Lee Lowenfish

This Oriole fan is not emotionally involved in 2025 post-season baseball. But I must say that the gripping 15-inning elimination game last Friday night (Oct 10) that eliminated the Tigers and propelled the Mariners to the ALCS caused me to post on Facebook: "It is sad that either team has to lose." Both teams, especially Seattle, had many chances to win in the first extra innings but failure to execute sacrifice bunts cost the Mariners two innings in a row.  Finally, former Minnesota Twin Jorge Polanco came through with the deciding single against well-traveled Tommy Kahnle.   It was a tough loss for the Tigers but they certainly bounced back from their astounding collapse in the last three months of the regular season.  (The Mets' decline started in mid-June and cost them a playoff spot entirely.)

 

From being booed in Seattle when not healthy in 2024, Jorge Polanco is now a household name. I recently learned that he hails from San Pedro de Macoris in the Dominican Republic, the so-called cradle of shortstops going back almost 50 years when Toronto's standout the late Tony Fernandez emerged along with many others.  Polanco, 32, has now found a home at second base where his idol, countryman Robinson Cano, also made his mark.  Sadly, like Cano, Polanco a few years ago served a suspension for performance-enhancing drugs but nowhere near as long as Cano's whose career in MLB is long gone.   

 

Polanco continued to get big hits in the first two games of the ALCS at Toronto. But it looks like the old canard "Anything can happen in a short series" has come to fruition again as Toronto awakened in Game 3 at Seattle in a 13-4 rout silencing a Mariner crowd eager to root on their heroes to a World Series for the first time in its history - talk about a sentimental favorite, the Mariners are the only one of 30 MLB teams never to play in the World Series. 

 

I like both Toronto and Seattle as cities and as franchises that entered the AL as expansion teams in 1977.  Toronto became a contender quickly and within a decade were frequent playoff participants under manager Bobby Cox and general manager Pat Gillick.  By 1993 they won it all on Joe Carter's walk-off home run off Phillies closer Mitch Williams. The late Toronto broadcaster Tom Cheek delivered a memorable closing call: "Touch 'em all, Joe, you'll never hit a bigger home run in your life." 

 

Seattle has also enjoyed a memorable broadcaster in its history, the late Tom Niehaus whose "swung on and belted!" prepared listening audiences for good news. I''l never forget being allowed at a friend's wedding to relay news of the final game of the Mariners' division series against the Yankees in 1995.  Edgar Martinez's game-winning double drove in a flying Ken Griffey Jr. for a victory that in reality helped save the franchise because afterwards voters approved funding for a new stadium to replace the dreary indoor Kingdome. But the 1995 Mariners couldn't beat Cleveland in the 1995 ALCS.

 

In 2001, they won 116 games with two future Hall of Famers Ichiro (Suzuki) and DH Edgar Martinez. But they couldn't get past the Yankees in the ALCS. Now, 24 years later, they may have the good mix of pitching and defense and offense but I'm glad the Blue Jays, the team with the best regular season record in the AL, didn't roll over in Oct 15's Game 3. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. awakened to go 4 for 4 as the Mariners absorbed a 13-4 loss.  Toronto manager John Schneider managed Guerrero in the minors and he obviously sensed that Vladdy didn't want to be remembered in 2025 mainly for his leading the team to its victory over the Yankees in the ALDS.  Afterwards, along with some of his teammates, Vladdy led a raucous singing of their version of Yankee announcer John Sterling's loud end-of-game call, "The Yankees winnnnn!" - they turned it into "The Blue Jays winnnnnnn!"   Kinda interesting that Guerrero and company didn't know that John Sterling retired a year ago, but after being dissed by still-active Yankee announcer Michael Kay as not being a real first-place team, these Blue Jays can be forgiven their exuberance.   

 

Milwaukee now faces the same pressure as Toronto, having to win two games in Los Angeles to bring the series back to Wisconsin.  Many times in this blog I have called the Dodgers the Evil Empire West for its huge payroll and advantage in market size including seemingly endless ability to sign the best Japanese players.  But i have to give credit to Dodger front office's evaluation of the lesser lights, the grinders like Kike (Enrique) Hernandez who has been a huge part of their rallies and playing capably all over the diamond.  Ditto Tommy Edman, one of the many Cardinals that outgoing St. Louis "president of baseball operations" John Mozeliak let get away.   It's also hard to root against Mookie Betts who, defying many critics, is playing a great shortstop and is a crucial part of the lineup because no opponent really wants to pitch to Shohei Ohtani batting leadoff in front of Betts.  

 

All I want is for Milwaukee to make a series out of the NLCS because they have a lot of grinders too and budding stars in their leadoff man 21-year-old outfielder Jackson Chourio and a gritty star catcher in William Contreras.  The Brewers did win the most games of any MLB team so would have home field advantage in the World Series.  Their route to the Series seems obviously threatened now, but here's to a comeback for them and a continued comeback for Toronto.  Then more elimination games to keep winter away!  

