Lee Lowenfish

All the major MLB awards have been given out and I have no real problem with the award-winners.  I am a little concerned that there are repeat winners in three big categories - Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani as MVPs, the Guardians' Stephen Vogt and the Brewers' Pat Murphy as Managers of the Year, and the Tigers' Tarik Skubal and the Pirates' Paul Skenes as Cy Young winners.  The result suggests that there are no new teams and pitchers breaking into the limelight. 

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I certainly hope that Skubal stays with the Tigers at least through the end of 2026 when he will be a free agent.  His owner Mike Ilitch Jr., heir to the Caesar's pizza chain and according to a google bio "the producer of Christian movies," is not very visionary in his stewardship so there have been no hints of an extension being offered to Skubal and his omnipresent agent Scott Boras. 

Skenes is a different case in that he won't be a free agent until after the 2029 season and already rumors are floating that he wants to be a Yankee which he has denied. 

He is a remarkable athlete.  Was both a pitcher and a catcher in HS and attended the Air Force Academy to start fulfilling his dream of being a pilot serving his country. 

He was so good at the AFA that his coaches begged him to transfer to a top division I school to hone his talents against better competition.  All he did was to lead the LSU Tigers to the 2023 College World Series title.  Pittsburgh had no choice but to draft him number one in the country and he has not disappointed Sadly, the Pirates' lack of offense and very few winning players have left the loyal fans and Skenes himself frustrated. 

Skenes is a quick study in all he does. Recently he became one of the first players to sign baseball cards for the Japanese market in a rare language that combines Japanese and Chinese characters. Predictions for the price of those cards on the eBay market stretch into several hundred thousand dollars.  Skenes' girl friend Olivia "Livvy" Dunne, the star gymast he met at LSU, is also no stranger to creating big ticket marketing opportunities.  Late in the now-settled "House vs. NCAA" federal trial trying to establish a fair price for  the services of college athletes, Dunne was vociferous in charging that her economic worth had been grossly undervalued while at LSU. 

I predict that there is one happier note ahead. The World Baseball Classic - which stretches from early March until a week before the opening of the MLB regular season in late March - will be another feel-good story.  Almost every player wants to participate.  Skenes, who reportedly would like to start an Air Force career after his baseball work is done, was honored to be selected to the American team.  There were NINE nationalities represented in the just-concluded thrilling World Series and some of those players are also likely to be on WBC rosters.  

The WBC is reportedly the one enterprise in MLB that the owners and the players share equally in its production. But I also predict a more troubling occurrence once the MLB season starts:  the rise of a barrage of stories about a likely lockout of the players by the owners after the current Basic Agreement ends at the end of December 2026.  I don't think the lockout will work - rich teams like the Dodgers, Yankees, Red Sox, Phillies, Mets, Blue Jays - want the revenue from TV and the box office plus the glory of carrying a trophy around. (Although it pales aesthetically compared to hockey's Stanley Cup.) It promises to be a particularly ugly negotiation. Commissioner Rob Manfred has been openly telling players that the MLBPA has served only their richest brethren.  Recent stories have also been broken in major outlets like espn.com and The Athletic about misapproporiation of funds by MLBPA director Tony Clark. 

Baseball has a long history of owner-player struggles that I described in three editions of THE IMPERFECT DIAMOND, 1980, 1991, and 2011.  I made reference in the first edition of the late Mort Sahl's comment about Richard Nixon's memoir SIX CRISES - it should have come out in a looseleaf edition so you could add the crises.  Baseball has tried lockouts many times and they have not been successful. It is possible that saner heads may prevail sometime in 2026 before the deadline.

Here's some ideas: 

**Adjustment to the one-year qualifying offer for a player not yet a free agent is one area for reform.  Attached to a draft pick the signing team must surrender, the price tag of over $20 million seems quite high. Can it be reduced somewhat without players' claiming foul? 

**Establishing a salary floor that the non-big spending teams must obey is another area for possible reform.  Even reducing the number of years for free agency eligibility to 4 or 5 years seems like a workable idea from afar, but reason has never been a strong suit in baseball labor history.

One thing I will say in defense of the Phillies Bryce Harper who had a well-reported run-in with Rob Manfred when he visited the team during the season.  Harper noted that when he signed out of a community college in Las Vegas, he received a bonus of over $10 million as the number one pick in the country.  15 years later, that pick's bonus has not been any higher and for some players considerably lower.  Of course, no one is going to shed tears for the players in this battle.  It does show what monopoly rule by the owners can achieve as their franchise values soar and soar. 

 For now let's relax, prepare to enjoy the blessedly non-religious holiday of Thanksgiving, and become aware of some TCM highlights ahead.

