It ought not to be a brain twister to figure why often cryptic me, “leads” with this from Wikipedia.
Stephen Grover Cleveland (March 18, 1837 – June 24, 1908) was the 22nd and 24th president of the United States, serving from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897. He was the first Democrat to win the presidency after the Civil War and was one of two Democratic presidents, followed by Woodrow Wilson, in an era when Republicans dominated the presidency between 1869 and 1933. Cleveland won the popular vote in three presidential elections: 1884, 1888 and 1892. In 1888, Benjamin Harrison won the electoral college vote, and thus the presidency, in 1888, before Cleveland won the electoral college in 1892, making Cleveland the first U.S. president to serve non-consecutive presidential terms,[b] and the only to do so until the expected second inauguration of Donald Trump after having won the 2024 presidential election, following his failure to win a consecutive second term in the 2020 presidential election.
Donald J. Trump Sr. (he opened -130 or so presumably vs Biden, was as high as -270 or so after a certain debate and attempted assassination and an underdog of say plus 120 vs new candidate Harris (her name evokes polls and they proved correct this and most times)–oh the “middle” possibilities in this and most elections, unlike sports the fickle, “prisoner of the moment” mentality of so and too many in this republic is “baked” into the line) did pull a “Grover Cleveland” and win elections 8 years apart after losing one in between.
I confess thinking Cleveland was a Republican (as noted by Wikipedia, he was not) and “vibing” Trump as a Republican, would win much as Ronald Reagan, who played the great pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander, surely named for President Cleveland, in the movie “The Winning Team,” co-starring Doris Day, won 2, of course, consecutive presidential elections, the second now forty years ago.
Perhaps down the road, I will recall a nice brief encounter with Mr. Trump, nearly forty years ago when he was a USFL (United States Football League) team owner and perhaps “channel” him for dating advice.
Stephen “Grover” Cleveland, pictured above and now Donald J. Trump Sr. are the only people to win, lose and then win. U.S. presidential elections. Both did so in 3 consecutive elections, 132 years apart.
Mucho out there, however, digit World Series winning years for teams will follow.
“Holy Esoteric” Andy B.” would fit.
Once again, the Yankees, who have had some bad results for them, in “4” years, (“pretty good” for others– ode to Larry David, a Yankees fan, last I ascertained), failed to title in such. They have never done so, also losing in the W.S. in 1964, “strike season’d denied in ’94 (the denial of best record Montreal Expos is far more compelling but the Yankees also were having an excellent “reg”) and overcome in the 2004 ALCS.
They have 27 World Series wins, an incredible 16 more than the Cards, who are second in baseball annals with 11.
The once Highlanders, who as-they never reached the World Series, also have never won it all in a “5” year. Thus 27 crowns and 8 of the 10 possible digits.
The Cards also have a “confined” title digits year history (cue Pat Sajak, seen at the most recent W.S. and not given it all (Why?) Ryan Seacrest as for St. Loo–“there are” three “4’s–’34,’44 and ’64 and (there are) three “6’s” –’26, ’46 and 2006, two 2’s (’42 and ’82) and also two “1’s” –’31 with John “Pepper” Martin standing out and 2011 highlighted by David Freese’s incredible clutch hits. Add one seven (’67 with Mr. Gibson winning thrice and you get a compact, only 5 digits for 11 crowns.
I will stop there only to return with different “digits stories” for the next 4 on the most titles list (the A’s and Red Sox with 9 and the Dodgers and Giants with 8).
Click below to view David Freese’s beyond clutch, 2 out 2 rbi triple B9 of #6 in the 2011 W.S.
Oh the charm, wit, beauty and sex appeal (did you see “Young Frankenstein?”), which I did just days before Ms. Garr, an incredibly talented performer, for whom the above compliments are intended, died too young at age 77.
Yes, “another blow but that how it go” ode to Curtis Mayfield “Freddie’s Dead,” lighter note Freeman is Series “Most Valuable”), however, some Garr moments, especially those of banter on talk shows and maybe another tribute from one closer to Shakespeare will help.
Teri was also an ambassador in the cause of helping those victimized by multiple sclerosis, something, I knowing someone, who bravely battles it, now from a home away from her home, endears me even further to “Talented Teri.”
She was/is so much more! Additionally, I will have more as saved memories become available. For now, click below for an appearance on Mr. Letterman’s show.
