Lee Lowenfish

Are you ready dear readers?  The Prince of Paranoia boldly predicts that . . . The Days Will Continue To Get Longer Until The Summer Solstice! How about that for fearless prediction!  I guess I don't want to join the chorus of pundit naysayers who are sure that a year from now, the big MLB story will be: How long will the lockout last?  My guess is we'll know more about the lockout likelihood if the Tigers have traded ace Tarik Skubal to the Dodgers or perhaps another deep-pocketed owner before spring training. One of those owners could be Edward Rogers of the Blue Jays who I mistakenly IDed as James Rogers in a recent blog. My bad on that one.  Edward is one of the richest men in Canada as head of the big media combine Rogers Communications - he is the Rogers the Rogers Centre stadium is named after.   How far we have come from the days when Philadelphia A's owner/manager Connie Mack did not want Shibe Park named after him. 

 

I am crossing fingers that the recent acquisition by the Pirates of second baseman Brandon Lowe and outfielder Jake Mangum in a trade with Tampa Bay Rays and former Oriole All-Star first baseman/outfielder Ryan O'Hearn as a free agent increases the chances that Pittsburgh's great RHP ace Paul Skenes will stay on the beautiful hilly city on the three rivers (the Allegheny, the Monongahela, the Ohio) for at least another year.  Skenes won't be a free agent until after 2029 season but unless the Pirates improve on the field in 2026 - and even if they do - hard to see Skenes staying with Pittsburgh for another four seasons but the good baseball city of Pittsburgh deserves hope.

 

If I didn't know too well the bitter history of player-owner labor relations that traces back to the late 19th century, I'd like to think a possible compromise exists: A quicker route to free agency and a higher salary floor for the players in exchange for a limit on salary highs, the dreaded salary cap. Despite some disarray in the usually united Players Association, it is hard to see at this juncture any leaders on either side stepping forward with compromise on their mind.  It seems that the richest owner the Mets Steve A. Cohen has now seemingly joined the hard-line owner group.  He has replaced Phillies owner John Middleton on the 8-owner executive council that ostensibly advises commissioner Robert Manfred. Middleton was the owner who announced that he was going to do something stupid in free agency and in renewing his own players.  Now there is hardly a dove in that group that consists of John Fisher (Athletics), Ken Kendrick (Diamondbacks), John Stanton (Mariners), Greg Johnson (Giants), Paul Dolan (Guardians), Arte Moreno (Angels), and Bruce Sherman (Marlins). Keep this list handy because a miracle might happen and some owners not on the committee might step forward in the name of compromise. 

 

SAVE FRI NIGHT JAN 23!

The 59th Annual New York Pro Baseball Scouts Dinner will be held at Leonard's of Great Neck at 555 Northern Boulevard just off the Long Island Expressway.

Yankees radio announcer Dave Sims will be the guest speaker and several local scouts and coaches will receive honors including the Good Guy Award to Pirates associate scout Chris Clehane who is indeed a good guy and a highly regarded NYC area coach.  Tickets are $125 and checks should be sent to Billy Blitzer, 3759 Nautilus Ave, Brooklyn NY 11224.  No tickets will be sold at the door and checks must be received no later than Jan 16, a we before the dinner.  They should be made out to the NY Pro Scouts Association. Billy Blitzer can also be reached at bbscout1@aol.com 

 

LOCAL WOMEN'S BASKETBALL NOTES:

My favorite Columbia team entered Christmas break with a 8-4 record.  Their two most recent wins, against Seton Hall on the road and UTSA (University of Texas San Antonio) at home, weren't decided until the final seconds. Good experience for the players, a lesson in emotional control for the Prince of Paranoia.  Down in Greenwich Village, the defending Division III champion NYU Violets, unbeaten for well over 2 years, are rolling along with a 7-0 record, scoring over 100 points in 5 of the games and its closest competition came in a 90-48 win over Brooklyn College.  Here is their upcoming home schedule at their spiffy Paulson Center on Bleecker Street just west of Mercer Street.

M Dec 29 2P Hamilton College (from Clinton NY - not to be confused with Colgate University in Hamilton NY) [but game at tourney in Montreal].   

