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's to the Toronto Blue Jays for winning a classic 7-game ALCS over the Seattle Mariners. They have home field advantage over the Los Angeles Dodgers who swept the Milwaukee Brewers behind great pitching and a record-setting Game 4 in which Shohei Ohtani hit 3 home runs and struck out 10 in 6 shutout innings.  They will be clear favorites over the Blue Jays but don't count them out. They won the AL championship in a gripping Game 7 and will enter their first World Series since 1993 when they completed a two-peat on Joe Carter's walkoff homer. 

George Springer's 3-run-shot this past Monday Oct 20 was not quite a walkoff - it was only in bottom of the 7th - but it turned the dramatic Game 7 on its head because Seattle had been leading 3-1 since the early innings.  Former Met Chris Bassiitt, a veteran thinking-man's RHP and a free-agent-to-be, threw a spotless 8th and so did closer Jeff Hoffman in the 9th. But not before some drama.  

Signed as an amateur by Toronto 10 years ago, Hoffman was traded in 2016 and after stops in Colorado and Philadelphia, he returned home this season. Two organizations, including my Woerioles (I am holding my tongue or fingers in this post about how the axis of newby owner David Rubenstein and overrated GM now President of Baseball Operations no less may never be ready for AL East prime time). Back to Jeff Hoffman who could injured in the future - who couldn't? but this year he stayed healthy although he did allow 15 regular season HRs (though not many recently). In the top of 9th on Monday, Jeff needed almost 10 pitches before striking out Julio Rodriguez, leaving slugger Cal Raleigh waiting on deck. Both had homered earlier in Game 7 so it made the last AB an exquisite exercise in ultimate baseball pressure. 

Vladimir Guerrero Jr is red-hot at the plate, adequate in the field, and a definite leader in the clubhouse.  Though Springer hit the final big blow, Guerrero Jr was a worthy ALCS MVP. He walked into the clubhouse before Game 7 wearing Auston Matthews' #34 Toronto Maple Leafs jersey.  The hockey superstar has not delivered a Stanley Cup yet. Neither has any Leaf player since the mid-1960s.  The awful but funny joke (if you are not a Toronto fan) is "Toronto is the only city where the Leafs fall in April."  Guerrero Jr.'s gesture was as if to say, "We want none of that, we will win it for our city and country." 

It looks another longtime offensive threat for the Jays, shortstop Bo Bichette (another son of a major leaguer, former Rockies and Yankees outfielder Dante Bichette- Vlad Sr. was a star on Montreal Expos and LA Angels and is in Hall of Fame) will be on the World Series roster though it won't be finalized until this Friday Oct 24.  When he is hot, Bo Bichette is an extremely productive offensive player.  He is not the greatest defensive shortstop but to me he is not horrible.  He will also be a free agent after the season so he has a lot to play for, especially if he is healthy after banging up his knee sliding into home against the Yankees in early September.)   

It was a tough ALCS loss for the Mariners, still the only one of the current 30 MLB franchises never to play in a World Series.  It is hard not to criticize manager Dan Wilson for his Game 7 pitching decisions. I would have let Game 7 starter, 4-year veteran George Kirby originally from nearby Rye NY, pitch more than 4 innings. I certainly would have let Bryan Woo pitch out of the jam in the 7th inning.  (With that name, pitching Woo is a baseball romantic's dream.) 

When Wilson chose one of his lower leverage relievers, well-traveled Eduardo Bazardo, to replace Woo with two runners in scoring position and Springer coming up, I sensed trouble.  And sure enough on Bazardo's second pitch,  Springer unloaded a long 3-run HR to left center.  So went up in smoke Seattle's 2-0 and 3-2 game leads in the series.  In hindsight, their offense left too many men on base and their defense and base-running betrayed them at key moments. Although a vital contributor on offense, first baseman Josh Naylor was the culprit twice on the bases.  In game 4 as the Mariners were rallying, Naylor made the third out trying to go from first to third on a single that cut their deficit to one run.  In Game 7, he foolishly tried to break up a double play by standing up going into second and let the shortstop's throw hit him. After the umps huddled, he was called out.  