Su Nov 16 12:15A & 10A - Noir Alley:  "High and Low" (1963) a classic Kurosawa film about a prominent father who has to cope with a serious legal charge against his son 

8P Jeff Bridges and John Goodman in the classic "The Big Lebowski" (1988)

Followed at 1015P Jeff and his brother Beau (sons of Lloyd Bridges)/Michelle Pfieffer in "The Fabulous Baker Boys" (1989) a believable take on struggling jazz musicians

M Nov 17 6P "M" (1931) the original German film about the hunt for a child killer played by Peter Lorre, directed by Fritz Lang

W Nov 19 from 6A-8P Films written by Billy Wilder, born in Vienna who as a teenager traveled to Berlin to write stories about the touring Paul Whiteman band and the great doomed trumpeter Bix Beiderbecke.   

6A "People on Sunday" (1930) Robert Siodmak follows young Berliners one Sunday cavorting in a park in what will turn out to be the last 3 years of the Weimar Republic. Siodmak in America in the 1940s will make some great Noirs including "The Suspect" with Charles Laughton, "Christmas Holiday" with Gene Kelly as a real bad guy snd Deanna Durbin, "The Killers" that made Burt Lancaster a star, and in a lighter vein George Sanders being overly protected by his sister the stunning Geraldine Fitzgerald (on a LIFE cover in the summer of 1945), "The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry".

9A "Ninotchka" (1939) Wilder works with Ernst Lubitsch on a hilarious and rather profound story set in Paris about the romance of an American, Melvyn Douglas, with a ultra-serious Russian commissar Greta Garbo - "Garbo laughs" went the promotional trailer and she does.  Sadly, she made very few films if any after this one.

130P "Irma La Douce" (1963) with Shirley MacLaine also set in Paris but the times in the 1960s were changing and Wilder doesn't really ride well with them

4P "Witness for the Prosecution" (1957) maybe Wilder's best last film - with Charles Laughton, Elsa Lanchester, Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich - ads at the time forbade fans to give away the ending, I won't either! 

6P "One, Two, Three" (1961) with James Cagney - A Coca-Cola executive travels to Berlin to prevent his boss's daughter from marrying an East German Communist. with Arlene Francis, yes that Arlene Francis of "What's My Line?" fame. 

Th Nov 20 Neo-Nors including

8P "Point Blank" with Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson

10P "The Late Show" (1977) with Art Carney, Lily Tomlin

Sat Nov 22. Nathan Lane introduces a classic noir and classic neo-noir:

8P "Double Indemnity" (1944). Edward G. Robinson under control without much screen time investigates Fred MacMurray/Barbara Stanwyck

10P "Chinatown" (1974) Polanski slices Jack Nicholson's nose, literally, but you keep watching. With Faye Dunaway.

1230A repeated Sun at 10 Noir Alley presents "The Strip" (1949) with Mickey Rooney as a struggling jazz drummer and Louis Armstrong playing and singing "A Kiss To

Build a Dream on". 

That's all for now - always remember:  Stay Positive Test Negative, and Take It Easy But Take It! 

In my last post, dear readers, I was skeptical that the World Series could match Toronto's thrilling come-from-behind ALCS win over Seattle.  Boy, was I wrong!  The deep and plucky Blue Jays have once again shown their mettle.  After losing that 18-inning classic in Game 3 on old reliable Freddie Freeman's solo HR, they soundly beat on LAD's home turf the defending champions in Games 4 and 5. They now need just one win at home at the raucous Rogers Centre to become World Champs for the first time since their 1992-23 back-to-back titles. 

For the first time all post-season, I am rooting for Toronto to finish the job without a Game 7 when "anything can happen," to quote the old baseball cliche. What the Blue Jays have proven all season and now in October is that they know how to come back from deficits and hold on to leads. Hall of Famers Earl Weaver and Yogi Berra loved to talk about "deep depth" as the key to a winning team. Well, these Blue Jays are replete with efficient "next man up" players.

Game 5 provided a perfect example. When George Springer, leadoff man extraordinaire and igniter of the Toronto offense, was sidelined with an oblique injury incurred on a swing during the Game 3 marathon, others have stepped up. Like Davis Schneider in Game 5, who smacked big ticket LAD acquistion Blake Snell's first pitch for a home run.  Two pitches later, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. did the same thing and Toronto never gave up the lead in its 6-1 win. 22-year-old RHP Trey Yesavage, still listed as a rookie because he only arrived in MLB in September, was masterful, pitching 7 innings of 1-run ball with 0 walks and 12 strikeouts.  

When the Dodgers briefly cut the deficit to 2-1 on Enrique "Kike" Hernandez's 3rd inning solo homer, the Blue Jays immediately answered. Dodger right fielder Teoscar Hernandez (no relation to Kike and who will not make people forget Aaron Judge as a fielder) misplayed Daulton Varsho's single into a triple. Then third baseman Ernie Clement, one of the many unheralded players on Toronto, quickly drove in Varsho with a sacrifice fly to restore the 2-run lead.  (Varsho is named for the late Phillie catcher Darren Daulton who played with Daulton's father Gary Varsho on the 1993 Phillies that lost the World Series to Toronto.)   

Ernie Clement is a grinding player I liked when he played for Cleveland. I didn't realize he had actually been DFAed twice by the Guardians (designated for assingment) and once by another organization before finding a home in Toronto.  He's from Rochester NY - not far away across Lake Ontario - where he played high school hockey as well as baseball.  Intelligent scouts love to sign players who participate in other sports, especially ones where they may not be stars.  It can provide a sign on what kind of a teammate the baseball prospect may be in a situation where other athletes are better. 