M Jan 5 2P Skidmore College (from Saratoga Springs, NY)

Home games against their league opponents in the UAA (University Athletic Association) start:

F Jan 16 730P U. of Rochester (NY)

Su Jan 18 Noon Emory U (from Atlanta)

 

TIME FOR TCM TIPS    

Christmas Night at 10P EST - Tune in for "Angels in the Outfield" the original 1951 film directed by Clarence Brown, the M-G-M director who made Greta Garbo a star among his many credits.  Even if you don't go for the fantasy of a little girl (Donna Corcoran in her debut) seeing angels in the outfield and hard-bitten manager Guffy McGovern (Paul Douglas) hearing them too, the photography of Forbes Field and its beautiful Pittsburgh neighborhood are worth seeing.  Morphing Phil Rizzuto, others in the cast are "not too shabby" either: Janet Leigh as the Household Hints writer for a Pittsburgh newspaper who tries to humanize Guffy/Keenan Wynn as a virulent sportswriter/Spring byington and Ellen Corby as nuns that bring little Donna to games/Bruce Bennett as veteran pitcher/and James Whitmore as the uncredited voice of the angel Gabriel. 

11:45P the 15-minute short "Donkey Baseball" (1935). Promoter Ray Doan's novelty sport. 

I don't see any other sports films of note in the days ahead but some major ones need mention: 

F Dec 26 8P "Kramer vs. Kramer" (1979) Robert Benton [NOT Sidney Pollack] directs Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep as they go through a nasty divorce

Sa Dec 27 8P Here Comes Mr. Jordan" (1941) some sports in here as Robert Montgomery is a onetime boxer who gets reincarnated with the help of Claude Rains

945P "Network" (1976) Paddy Chayevsky's diatribe against TV with stellar cast including William Holden/Faye Dunaway/Peter Finch who delivers the memorable line,

"I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more!"  Does that line still resonate as 2025 careens to its end. 

Followed at 1215A repeated at 10A Noir Alley brings you "Odd Man Out" (1947) Carol Reed directs James Mason/Robert Newton in story set in Ireland during IRA troubles

 

Two Woody Allen films of note:

Su Dec 28 1215P "The Purple Rose of Cairo" (1985) a big part of it set in movie theatres during Great Depression and filmed just north of NYC in Piermont, NY. With Mia Farrow.

M Dec 29 6P "The Front" (1976) Martin Ritt, who lived through the Hollywood blacklist, directs Woody who plays a front for a blacklisted writer.  Zero Mostel who also endured the blacklist is not to be missed.

[M DEC 31 Marx Brothers Marathon:  

530A "Room Service: (1938)

7A "At The Circus" (1939) with Eve Arden and memorable song "Lydia The Tattooed Lady"

830A "A Day At The Races" (1937) the passing of producer Irving Thalberg who did the earlier one is felt here 

1030A "A Night At The Opera" (1935) one of the immortal ones with the famous state room scene and Kitty Carlisle's most famous role

1230P "The Cocoanuts" (1929) the very first one filmed in Queens after its success on the stage

215P "Animal Crackers" (1930) Groucho as Captain Spaulding the African Explorer 

400P "Monkey Business" (1931) the next two have talented blonde beauty ill-fated Thelma Todd (instead of the more stately hilarious Margaret DuMont)

530P "Horse Feathers" (1932) college football was never the same after this one

645P "Duck Soup" (1933) the wonderful mirror scene and the most anti-war in politics - a 7-letter word causes war.  Can any reader ID it?  

 

That's all for now.  Happy and healthy New Year to all, Stay Positive and Test Negative, and Take it Easy But Take It!  

 

 

There is nothing like time spent at the Chautauqua Institution to recharge one's batteries and affirm one's belief in life and culture.

 

During the first week of August, I taught again my Baseball and American Culture class on the venerable lovely campus in far southwestern New York State near Jamestown, the site of the National Comedy Center and the Lucy-Desi Museum. (Lucille Ball grew up in nearby Celeron and I am happy to report that since 2016 a new and far better statue of Lucy has been erected.) 

 

My Chautauqua students as always ran the gamut of backgrounds: Houston Astro and Cleveland Indian fans. Devoted lovers of college baseball. A fellow who grew up in the same building where Carl Furillo lived when he starred for Brooklyn's Boys of Summer. A woman whose grandfather played for Connie Mack's Philadelphia A's and whose mother as an infant was held in the arms of Ty Cobb. 

 

My theme this year was that despite the Black Sox scandal, baseball remained dominant through the Jazz Age, the Great Depression, World War II and the first Cold War Years. 

By the 1950s, westward expansion of the major leagues was long overdue, but an enormous wound was inflicted on New York when Walter O'Malley engineered the shift of the Dodgers and Giants to Los Angeles and San Francisco. 

