Lee Lowenfish

The news during the weekend of December 20 that Rickey Henderson had died just a few days shy of his 66th birthday on Christmas Day hit the baseball

world very hard.  It was another hard blow after the recent loss of near-Hall of Famers Luis Tiant and Fernando Valenzuela and estimable Rocky Colavito and earlier in 2024 the departures of Hall of Fame immortals Willie Mays and Orlando Cepeda. 

 

I never engaged in a one-on-one with Rickey, but when he was with the Mets in 2000 and I was a WNYC sports commentator, I saw him in the clubhouse taking issue with a NY Post reporter who had questioned his hustle on the field. Rickey didn't stoop to the physical threatening of Bobby Bonilla or the bleach-spraying of Bret Saberhagen (both onetime Mets), but he said firmly that nobody should ever question his playing hard or his love of the game. 

 

I have always thought that Rickey's time in New York got off on a wrong note in 1985 when he was on the disabled list for the first weeks of season and he reportedly said to an inquiring reporter, "I ain't got no time for no press." Meanwhile, across town in Queens, another newcomer, Gary Carter, blasted an extra-inning Opening Day walkoff HR against the St. Louis Cardinals, and the next year he was one of the leaders on the 1986 World Champs.  Rickey's NYY teams were always good but never made the then-shorter playoffs and he was traded back to Oakland in mid-1989.    

 

Of course Rickey's statistics were worthy of first ballot Hall of Fame election in 2009. Not only the all-time base stealer but 3,055 career hits, .401 on base percentage and .820 OPS on-base + slugging average. But the outpouring of sympathy comes from the unique character of the man. Check out Rickey's Hall of Fame induction speech in 2009. It is a classic in which he began by noting that if Satchel Paige could start in the majors at age 45, he would play as long as his body held out. His last major league season was 2003, making it 25 in all (not counting his 2004-2005 in independent ball.) 

 

Rickey went on to praise his mother Bobbie who had insisted he give up football although he wanted to play for his adopted home town Oakland Raiders.  "I guess mom knows best," he said, smiling and nodding to her, his wife, and his daughters.  He thanked his Babe Ruth League coach for bribing him with donuts and hot chocolate to get him out of bed and to the ballpark. And his HS guidance counselor for giving him a quarter for every hit, stolen base, and run scored he made in a local game.

 

He thanked Jack "JJ" Guinn, the scout who signed him for the Oakland A's and ignored the nay-sayers who thought a position player couldn't succeed throwing left and batting right. He praised his first minor league manager Tom Trebelhorn, a future Milwaukee Brewers skipper, for teaching him how to slide and take leads from first base. Remembering the day in July 1979 when A's owner Charlie Finley phoned and told him to report to the majors, Rickey chuckled, "Charlie, wherever you at and that donkey, thank you for the opportunity." 

 

RIP Rickey Nelson Henley Henderson - maybe his entertaining originality was preordained when he was born in a family Oldsmobile in Chicago as his mother was being rushed to the hospital and Ricky Nelson music was on the car radio. 

 

HERE'S A COUPLE OF TOUCHING MOMENTS FROM THE END OF THE BASEBALL SEASON: 

**At the end of the Yankees-Royals divisional baseball series, Yankees DH Giancarlo Stanton put a consoling arm around a tearful Bobby Witt Jr. after the Bronx Bombers had eliminated KC. Giancarlo must have been telling the rising superstar shortstop that there will be other chances for him to be on the winning side. 

 

**Isaiah Kiner-Falefa, Pirates (and former Rangers-Yankees) shortstop turned down a $250,000 bonus for playing in a certain number of games so that Pittsburgh rookies just called up from the minors could see some major league action. In this age of blatant greed on all sides, Falefa's gesture deserves a tip of the cap.  Last I looked, Isaiah, who will turn 30 in March, was still a free agent - he is the kind of grinder that every winning team needs.

 

My first post of the New Year will speculate more deeply on off-season maneuvers by MLB teams. I must say now that I don't know what the Cleveland Guardians are doing in trading superior middle infielder Andres Gimenez to the Blue Jays and slugging first baseman Josh Naylor to the Diamondbacks without a seemingly adequate return.  Gimenez's bat has slipped but his defense is world class.  The reverse is true about the burly but productive Naylor who is still only 27.

 

But I must take the time now to list the Sydney Greenstreet films celebrating his 145th birthday that will be on TCM Fri Dec 27 from 845A until 8P.  The day is sentimental for me because it is my half-birthday and also the birthday of my late sister Carol Ann Lowenfish Norton who would have been 86 on Dec 27.  She always knew the game was in my blood although after attending an Orioles game with me in Baltimore, she looked around at the crowd and wrote in a suburban newspaper that the national pastime was not baseball but eating.  

 

845A "That Way With Women" (1947) with Dane Clark and Martha Vickers, Lauren Bacall's precocious little sister in "The Big Sleep" from the year before.

 

*1015A "The Maltese Falcon" (1941) the first Greenstreet-Peter Lorre collaboration.  Starring Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor. John Huston's first directorial hit and watch for his father Walter Huston making a cameo as the man that brings the falcon to Bogart's office.

 

12N "Background to Danger" (1943) set in Turkey directed by Raoul Walsh with Brenda Marshall and George Raft

 

130P "Conflict" (1945) with Bogart and the underappreciated Alexis Smith years before she became a Broadway musical star

 

3P "Mask of Dimitrios" (1944) with Zachary Scott (just before he treats Joan Crawford and Ann Blyth badly in "Mildred Pierce") and Faye Emerson (several years before she hosts with then-husband bandleader Skitch Henderson "Faye and Skitch", a NYC talk show in the early days of TV  

 

*445P "Three Strangers" (1946) with Geraldine Fitzgerald. Ireland's temporary gift to America (she played a memorable bitchy character in Siodmak's "Strange Affair of Uncle Harry" that I saw last week at the director Robert Siodmak Retrospective) and Peter Lorre.  A wish for the new year is made by three strangers.