Teri Garr, truly memorable and great in such films as “Young Frankenstein” (What hump?), and “Tootsie” plus so much else, is pictured above.
The Los Angeles Dodgers, down (5-0) and sans a hit entering T5, rallied for 5 unearned runs in that frame and 2 more, also a bit, not quite as fortuitously, T8, those being the final runs of baseball 2024, as L.A. won #5 (7-6), taking the W.S. vs the Yankees (now (27-14) in W.S.), in 5. games.
Freddie Freeman had one of the greatest World Series ever, getting 12 rbi’s, tying Bobby Richardson’s mark set in defeat in 1960, getting big rbi hits in all 4 Dodgers’ wins, highlighted by the series’ most important play, a game ending, grand slam home run, yielding a (6-3) L.A. win in the opener.
It is the Dodgers’ 8th title, first in a full season since 1988 and just the second since Sandy (Koufax) shutout the Twins, (their only home W.S. loss-they are (11-1) riding that to a (2-1) W.S. mark) at Minnesota in 1965.
This is the 6th time the Dodgers clinched the crown on the road and the third time they did so at still venerable but not quite as in the past, Yankee Stadium. Only once, again with Sandy pitching a complete game (2-1) clincher have the Dodgrs clinched a W.S. at home. Their other crown was finalized on a neutral field in 2020.
In the 5 run L.A. 5th, in addition to Yankees’ errors, Mookie Betts, Freeman and Teoscar Hernandez delivered 2 out rbi hits, the latter two, of the two run variety to tie the tilt at 5.
Then T8, trailing (6-5) the Dodgers got “one base advances” in 5 straight at bats, with sac flies to Judge (he homered but made a key error and Soto says he is open to all 30 teams but ……) by Gavin Lux and Betts (his third title in the last 4 even years, all 3 in World Series involving the Dodgers, his Red Sox 5’ing them in 2018 and their “bubble,” not so hot title in 2020).
That 2018 W.S. ended with starting pitcher Chris Sale pitching a 1-2-3, B9 up (5-1) and his Red Sox team up (3-1) in the series vs the Dodgers.
Last night, another starting pitcher, Walker Buehler, the #3 winner, 2 nights earlier, hurled a 1-2-3 B9, up just a run giving L.A. the 5 games series triumph, just the second time in 41 W.S. that the Yankees lost in 5 games. (The other was in 1942 when the Cardinals (a distant second to the Yankees who have 27, with 11 titles) came to New York (1-1) and won all 3, actually winning the last 4 of that series and taking it in 5. The next year the Yankees “reversed” matters, winning the series 4 games to 1.
Finally, in the game that made it 25 of 25 that a team up (3-0) in the World Series not only won it but did so in 5 games or less, credit winning pitcher Blake Treinen, for 2 and one third scoreless innings.
World Series MVP, Freddie Freeman, pictured above, won #1 with a game ending grand slam, “solo’d” to put the once Brooklyn team up (4-1) in an eventual (4-2) #2 win, the least but still important hit of his incredible series.
Continuing, Freddie “set the tone” in #3 hitting a first inning 2 run homer in an eventual go up (3-0) win. Last night his team down (5-1) Freeman lashed a 2 rbi hit. He hit a 2rhr T1 in the lone L.A. loss that in game 4.
The Yankees forced a 5th, becoming just the fourth team in twenty-five possibilities, to win #4 of a World Series, when trailing 3 games to none.
None of the previous three won game 5.
Anthony Volpe’s grand slam home run B2 transformed a (2-1) L.A. lead into a (5-2) Yankees’ lead they held (5-4), (6-4) before a 5 run 8th yielded an (11-4) final score, in what I say admittedly, somewhat nervously, I am far from sure was an aberration game.
Why, Jack Coombs, pictured above.
Let me “E.B. (Elizabeth Barrett) Browning it,” and count/cite 2 “ways.”
I knew the ’37 Yankees (by the way the Yankees (8-3) vs the Dodgers in W.S. play and of course that will change one way or the other, have swept 8 W.S. while being swept three times — 8 and 3 and that remains) and ’70 O’s, in the appropriately named “Brooks Robinson Series” had lost #4, before gaining the title in #5) but needed just a tad of research to ascertain the other team to lose #4 up (3-0) was (were?) the 1910 Philadelphia A’s.