 

I continue to be amazed that WESLEY Branch Rickey never spoke at Chautauqua which was founded after the Civil War as a retreat for Methodist Sunday school teacher. I guess he was too busy building farm systems in three major league cities and doing volunteer work for his alma mater Ohio Wesleyan and his fraternity Delta Tau Delta.

 

I was able to do the next best thing - show my students "The Old Ball Game," a 45-minute documentary about baseball history narrated by Rickey in 1964 a year before his death. It's readily available on YouTube.

 

I was also pleased with the student response when I showed "Elmer the Great" (1933), the second of Joe E. Brown's baseball trilogy. Produced at the height of his fame in the 1930s,  

"Elmer" was Brown's favorite among the dozens of films he made in Hollywood.

 

No wonder. He gets to display his skills as a lefthanded-hitting second baseman that were good enough in his earlier days to attract pro scouts.

 

He brings a tenderness to Elmer Kane that is a needed balance to his other side, the egomaniacal athlete.  "Elmer" was based on Ring Lardner's "Hurry Kane" as was 1935's "Alibi Ike," the third of the baseball trilogy that had young Olivia deHavilland as Brown's love interest and Bill Frawley (the future Fred Mertz in "I Love Lucy") as Brown's manager. ("Fireman, Save My Child," the first in the trilogy, is now also available on DVD.) 

 

As far as seeing live baseball in the Chautauqua area, I missed by one day seeing the Jamestown Tarp Skunks in the Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League playoffs.  A huge crowd of 1400 saw the Skunks fall one run short of advancing to the final round but its first year of competition was a huge success. 

 

I didn't have easy access to television during my blissful week in Chautauqua, but I did follow at times on my computer the exploits of the plucky underdogs Team Israel and Team USA in the Olympics.  Though Team Israel won only one game in five, they fought valiantly and will savor the experience forever.  

 

It must be noted that the loss of their final game was excruciating.  International rules call for not one "ghost runner" in extra innings but TWO.  With runners on first and second in the bottom of the 10th against South Korea, a relief pitcher threw just two pitches, each one hitting a batter and thus ending Team israel's inspired run.

 

Team USA surprised the pundits by getting all the way to the final game against host Japan.  But in a score identical to the women's softball loss to the Japanese, 2-0, the Americans lost.  Again with nothing to be ashamed of.  

 

The Woerioles have plenty to be ashamed of but I won't go there. Too much to love about life in the dog days of August.  Wide-open race in NL East as Mets fall behind Braves and Phillies.  Second wild-card up for grabs as Padres falter and Reds fitfully make their move.

 

Yankees still very much alive despite gut-wrenching losses.  Games against the Red Sox starting Tu Aug 17 will be important. Oakland still with chance to catch Houston in AL West and holding second wild card at the moment. 

 

Can't stop talking about the Chautauqua experience so here's some more comments.  

The lecture and musical offerings were as always bountiful.

 

My favorite morning lecture was delivered by world-renowned primatologist Frans de Waal, a leader in his field, an entertaining lecturer, and the author of the current book, "Mama's Last Hug" and earlier "Chimpanzee Politics."

 

The Chautauqua Opera Company performed two memorable operas.  "Scalia and Ginsburg," Derrick Wang's witty and incisive one-hour creation, made its debut in 2013 when both late Supreme Court justices and opera lovers were able to attend.  

 

Mezzo-soprano Kelly Guerra as RBG and Chauncey Parker as Scalia inhabited their roles with aplomb. As did the crucial third character, Michael Colman as the Commentator.  I think the role was conceived as a homage to the ominous Commandant in Mozart's "Don Giovanni".

  

"As the 'Cosi' Crumbles," the debut opera, is a humorous examination of what standard opera would look like if the voices were shifted. Although I was disappointed that the beautiful trio, "May the Winds Be Gentle," from Mozart's "Cosi Fan Tutte," was not part of the production, I thoroughly enjoyed the idea of singers getting the chance singing arias written for different voices.  

 

The selections from "Madame Butterfly" were particularly moving. Burly stentorian baritone Yazid Gray's rendition of "Cara Nome" from "Rigoletto" was memorable. A bluesy back beat in the final measures added to the fun and frolic.  

 

After singing Scalia, Chauncey Parker directed "Cosi Crumbles". Kelly Guerra and Michael Colman were again in the cast along with spectacular soprano Chasiti Lashay, tenor Jared Esquerra and baritone Yazid Gray.  