 

630P "The Verdict" (1946) based on an Israel Zangwill story about a prosecutor who sentences an innocent man to death. With Lorre & Joan Lorring.

 

Sun Dec 29 has quite a lineup, too, starting at 12:15A with Noir Alley's "Postman Never Rings Twice" (1946) James Cain's classic story directed by

Tay Garnett with John Garfield and Lana Turner as the illicit lovers/Cecil Kellaway as the victimized husband/Leon Ames as the prosecutor. Repeated at 10A

 

12N "Ball of Fire" (1942) the original one directed by Howard Hawks with tough gal Barbara Stanwyck loosening up the linguistic professors including Gary Cooper.  Dana Andrews in a rare comic role as Stanwyck's mob boyfriend.

 

And the day ends back-to-back:

8P "Mildred Pierce" (1945) followed I hope by Carol Burnett bringing along her spoof of the movie

 

1030P "Double Indemnity" (1944) with Fred MacMurray/Stanwyck as the illicit lovers and Edward G Robinson sadly figuring it out - the Noir that started it all although I'd vote for Alan Ladd/Veronica Lake in "This Gun For Hire" (1942) with Robert Preston years before his Harold Hill days in "Music Man". One senses the hand of screenwriter W.R. Burnett all over this movie

 

That's all for now.  Here are the mantras, please follow them in these turbulent years of history that I hope won't engulf us all.  But understanding and appreciating the history of baseball, movies, and music will certainly help if only for consolation. 

So all together now:  Stay positive, test negative, and a new one:  stay healthy and stay sane.

 

And as always, take it easy but take it.   Happy New Year!!

 

 

 

 

I’m not the first person to note that in America 2018 the line between real headlines and satirical “Onion” headlines is very small. The headline in today’s post actually appeared this past weekend on Sports Illustrated’s si.com website.

Yu Darvish, the talented righthander from Japan who is partly of Iranian descent, has reportedly signed a 6-year $126 million contract with the Cubs. SI considers this amount a “reduced rate” for a pitcher with a history of injury who bombed out not once but twice in the World Series that the Dodgers lost last season to the Astros.

There are reports that three other big-name free agents - outfielder J.D.Martinez, pitcher Jake Arrieta, and first baseman Eric Hosmer all represented by super-agent Scott Boras - are thinking of sitting out some of the regular season - unless they get the years and the dollars they want, especially the years.

Hosmer, the defensively-solid line-drive hitting first sacker, is the youngest of the three at 28. San Diego reportedly wants him very badly, and reigning first baseman Will Myers is willing to move to left field to accommodate him. But Hosmer reportedly wants eight years instead of seven and a total amount of more than $160 million.

Boras, an avowed admirer of Marvin Miller (ignoring that Miller loathed agents that stressed the individual over the union), thinks there will always be an owner who will break down and want that "moose on the wall" and pay anything for it. He might yet be right.

How much is too much remains a good question. It is clear that the MLB Players Association has been outwitted by management in the five-year collective bargaining pact that still has three more years to run.

But it is just silly and petulant for some agents and players to threaten to boycott spring training. Maybe the eloquent but inexperienced Tony Clark needs more legal help at the MLBPA offices. But bad deals happen all the time in business and you live with it, fellas. Even at the "reduced rate" of tens of millions.

The key to building consistent contending teams remains a good organization that is constantly replenishing the system with high ceiling talent under control for at least a few years. A lot easier said, I know, than done.

BEFORE I LEAVE TODAY HERE’S A REPORT FROM THE THEATER:
Michael A. Jones’s play “The Black Babe Ruth” about Negro league legendary slugger Josh Gibson (played by Dave Roberts) is well worth a trip to the Theater for the New City in east Greenwich Village - 1st Avenue between 9th and 10th Streets.

Gibson's relationship with Satchel Paige (Daniel Danielson) is well conveyed. Kudos to the guitar and vocal work of Perci Prince that provides the glue connecting the scenes.

You have eight more chances to see this well-acted and crafted play through Sun Feb 25. Th-Sa at 8p, Su at 3p.

I was thrilled to be part of a panel after the Sun Feb 11 matinee that discussed the Negro leagues and baseball integration. With fellow SABR members Ralph Carhart and Phil Ross and playwright Jones, we covered a wide range of topics about baseball in segregated times.

I was glad to give homage to the pre-Jackie Robinson pioneers, among them Moses Fleetwood Walker, who briefly broke the color line in 1887, and Rube Foster organizer of first Negro league after World War I. Thanks to good work by moderator Janelle Lester, the producer of "The Black Babe Ruth," we got great contributions from the audience.

On the big topic of why there are fewer AfAms playing baseball today, the consensus was football and basketball, esp. the rise of Michael Jordan, has eclipsed baseball among the young people. Actress Daphne Danielle lamented that in her home state of Alabama there are many well-maintained baseball fields that are barely used.

I cross fingers that the increasing awareness of football’s physical dangers might provide an inroad for baseball. But it needs the kind of leadership that baseball scout John Tumminia has shown with his "Baseball Miracles" project bringing clinics to the underprivileged at home and overseas.

Check out baseballmiracles.org More on that remarkable development next time.

That’s all for now. Always remember: Take it easy but take it!
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