Lee Lowenfish

There are light years of difference between watching a game with emotional involvement for one of your teams and merely being interested in a good World Series game.  With my Woerioles under current management sadly headed nowhere (would love to be proven wrong), I adopted the gritty unheralded Blue Jays in the just-concluded Fall Classic.  By Games 6 and 7, I was really hoping Toronto would win over the Evil Empire West or less pejoratively, the Deferral Dodgers whose management has shrewdly backloaded many contracts to avoid paying luxury taxes to their less-financially-endowed and less-interested-in-winning partners.   

 

I watched Game 7 in a local Upper West Side bar, the Dive 106 on Amsterdam Ave.  It was a lively evening but not too raucous because the local Mets and Yankees were long gone from the playoffs - the Mets never even made them. It says here that having Juan Soto as a third MVP candidate doesn't seem right. My lasting memory of Soto this year was watching him take strike three called to end the penultimate game of the season in Miami and then arguing the call with the ump.  The Mets were still alive in the pennant race and NO WAY an MVP ends a crucial game with the bat on his shoulder.. 

 

There was an intense Dodger fan at the tavern wearing a blue Dodger T-shirt with the names on the front of Clayton Kershaw-Jackie Robinson-Sandy Koufax-and a 4th I can't remember. He told me that earlier in the season when the Dodgers came to New York to play both the Mets and Yankees, he met manager Dave Roberts at a downtown restaurant and he couldn't have been nicer. I thought to myself that the Jays' less-experienced manager John Schneider seemed like a good guy, too. 

 

Dive 106 customers might have been evenly split between Toronto and LAD rooters but when Alejandro Kirk hit into a Series-ending 6-6-3 DP started by Mookie Betts, T-shirted LAD fan erupted in bellicose joy.  Another happy camper was a Yankee fan who booed Blue Jay George Springer every time he came up.  She still held a grudge against any former Astro involved in the sign-stealing scandal that may have cost the Yankees the 2017 ALCS.  She did know the game though, learning it in Texas from her Brooklyn-born father.  She surmised accurately that walking potent Vladimir Guerrero Jr set up a double play trap for Kirk that he soon fell into.  Inning over, game over, World Series over, Dodgers win.

(Without John Sterling's screaming.)

 

The LA Dodgers are now the first back-to-back champions since the 1998-99-2000 Yankees. I don't want to nitpick too much because both teams could have won, but in the cruel crucible of baseball with its immensely long season, there is only one winner.  I did think after Toronto won Games 4 and 5 convincingly at Chavez Ravine they could win it all.  But the Dodgers are battle-tested and at least it was their grinders that made most of the difference. 

 

Not just the well-paid Mookie Betts who broke out of his slump long enough to get the huge hit in Game 6 - the two-run single off Kevin Gausman on an off-speed pitch after a long at-bat. They wouldn't have won without third baseman Max Muncy, a scrap heap pickup years ago, breaking out of his slump to homer in the 8th inning of Game 7 to bring the Dodgers within a run.   And then most improbably Miguel Rojas, 36-year-old former Miami Marlin who late in regular season announced his retirement after playoffs, hit the tying homer off recently-reliable closer Jeff Hoffman to tie the game with one out in the 9th. 

 

In a Series in which each team almost always answered runs quickly, the Blue Jays almost won it all in the bottom of the 9th. Alas, with the bases loaded and two out, defensive substitute Andy Pages made a leaping catch in left center knocking left fielder Kike Hernandez to the ground in the process.  The game was decided in the 11th when catcher Will Smith hit Shane Bieber's 2-0 pitch for a homer to deep left. LAD's young Japanese pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto was voted the Series MVP for winning 3 games and saving Game 7 with almost 3 innings of relief after throwing nearly 100 pitches in Game 6. 