 

Overall director Cara Consilvio has put together an impressive staff. Steven Osgood conducted both operas and gave informative introductions. The original music for "Cosi Crumbles" was created by Jasmine Barnes, Sage Bond, and Frances Pollock.

 

Pollock's seven-minute piece, "God is Dead, Schoenberg Is Dead, But Love Will Come," was premiered with the excellent Chautauqua Orchestra conducted by Rossen Milanov on Thursday night August 5.  She mixes effectively mournful strains composed during the height of the pandemic with fragments of "Smile," the song created by Charlie Chaplin for his classic 1936 film "Modern Times."   

 

Before I close, here are some tips for TCM viewing in the weeks while Eddie Muller's Noir Alley is off for "Summer of Stars" programming. He returns on Sep 5 - see below. 

 

There are not many films with sports themes remaining in August but bearing mention are:

W Aug 18 530p "The Natural" (1984) based on the Bernard Malamud story with Robert Redford, Kim Basinger and Glenn Close.

 

Sa Aug 21 2p "Woman of the Year" (1942), the first Tracy-Hepburn collaboration with Spencer as a sportswriter and Katherine as world-traveling journalist (inspired by Dorothy Thompson)

 

For Noir devotees and esp. Gloria Grahame fans, catch this binge-fest!

Tu Aug 17 4p "Odds Against Tomorrow" (1959, set on location in NYC and Hudson NY)

6p "Human Desire" (1954 with Glenn Ford, Broderick Crawford, dir. by Fritz Lang)

8p "The Big Heat" (1953 with G.Ford, Jocelyn Brando - Marlon's sister -, dir. by Lang)

10p "In A Lonely Place" (1950, Bogart as temperamental writer, Frank Lovejoy/Jeff Donnell as his friends, Grahame in key substantial role as Bogie's girlfriend - dir. by Nicholas Ray).

 

Su Aug 22 1245p "Witness for the Prosecution" (1957) twists galore in this classic based on Agatha Christie story and directed by Billy Wilder.  With Marlene Dietrich, Charles Laughton, Tyrone Power, that suave sinister character actor Henry Daniell, and others. 

 

8p "Blood and Sand" (1941) T. Power returns and has to deal with Linda Darnell and Rita Hayworth - it's a hard job but someone had to do it.  Dir. Reuben Mamoulian of NY stage.

 

M Aug 23 12:15a  Power again as a carnival performer in "Nightmare Alley" (1947)

945a "At The Circus" (1939) the Marx Brothers in not one of their best but Eve Arden is in it

 

W Aug 25  Jane Wyman Day has 4p Hitchcock's "Stage Fright" (1958)

8p "Johnny Belinda" (1948) Wyman's Oscar

 

Tu Aug 26 10p "The Mating Game" (1959) with Debbie Reynolds and Tony Randall.  Probably Paul Douglas's last film. He had signed for Wilder's "Apartment" but died and Fred MacMurray got the role as the louse. 

 

F Aug 27 215a  "Night Song" (1947) Dana Andrews as blind concert pianist, Merle Oberon pretends to be blind to get close to him.  Hoagy Carmichael/Artur Rubinstein perform.

 

Sa Aug 28  late 1960s shoot-em-ups for the Vietnam era starring Lee Marvin and others

8p "Point Blank" dir. John Boorman with Angie Dickinson and post-Bat Guano Keenan Wynn

10p "The Professionals" dir. Richard Brooks

 

Sun Aug 29  3:45p  Hitchcock's "Gaslight" with I. Bergman/G. Peck/Ch. Boyer

6p "Casblanca" (1943)

 

M Aug 30 James Cagney Day incl. 12N "Midsummer Night's Dream" (1935) with cast of

stars including Mickey Rooney as Puck, Olivia DeHavilland, and Joe E Brown stealing show as Flute

4p "White Heat" (1949) the post-World War II Cagney gangster.  In prison dining scene look for Jim Thorpe as an extra.

 

Tu Aug 31 8p "Best Years of Our Lives" (1946) - still hard not to cry and sigh at this one 

Th Sep 2 8p "The Comic" Carl Reiner directs Dick Van Dyke, Michele Lee, Mickey Rooney

 

Su Sep 5 12M, repeated at 10A - return of Noir Alley - Robert Preston in "Cloudburst" (1952)

 

That's all for now.  As always, take it easy but take it, and please: 

STAY POSITIVE, TEST NEGATIVE