But enough of this post-mortem. Seattle has so much to be proud of in its season, not least finally conquering the almost-perennial AL West champions Houston Astros in a September sweep. And then winning a dramatic  15-inning elimination game against the Tigers in the prior round of the playoffs.  I want to give the last word about the ALCS to Northwest Baseball blogger Amanda Lane Cumming.  She fell in love with baseball when she was a young teenager, a time when the Mariners of Ken Griffey Jr.-Randy Johnson-Edgar Martinez literally saved baseball in Seattle when voters chose to support funding to build a new stadium to replace the dreary Kingdome. 

Amanda has since lived through the ups and downs of Mariners baseball - mainly downs - but shortly before Game 7 began, she posted this moving entry.  With her permission, I am quoting a couple of her passages describing how she has fallen in love again with her local team:   "Baseball still has magic . . . between the layers of dirty laundry, underneath the filth of billionaire owners, and right-wing players.  There is still magic."  She concluded: "It's not about winning. It never was. It's about believing."

As for picking a World Series winner, I'd like to see Toronto win it at home either in the sixth or seventh game.  Since I'm not emotionally involved, I will vote for a Game 7 which will fall on Sa Nov 1 assuming no rainouts in LA. (Toronto's Rogers Center, formerly known as the Skydome, has a retractable roof.)  A couple of hours later at 2A on Su morning Nov 2, we lose a hour of daylight with the return of Standard Time.  How fitting that if it goes seven, darkness sets in.  As the late former baseball commissioner (and Yale University professor and university president) Bartlett Giamatti memorably said, "Just when we need the game the most, it is taken away." 

As we head towards the free agent frenzy that officially starts after the end of the World Series, expect lots of false rumors and bad signings as well as the occasional good ones. There will plenty of chances to discuss these thorny issues than many people think will lead to a lockout after next season.  I try to accentuate the positive in this blog (except admittedly when my team the Woerioles will fall out of indefinite non-contention under current management). But here are two gestures from late in the regular season that were such beautiful human interest stories that they deserve mention.

 **MIKE TROUT hit his 400th HR at Denver's Coors Field in mid-September.  A Rockies fan caught the ball in the bleachers and was glad to give it to Mike as a souvenir.  He asked for very little swag except a chance to play catch with his hero.  And guess what? After the game there was Mike and the fan having a catch along the third base line.

**Kudos to STEPHEN VOGT Guardians manager and Tigers LHP TARIK SKUBAL a likely two-peat winner next month of the AL Cy Young award (though Bosox lefty Garrett Crochet could nip him). Tarik expressed deep concern when Cleveland batter DAVID FRY fouled a Skubal pitch into his face in a taut ALDS Guardians-Tigers game.  Skubal, normally a cool customer on the mound, was so shaken that he lost the lead in that inning, ultimately getting a No Decision (ND). After the game, he insisted on going to the hospital to see how Fry was doing.  And manager Vogt drove well out of his regular route home to take Skubal to see his injured player.  Fortunately, it seems that Fry will have a full recovery.   

Now - it's time for some TCM tips for the the last days of October. Not many baseball references in them, but these films are worthy of seeing.

Th Oct 23 545P "The Great Dictator" (1940). Chaplin plays double role as a barber returning from years of amnesia after a WW I injury to find that the Nazis have taken over his shop. Chaplin plays a second role based on Hitler, Adenoid Hynkel, Jack Oakie was Oscar-nominated for his Benzino Napaloni, a character based on Mussolini, and Paulette Goddard plays the daughter of the leader of the under-siege Jewish community. 

Th Oct 23  8P "Death on the Nile" (1978) Peter Ustinov as Inspector Poirot tries to solve a murder/with Mia Farrow/Bette Davis

F Oct 24 6P "The Sunshine Boys" (1975) Richard Benjamin tries to induce old comics George Burns/Walter Matthau to return to the stage - a Neil Simon classic 

The next two films go directly against Game I of the World Series starting on Oct 24 after 8P on FOX

8P "Suspicion" (1941) Hitchcock thriller with Joan Fontaine/Cary Grant/Cedric Hardwicke

10P "The Fury" (1978). a Brian De Palma thriller about a distraught CIA operative with John Cassavetes/Kirk Douglas/Charles Durning who BTW once acted in a one-man show about Casey Stengel which is hard to find in print or video - Please contact me with leads if you have them.