 

I think Will Smith could have easily been the co-MVP because he caught every inning of every Series game. I counted at least 3 wild pitches he saved in the early innings of Game 7 when unicorn Shohei Ohtani was ineffective.  Smith reminds me of Yankee catcher Jorge Posada during the Bronx Bombers' most recent dynasty.  You love him if he's on your team and loathe him if he's an opponent.  Smith at least is a home-grown Dodger and came back from injury just in time to make his mark in the post-season. 

 

In many ways, I think Dodger manager Dave Roberts was the MVP. He manipulated his roster brilliantly, moving catcher Smith to second in the batting order to take pressure off Betts who until his big single in Game 6 was not contributing at the plate (but he was a whiz in the field, defying the pundits by playing shortstop for first time in MLB career.)

Roberts also inserted Rojas at second base for the last games and he came through on both sides of the ball.  Inserting rarely-used Justin Dean for defense in Game 6 proved very crucial when he immediately reacted to a line dlrive in the gap stuck in the outfield fence and got the umps to end the play without a run scoring.  

 

There is a revealing chapter on Dave Roberts in Scott Miller's recent book on managers SKIPPER. "I say a prayer every day, don't make it be about me."  More on this indispensable book coming up in Hot Stove League posts of this blog.  It is so sad that veteran sportswriter Scott Miller didn't live to enjoy most of the plaudits for SKIPPER because he died iof cancer n June at age 62.  It is a work that not only brings familiar managerial names back to life - Tom Kelly, Sparky Anderson, Billy Martin, Whitey Herzog, and others.  Miller also tells the stories of less-remembered managers like Cito Gaston, Art Howe, Jim Tracy, among others, who lost their jobs to the inexorable wave of analytics. 

 

Speaking of books, keep your eyes open for Steve Somers, ME HERE, YOU THERE which is available now on pre-order from Triumph Books and officially debuts on November 18. The San Francisco-born Somers made his New York radio debut in 1987 when WFAN went on the air as the first all-sports talk radio station.  Steve brought great knowledge and welcome humor to his overnight broadcasts. His carefully crafted well-written opening monologues were especially delightful after the host and caller screamings that punctuated sports talk radio then and now.   

 

Here's some TCM Turner Classic Movies tips, most notably Claude Rains marathon from 6A until 8P on Mon Nov 10.  I have dreamed of being reincarnated as Rains and (also Robert Preston and James Garner).  Here's the lineup for Rains:

6A "Four Daughters" (1938). Music teacher Rains is wary of his daughters, some of the Lane sisters, getting too friendly with John Garfield.

745A "Adventures of Robin Hood" (1938) Rains contends with Errol Flynn and Olivia DeHavilland

945A "Mr. Skeffington" (1942) Michael Curtiz reunites with Rains after "Casablanca" - Bette Davis has to contend with Rains who is spared her worst side in "Deception"

   which is not shown today.

1215P "Passage to Marseilles" (1944) - Curtiz again this time with Bogart along for a WW II story

215P "The Unsuspected" (1947) another villain role for Claude with Joan Caulfield and Audrey Totter

4P "Casablanca" (1943)

545P "Caesar and Cleopatra" (1945)

This amazing day on TCM opens at 1215A with the silent "Body and Soul" (1925) with Paul Robeson as philandering minister.  ("Ol' Man River" had not yet made its debut) 

And at 8P the oft-shown but always gripping "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" (1966). Mike Nichols directs Liz and Burton in Edward Albee's searing play

 

On the live music front for those in NYC area, Sa Nov 8 10A-10P - "Wall-To-Wall Stevie Wonder" - Symphony Space, Broadway/95th Street Manhattan

 

That's all for now.  Stay strong without baseball until late winter.  And always remember:  Stay Positive, Test Negative & Take It Easy But Take It!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

       

 

    

If you want an understanding of what baseball purism is all about, check out Gunnar Henderson's second double of the game in yesterday's (Sun Aug 20) rout of the lowly Oakland A's.  Seemingly all the broadcasters and even most of his teammates wanted him just to get a single to complete a cycle, having already gotten the triple, homer, and double.

