Lee Lowenfish

I'm must confess that this blog was originally gonna be another embittered rant about the disappointing Orioles who since the early summer of 2024 have been an under-.500 team and perhaps haunted by never winning a game in five tries during playoff action in 2023 and 2024. Last week's trade of switch-hitting catcher Adley Rutschman, 2019's number one overall draft pick, to the arch-division rival Boston Red Sox no less, was a harsh blow to the Oriole faithful who saw Adley's departure as the waving of the 2026 white flag. Pete Alonso dispelled that despicable thought with a two-home run game on Sunday Aug 9 that sparked a rare 10-3 outburst to salvage one game over the current AL Third Wild Card leader Texas Rangers. Still 4 games under .500 and behind Houston, Detroit, Minnesota, Cleveland as well as Texas, there is a pulse, however flickering, left in my Birds.  

Having not lived in Baltimore since I returned in 1976 to my "home town" of NYC, the Rutschman trade hasn't affected me that deeply.  Adley had become injury-prone, winding up on the Injured List five times in the last two seasons. At the age of only 28, it does look like he is going into an enviable situation in Boston, providing experience to a speedy and talented young team that has rediscovered its offense but has needed a solid receiver.  If Adley finally realizes that he is a line drive hitter and stops swinging for the fences and fretting about his inconsistent "launch angle," he should be a great addition to a Red Sox team that roared from 14 under .500 at the end of June to more than 10 above .500 and the Second Wild Card position behind the Yankees. In the wonderful world of MLB where even the best teams lose at least 60 games a season and the worst ones win at least 60, the lowly Athletics (temporarily in Sacramento) punctured a little of the Bosox bubble by winning this past weekend the Sat and Sun games at Fenway. 

I must admit that I have a soft spot for the Tampa Bay Rays who are now loaded with a bevy of ex-Orioles including gritty center fielder Cedric Mullins, closer Bryan Baker, possessor of 35 saves, and Tyler Wells, a multi-purpose reliever who can also spot start. Another recent Oriole discard, veteran RHP Dean Kremer, is slated to pitch for the Minnesota Twins against his former team on Mon Aug 10. The Twins just lost the rubber match in an intense series against the Brewers, but the Brew Crew needed one of the best catches I've ever seen by rookie right fielder Luis Lara who robbed Koby Clemens of a second home run.  Koby, Roger's son who has found a home in Minnesota after not making it in Philly, had tied the game with a two-run shot off wunderkind Jacob Misiorowski who regularly brings 100 mph heat.  "Mis" seems to be pitching-wise beyond his young age - he understands that changing speeds is the key to sustained success.

It is barely mid-August and we are only at the top of the stretch with more than 45 games to play. Arizona just won its first regular season series since 2018 over the defending champion LA Dodgers. They needed a gritty 115-pitch 7-inning outing by LHP Eduardo Rodriguez in the Sunday rubber match - it was a resilient team effort after losing an extra-inning heartbreaker on Sat night.  With the Dodgers leading 1-0 in the bottom of the 9th, closer Edwin Diaz, just back from injury, gave up back-to-back triples to tie the game.  But the Snakes couldn't bring in the winning run and Shohei Ohtani broke the tie with a 10th inning single. Unheralded reliever Jack Dreyer got the save for LAD.

I do not believe that a three-peat is a shoo-in for LAD.  Age is creeping up on their roster.  Mookie Betts maybe is showing it the most, followed by Max Muncy, and Freddie Freeman a little less. I think Dave Roberts is a great manager because he understands the heartbeats of his players as well as anyone in his profession.  (In the late Scott Miller's marvelous book about managers SKIPPER, Roberts called his job two parts being a baseball man and one part being an emcee.) LAD still features the versatile grinding old pros Tommy Edman and Kike Hernandez, the latter just back from serious injury.They will be forces to reckon with but teams like the Cubs and certainly the Brewers and maybe even the Dbacks, Cardinals, and Phillies could give LAD a run for their money. 

I also don't think a lockout that wipes out a big chunk of the 2027 season is inevitable either. But at this point in time, neither the MLB owners nor

the MLBPA leaders feel like negotiating.  So I'm all for enjoying the intense action that will intensify as we approach the climactic days of late September.

As an Oriole fan living in NYC but with a heart still bleeding Orange and Black, I just hope that when the Yankees come into Camden Yards Aug 18-20 and the

Bosox the four days before Labor Day, there are enough Oriole fans in attendance to hold their own against the invading hordes of winnite Yankee and

Red Sox fans.   

The big TCM tip of this post is the Marx Brothers marathon including of course Margaret Dumont - it runs from 1030A W Aug 12 through a 245A Th Aug 13 showing of "Go West"

1030A "The Big Store" (1941) haven't seen it in decades.  Recall Tony Martin singing the "Tenement Symphony" and Groucho singing "Sing While

You Sell" with such lyrics as "Sell that birdie with some Verdi"

12N "At the Circus" (1939) with Eve Arden and "Lydia The Tattooed Lady"

130P "Room Service" (1938)

3P "A Day At The Races" (1937)

*5P "A Night At the Opera" (1935) with hilarious Sig Rumann as Gottlieb the impresario who Groucho tangles with.  And Kitty Carlisle and Allan Jones.  Never

met Kitty but her advice on the secret to her long active life was a beaut:  "Every morning before my yoga, I look in the mirror and say, 'I forgive you.'"

Watch for the brief "Take Me Out To the Ball Game" scene.

*645P "Horse Feathers" (1932) The college football spoof is memorable 

*8P "Duck Soup" (1933) with Louis Calhern as Sylvania foreign minister tangling with the Fredonians 

915P "My Favorite Duck" cartoon short

930P "Animal Crackers" (1930) from whence cometh Groucho's theme for his 1950s "You Bet Your Life" quiz show, "Hooray for Captain Spaulding" ("the African explorer/did someone call me schnorrer?/Hooray, hooray, hooray!")

1120P Bugs Bunny cartoon

*1130P "Monkey Business" (1933) the last one with the doomed Thelma Todd

*1A "The Cocoanuts" (1929) the first one, fresh from the NY stage

230A "Go West" (1939)

One other film of note for sports lovers:

Fri Aug 14 3P "The Fortune Cookie" (1966) Billy Wilder directs Walter Matthau as a cunning lawyer trying to win Jack Lemmon a big legal award for injury

incurred on a football sideline. Some of it filmed at Municipal Stadium, then-home of the Cleveland Browns

That's all for now.  Always remember:  Stay Positive Test Negative and Take It Easy But Take It! 

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!