 

In closing, here are a couple of TCM tips, not from baseball but from the rich fountain of other vibrant aspects of American culture: 

Th Oct 16 530P "Harry Warren America's Foremost Composer" (1933) a 15-minute short about the man who wrote "I Only Have Eyes for You," "Jeepers Creepers" (Where Did You Get Those Peepers"), "I've Got A Gal in Kalamazoo" and many other memorable tunes

F Oct 17 12N "The Big Lift" (1950) one of many Montgomery Clift films on TCM this day, with Paul Douglas as flyers in the aftermath of WW II

Sa Oct 18 430P "The World, The Flesh, & The Devil" (1959) I've mentioned this film before on this blog.  Harry Belafonte produced and stars in a film about a nuclear explosion

wipes out all of the US except seemingly Belafonte a steel worker in Penna. who was underground in a mine when the bomb went off.  He drives to an empty NYC and meets Mel Ferrer and then Inger Stevens and you can guess what happens next - a rivalry between two men and a woman.

Sa Oct 19 at midnight/repeated 10A Sun Oct 20. Noir Alley presents "Black Tuesday" (1954) Edward G. Robinson and Peter Graves break out of prison and plan a heist

 

That's all for now.  I repeat as always:  Take it easy but take it, and Stay Positive, Test Negative!

  

 

As I have said many times, all any baseball fan should ever ask for is to play meaningful games in September. That hope was long dashed this season (and probably for many future seasons) in Oriole land and for too many other teams this year. (Sure hope we are not seeing the rise of a permanent baseball underclass.)

For those teams still in the hunt, there is nothing like the agony and ecstasy of baseball in late September. When the number of games is reduced to just a handful, the pressure and tension can be excruciating. In a rare unqualified statement about baseball, it says here that the teams that win have the players who can stay intense without being tense.

The five teams in the American League playoffs are already set. The Red Sox and Indians have clinched their divisions, the defending World Series champion Astros will likely clinch the AL West this week (if not at lowly Toronto, then definitely at very lowly Baltimore).

The only dramatic question in the AL is whether the Oakland A’s or the Yankees will host the wild card game on Wednesday October 3. Most likely it will be the Yanks because they have to lose three games out of their last six and the A’s must win all of their remaining five for the wild card game to be played in Oakland.

The National League is far more intriguing. Only the Atlanta Braves have clinched a division title so have no worries about an elimination game. The Cubs are stumbling a bit but still lead the Brewers by two games in lost column. The soaring Dodgers only lead the Rockies by one lost game.

The Cardinals, under once-interim now-permanent manager Mike Shildt, are the most threatened with the most difficult schedule. Last night (M Sep 24) they threw away a key rain-interrupted game to the Brewers. They lost 6-4 with the eventual winning run scoring on an ill-advised errant throw to first base by pitcher Bud Norris that allowed the tie-breaking run to score from third.

Kinda ironic that erratic former Oriole Norris is subject of St Louis boo-birds because supposedly he was nicknamed Bud as a three-year-old because he liked to sip Budweiser!

I love the story of Shildt, a baseball lifer from Charlotte, North Carolina who grew up in the 1970s when the Orioles had their Double-A team in Charlotte. He was a jack-of-all-trades - ballboy, gofer, clubhouse attendant, you name it.

He is the rare MLB manager that never played pro ball. But he has imbibed the Cardinal Way that started with Branch Rickey and continued by George Kissell, Stan Musial, Red Schoendienst, and so many more.

The Redbirds will have to play better defense if they want to make the playoffs. And gulp! after two more with the Brewers at home, they end the season with three at Wrigley Field. Though not yet a lock, it seems the Cardinals and Rockies will fight for the second wild card with Colorado hosting the Phillies and Nationals at home.

I want to conclude this post with a fond remembrance of the late Don Welke. One of the great scouts of our era, Welke died in San Diego on Wed Sep 19 just a few days shy of his 76th birthday. He was still scouting for the Padres at the time of his death.

Starting out as an associate scout with the Cincinnati Reds in the 1960s (as the future Big Red Machine was being formulated), Welke enjoyed a career that spanned major contributions with the expansion Kansas City Royals and Toronto Blue Jays and later the Orioles, Texas Rangers, and lastly the Padres.

During Pat Gillick’s induction speech at the Hall of Fame earlier this decade, he singled out Welke (and Bob Engle) for special commendation. It was Welke’s scouting that brought first baseman John Olerud and pitcher Pat Hentgen to Toronto. He also tried valiantly to sign Jim Abbott but the remarkable one-armed pitcher opted for the U of Michigan instead.

Welke became a world traveler in his later years and did a lot of international scouting. He was part of the staff for the gold medal-winning American baseball team at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

Welke’s roots were in the Midwest. His early career almost reads like a traveler’s guide to that region. He liked to call himself a Harvard man, that is, a graduate of Harvard HS in Illinois.

He attended and graduated from Carthage College in Wisconsin but never played pro baseball. Instead he started a career in coaching and education as a graduate assistant at Eastern Michigan U in Ypsilanti. From 1970-75 he was the coach at Concordia College in Ann Arbor.

I had the good fortune to meet Don on a few occasions. I have an especially warm memory of his appearance on a panel that I moderated on scouting for the annual NINE Baseball Magazine conference in Phoenix.

He wasn't an advocate of analytics and its new terminology - low-key wit and pithy perception were his trademarks. “I always look for the player who makes the game look easy,” he once said, knowing of course that the game is never easy.

In a 2015 interview for Fox TV Sports that I accessed this morning via Google, Welke compared scouting to playing in one key way: you have to possess “the ability to be better than the next guy . . . and . . . have the courage to be risky some times.”

Welke is survived by three sons. He will be sorely missed. At least in the age of the internet we have everlasting access to his wit and wisdom.

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