 

Gunnar's baseball instincts, though, took over. His smash down the right field line "looked double," he said after the game almost sheepishly. He just couldn't turn off his highly competitive and wonderful-to-watch jets. 

 

Now, listen, I am not against any change in baseball.  I'm all for the pitch clock and the end of the infield shift that turned the right side of the baseball diamond into a grotesque facsimile of a football backfield. 

 

But if purism means endorsing playing the game hard, smart, and well, running out every at-bat, and hitting the cutoff man on outfield relays, call me a purist. And after sweeping the lowly Oakland A's to finish a West Coast trip with a solid 6-3 record, the AL East-leading Orioles got to enjoy the Monday off-day, three games ahead of (and four games in lost column) Tampa Bay. 

 

Tomorrow (Tu Aug 22) the Birds open at home their last series of the year with division rival Toronto. Although nine games out of first place with 38 to play, the Blue Jays still look formidable to me. They are coming off an impressive road series victory over the surprising Cincinnati Reds. Toronto's outstanding young shortstop Bo Bichette is back from a leg injury and he is always a bundle to deal with. 

 

Because of the so-called "balanced schedule" that downplays intra-divisional play, the Orioles finished with the Yankees at the end of July and now Toronto before end of August.  At least there are four left with Tampa Bay in Baltimore from Sep 14-17. 

 

One thing the Orioles should be proud of is their consistency which, of course, is the most hallowed hallmark in any sport. As a wise sports psychologist once said, "If consistency were an island, it would be lightly populated. 

 

The Birds have not been swept in any three- or four-game series since mid-May 2022, a record that is the fifth longest in MLB history.  Not coincidentally, the streak started at almost the same time as the MLB arrival of deservedly-touted switch-hitting catcher Adley Rutschman. 

 

I can here former Oriole manager Earl Weaver grousing from the Great Baseball Beyond, "What's the big deal? You are supposed to win most of your games if you are a good team."  That is true, Earl, but the stat does speak to keeping one's focus on each and every game.  And realizing that Nothing Is Guaranteed. 

 

It looks like there will be plenty of drama throughout MLB in the final weeks of the season.  It seemed likely that the runner-up in the AL West would be the second of the three wild cards, but this weekend both the Rangers and Astros were swept at home by the Brewers and Mariners, respectively. 

 

Despite losing to suddenly potent Milwaukee, leaders of the NL Central, Texas still has a four game lead on defending World Series-champion Houston. But Seattle spanked the Astros and is on a roll to at least capture the third wild card over Toronto.

 

The Mariners came on strong last season and made the playoffs and certainly they look tough with possibly the best starting pitching in baseball and a red-hot young star in Julio Rodriguez. The Red Sox cannot be counted out after sweeping the reeling Yankees on the road. 

 

The National League has quite a wild card race going on, too, with two surprising teams, the Cubs and the Reds, vying with defending NL champion Phlllies for post-season play.  The Braves and Dodgers have sewed up their NL East and NL West titles and the Brewers with less breathing room seem to have at last the NL Central under control.

 

I'm not the biggest fan of the expanded wild cards but as long as the teams are somewhat over .500 I can reluctantly accept them.  With Cleveland now 8 games under .500 and Minnesota four over, it looks like the AL Central is close to being settled. 

 

I must remind myself that the calendar still says August.  Yet there is that lack of dramatic intra-divisional matchups in September because of the so-called "balanced" schedule (sigh). 

 

In closing, a tip of the cap to three Rutgers baseball players who led the Bourne Braves earlier this month to their second straight Cape Cod Baseball League championship. They are outfielders Josh Kuroda-Grauer, the championship series MVP; Pete Cuifffreda, an incoming graduate transfer; and catcher Hugh Pinkney. 

 

It was the second consecutive year that 3 Scarlet Knights played for champion Bourne.   

 

That's all for now.  Always remember:  Take it easy but take it, and stay positive test negative.