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! 

Here we go again in baseball.  Labor-management relations at a standstill.  

Everything old is new again.  

 

"Defensive lockout," according to commissioner Rob Manfred, is necessary to make an agreement.  And war is peace.  And slavery is freedom.

 

It is a more complicated issue than billionaire owners versus millionaire players so I wish that short-hand description could be scrapped.   But it does come down to money

and plenty of it.  

 

Average salaries in baseball have been dropping in recent years and so have median salaries which is a more important figure.  Other pro sports have passed baseball in

the median quality - the midpoint between the richest and the least hightly-paid player.

 

It will be key for the players that two of their union leaders, the newly-enriched free agents Max Scherzer and Marcus Semien, keep their less financially-endowed brethren informed of developments.  They likely will but the prospects for a deal look far away right now.

 

I have a suspicion that those fans who bellow the loudest about greedy players would probably be the first people to jump in line to get the most money out of misguided owners.

Over time, they have never been able to stop themselves from putting that shiny free agent on the mantelpiece when huckstered by clever player representatives.

 

If you want more historical background on owners' inability to control themselves, check out my first book, THE IMPERFECT DIAMOND which was updated in a second and third edition.

 

In my intro, I noted the late satirist Mort Sahl's comment that Richard Nixon's memoir

"Six Crises" should have come out in a looseleaf edition so you could just add the crises.

So goes it with the baseball labor story except in 2021 total attendance is not up and it may

not return if there is any protracted shutdown.

 

I suggest that there better be some agreement before the Super Bowl - which is late this year, Feb. 13, because of the expanded 17-game NFL schedule.  Otherwise, spring training games and the regular season starting on March 31 will be impacted.

 

I was wondering why the Braves hadn't resigned Freddie Freeman, their leader and first baseman and lifelong Brave.  Then I discovered that his agent is Casey Close, a former

U of Michigan player and briefly a Yankee farmhand who became Derek Jeter's player agent and is now a big mover and shaker in the sports business firmament.  

 

It is not only Scott Boras trying to get top dollar from owners. In fact, in some ways Boras is admirable because as far as I know his Boras Corporation is not yet connected to a huge conglomerate as most agents like Casey Close are.

 

As for me, I will try to ignore the power plays, egos, and greed on both sides.  I applaud versatile Chris Taylor for re-signing just before the lockout with the Dodgers who realized they made a mistake in letting another grinder like Kike Hernandez get away last off-season to the Boston Red Sox.

 

I love grinders, players who know how to win and do the "little things" that don't appear in box scores.  In fact, as one wise person recently said, "There are no little things."

 

My cheering for the rest of the fall and winter will focus on Wisconsin Badgers men's

basketball who improved to 8-1 earlier today (Sat afternoon Dec 4) convincingly beating state rival Marquette 87-73.  Johnny Davis is an exciting player coming into his own and the rest of the team is playing good team basketball.

 

I'm also following closely, and in person when I can, my other alma mater, Columbia's women's basketball which has started 7-2 in the pre-Ivy League season. They are a versatile and speedy team and fun to watch under coach Megan Griffith who played for

non-contending Columbia teams and assisted at great Princeton winning teams.

 

Methinks she and all good coaches imbibe the great Christy Mathewson saying:

"I have learned little from winning. I have learned everything from losing."

 

Picked for 3rd in pre-season polls, the Lions will play their top rivals Princeton and Penn at home, respectively, on F Jan 7 at 7p and Sa Jan 8 at 5p.   They open league season at home Su Jan 2 at 1p against Yale.  Check out gocolumbialions.com for ticket info and other stories.  

 

In closing, I want to rave about the "La Boheme" I attended late last month at the

Metropolitan Opera.  It was my first foray to live opera since before the pandemic.

 

The orchestra and chorus under Korean woman conductor Eun Sun Kim making her NYC debut never sounded better.  The story of the irrepressible bohemians in 19th century France never fails to captivate.  

 

I wasn't familiar with any of the singers but they all performed with elan in the long-running Franco Zefferelli production. 

 

Conductor Eun Kim returns to the Met for four more "Boheme"'s on May 16, May 20,

May 24, and May 29 all at 8p.  There will be four other "Boheme"'s in January.

 

Sunday afternoon Jan 9 at 3p, a welcome innovation for opera.  Why should ballet and concerts have the audiences Sun afternoons to themselves?

 

There will be the national radio broadcast on Sa Jan 22 at 1p, and two weeknight performances at 8p, Jan 13 and Jan 18.

 

For Bohemeatologists, if I can coin a word, the 1926 silent movie "Boheme"

directed by the notable King Vidor, airs on TCM early Mon Dec 6 at 1:15a. 

 

Speaking of TCM, its Star of the Month is Ingrid Bergman, aired mainly on Weds.  

I caught her the other night in "Gaslight" 1944, directed by George Cukor, and her performance opposite convincing bad guy Charles Boyer, was so riveting that I passed up the first half of Wisconsin-Georgia Tech game.

 

"Gaslight" marked the debut of 18-year-old Angela Lansbury as a sassy maid in the

Victorian household.  The next year she had a haunting role in Albert Lewin's "Picture of

Dorian Gray" opposite Hurd Hatfield and with George Sanders. 

 

Her haunting rendition of the little yellow bird song remains constantly with me. "Dorian Gray" might be found on TCM On Demand.

 

Mentioning Lansbury makes me think of the recent death of Stephen Sondheim, 91.

More on him and his impact on so many people, including the New Yorkers who burst out in song when they learned of his death, next time. 

 

As well as reflections on the incomparable David Frishberg, 88, who mastered jazz piano and vocals and lyrics and composition. And through "Van Lingle Mungo" and "Matty" made a lasting contribution to baseball.  

 

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

ever, stay positive and test negative.