And always remember:  Take it easy but take it.