Sa Oct 25. quite a feast of films, here are some of the highlights:

12N "Tales of Hoffmann" (1951) another Powell/Presburger classic based on the story of a man lamenting three of his loves - "Tales" was also, of course, a 19th century Offenbach opera still in the corpus of many opera companies all over the world.  The film stars Moira Shearer who was a huge hit in the Powell-Presburger 1948 film about ballet "The Red Shoes" 

415P "The League of Gentlemen" (1961) Basic Dearden directs bankers who plan a big heist

615P "Dr. Strangelove or How I Stopped Worrying And Learned to Love the Bomb" (1964)  TCM plays it a lot and it is always rewarding in a macabre kind of way fitting for 2025  

And for more counter programming in the middle of the World Series:

930P" "Rosemary's Baby" (1968) Roman Polanski's horror film based on true story written by Ira Levin about a woman fearful of giving birth to a child who might grow up to be Satan/with Mia Farrow/John Cassavetes/Ruth Gordon 

12M - repeated Sun Oct 26 10A. Noir Alley presents "Southside 1-1000" (1950) with Don DeFore, a year after he unravels Lisabeth Scott's dirty doings in "Too Late For Tears" (1949) and two years before he settles in as Ozzie and Harriet's neighbor in TV show of the same name.  I hope informed readers know that before Ozzie became a national big band leader, he played football at Rutgers "the state university of New Jersey".

Later on Sun Oct 26 following Noir Alley, there is an unusual back-to-back noir:

1145A "The Unfaithful" (1947) starring a rather talented trio:  Ann Sheridan (who hated being called by publicists the "oomph girl" because "oomph" reminded her of the sound a fat man made when he sat on a couch)/Lew Ayres who became a pacifist as did many others who worked on Lewis Milestone's searing "All Quiet on the Western Front" (1931). Ayres did work in a miitary medical corps in WW II. Another fun fact is that Ben Alexander, a child actor at 6, was around 18-19 when he played a German soldier eager to go into World War I. In the 1950s, Ben played Officer Frank Smith opposite Sgt. Jack Webb in the first TV "Dragnet". Also appearing in "The Unfaithful" is Zachary Scott who made a good living playing particularly smooth cads, notably in the classic "Mildred Pierce" (1945).  

No baseball on Sunday night but TCM brings two classic Hitchcocks back to life:

8P "Psycho" (1960) Bernard Herrmann's engrossing if unnerving score and Anthony Perkins doing in Janet Leigh who to me had far better roles in her career but she is too often mentioned for this one

10P "Shadow of A Doubt" (1943) Joseph Cotten after "Citizen Kane" and before "The Third Man," and Teresa Wright after "Pride of the Yankees" and before "Best Years of Our Lives"

M Oct 27. these films go head-to-head with Game 3 of World Series, the first one in LA

8P "Going My Way" (1944) actually most baseball references in this selection of TCM films appear here - young priest Crosby wears St. Louis Browns sweatshirt and utters several baseball comments  After World War II, he became a part owner of Pittsburgh Pirates (and Bob Hope also owned a slice of then-Cleveland Indians)

1015P "Papa's Delicate Condition" (1963)  Have not seen this one but talk about odd couples - Jackie Gleason is described on TCM as "small-town family man" with drinking issues.  British actress Glynis Johns . gifted with good looks and a notably husky and haunting voice - presumably tries to help Jackie. 

Tu Oct 28 here's an early morning one I must list and must see.

8A "Tennesse Johnson" (1942). One of Hollywood's post-Civil War historical dramas made at a time when we were trying to look to our history for inspiration for our fight against the Nazis.  How quaint today.  As a Branch Rickey biographer, I have a special interest in this film because TIME Magazine when they prolifed Rickey in early 1940s compared his speaking style to "Lionel Barrymore playing [arch-abolitionist US Senator] Thaddeus Stevens" in this film.  With Van Heflin as Andrew Johnson, Lincoln's successor and Ruth Hussey as AJ's wife.  William Dieterle directs.

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