Another of my favorites on the likable Toronto team is starter Chris Bassitt, the former Oakland Athletic and New York Met RHP who has pitched flawless baseball as a bullpen set-up man.  Bassitt is a thinking man's pitcher who doesn't light up the radar gun with triple digits but if the moment is right, the Toledo O native who pitched for Akron University will slip in a 72-mph pitch to confound a batter.    Bassitt is a free agent after the season and there are rumors that the Orioles are interested as well they should be. There could be a good competition for the hurler who will be 37 next season. 

Toronto shortstop Bo Bichette will be another, higher-priced free agent available 5 days after the World Series when free agency officially begins. I happened to be watching TV in early September when Bichette hurt his knee awkwardly sliding into home plate and thrown out on a great throw from Yankee right fielder Cody Bellinger.  A diminished but still dangerous Bichette certainly deepens the Toronto lineup. With a healthier former Met Andres Gimenez now entrenched at short, Bichette is playing second when he is in the field. He is likely to get huge ovations this weekend in what could well be his swan song as a Blue Jay.  BTW Bellinger is also going to be a free agent and should be highly coveted. 

But enough of the business side of baseball.  There will be plenty of time to discuss that in the months ahead. I for one believe that the owners may try to lock out the players after next season's World Series, but I also believe that the strategy won't work becaause nothing will stop the rich owners from spending.  The big problem remains that their weak partners don't want to spend on players and just covet the rising franchise values, the slice of revenue sharing from richer owners, gambling money, the supposed coming bonanza on TV streaming rights, and expansion money in the billions if two more franchises are added to make 32 teams, perhaps by the end of the decade. 

There will be plenty of time to discuss this and I will try to shed light on this dreary and annoyingly repetitive subject which has been going on since professional free agency started a half-century ago. See the third and last edition of my first book THE IMPERFECT DIAMOPND: A HISTORY OF BASEBALL'S LABOR WARS.  For now I prefer to savor the coming end of an exciting October.  If the Dodgers score just a few runs for 6th game starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto, they could well force Game 7. They still have Shohei Ohtaini to lead off and Mookie Betts to hopefully find his missing batting stroke. But I do think former Oriole number one draft pick Kevin Gausman will compete well against Yamamoto.  We'll find out soon enough.

Not much to report on TCM tips for early November but I do want to mention that Sun Nov 2 will be TCM's salute to the late Robert Redford.  So Noir Alley only appears at 12M not 10A.  It's a rarely shown British crime caper "The Great Jewel Robber" (1950). 

The Redford films start at 9A "Barefoot in the Park" (1967) with Jane Fonda; 11A "Downhill Racer" (1967) with Gene Hackman; 1P "The Candidate" (1972 with Peter Boyle and Melvyn Douglas; preceded at 1245P with "How to Vote" (1936) a hilarious and approprioate Robert Benchley short with Election Day coming on Nov 4; 3P "All The President's Men" (1976) with RR as Bob Woodward and Dustin Hoffman as Carl Bernstein; 530P "The Sting" (1973) with Paul Newman and Robert Shaw; 8P "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" (1969) withl Newman; and 10P "The Way We Were" (1973) with Barbra Streisand. 

I once shook Robert Redford's hand at a Jackie Robinson Foundation dinner.  It was early this century at a time when Redford was being considered to play Branch Rickey in the movie "42," a role that Harrison Ford ultimately won and inhabited brilliantly..  Speaking of Robinson here is a note on an event of interest in New York City.

Th Nov 6 at 6P A forum on Jackie Robinson's Military Role and Legacy. Co-sponsored by the New York Statre Department of Veteran Services. It will be held at main offices of Jackie Robinson Foundationl, 75 Varick Street just off Canal Street and near #1 train.   Further information at jackierobinsonfoundation.org  

One last TCM film note:  Fri Nov 7 6P "Smart Girls Don't Talk" (1948) a crime picture with Bruce Bennett that came out in the same year he had a crucial if small role in "Treasure of the Sierra Madre". I argue that Bennett might have been the best American athlete ever to make a successful transition to a film career.  He played lineman for a Washington Huskies football team that lost the 1926 Rose Bowl to Georgia led by future western star Johnny Mack Brown.  Bennett became silver medalist in the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics but failed to make the 1932 LA Olympics because of an injury suffered acting in a forgettable Hollywood film about football. He was in several Tarzan films drawing the praise of creator Edgar Rice Burroughs. He turned to serious acting in the later 1930s and among his notable roles were Mildred Pierce's first husband in the movie of the same name. He lived for over 100 years, remained married to the same woman, and in this age of NIL, get this: He said the only money he ever received for his sports ability was when an Olympic backer loaned him his car and filled it with gas so Bruce could attempt to make the 1932 American Olympic team.

That's all for now.  Stay Positive, Test Negative, and Take It Easy But Take It!