Jack Coombs had one of baseball’s greatest pitching seasons in 1910 going (31-10) with a microscopic 1.30 Earned Runs Average.
He capped, again arguably baseball’s greatest pitching season (remember Mr. Gibson (22-9) 1.12 E.R.A. and wins vs the Tigers in #’s 1 and 4 did lose to a third Mickey Lolich win in #7 in ’68), by winning 3 games in the 1910 World Series, #’s 2, 3 and 5, the latter two on respective one and two days rest.
Alas Coombs is not in the “Hall” and Lolich is not even on the Tigers’ (honorary) wall. Trust me, many nowhere near as good and surely not as impactful, are honored. Que lastima!!
The Dodgers, playing on the 43rd anniversary of their game 6 clincher at Yankee Stadium the last time they faced the Yankees in the W.S. , won there (at least, say around 167th St. a bit north of 161st where they won in ’81, but face it, lost so many times) last night and tonight will bid for their second World Series sweep, that attained in 1963,also vs the Yankees.
Freddie Freeman, the game 1 hero and very likely series MVP, “set the tone” in #3 with a 1 out 2 run home run off losing pitcher Clarke Schmidt (he has two Philly names Clarke as in the Flyers’ Bobby and a surname the same as the Phils’ Mike), while Walker Buehler hurled 5 shutout innings and got the win.
Mookie Betts, who also tuned in the third Dodgers’ run, T3 with a bloop single, and T.Hernandez made big defensive plays for L.A.
Freeman who homered in the last two games of the 2021 World Series (his Braves lost another in a long line of Sunday post-season tilts, failing to clinch at home in #5 but won at Houston to “title” in #6) tied George Springer of Houston, now with Toronto, (if only as with hockey ‘they’ would allow Canada), who also HR’d in 5 straight Series tilts, (#’s (4-7) vs L.A. a series Houston won at L.A. in #7 (Springer MVP) and the opener vs eventual winner, of the all road teams, ’19 World Series, Washington (Nationals).
George Springer, pictured above.
A Sixth (2-0) World Series in the last seven Yankees/Dodgers final rounds/W.S. has manifested after L.A. doubled the Yankees (4-2) in #2 to take a (2-0) lead in this the 2024 World Series, the 120th such event.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto hurled 1 hit 6 and one third innings “ball,” while Tommy Edman, T. Hernandez and #1 hero Freddie Freeman, all homered accounting for all 4 L.A. runs, as they won #2 (4-2) to lead the Yankees (2-0).
However, be warned Mr. Ohtani left with an injury that might keep him out and that in 4 of the previous 5 (2-0) Yankees/Dodgers World Series, somewhat incredibly, the trailing team won four. (The Dodgers “overcame” as Brooklyn in ’55 and in strike marred ’81 while the Yankees did so in ’56 and ’78).
Other than the 1921 New York Giants doing so in the last of 4 best of 9 W.S.— the others occurring in 1903, 1919, 1920,– no team overcame a (2-0) World Series def,icit until the Dodgers did so in 1955.
There have been 10 in best of 7 World Series, seven involving either the Yankees or Dodgers, as stated, 4 vs each other and 7 again, the operative #, as seven times a team lost “el” first two at home but triumphed.
Meanwhile thrice, (the ’85 Royals vs the intra-state Cardinals with Andy B. seen in his role for ABC on the field after #4–go to “Tudor Completes Shutout” on You Tube and see me con hair, some speed and in a black sweater “get” John Tudor and also Tito Landrum for Reggie (Jackson), ’86 Mets vs the Red Sox and in ’96, Yankees winning vs the Braves), a team lost the first 2 W.S. games at home but came back to win.
Tommy Edman, the NLCS MVP, is pictured above.
The Dodgers rode Freddie Freeman’s 2 out, bottom 10, grand slam home run to a (6-3) win over (imagine having under or for that matter, the Yankees on the runs line–) the Yankees in the 2024 W.S. opener.
L.A. now (3-2) as L.A. , vs the Yankees in W.S. openers (5-7 counting their (2-5) record in such as Brooklyn), trailed by that “ditto/above” (o.k. (3-2)score, entering the bottom of the tenth, after Jazz Chisholm essentially “stole” the go ahead run for the Yankees– T10.
Facing the Yankees’ 5th of 6 pitchers and eventual losing pitcher, Cousins, the Dodgers’ Will Smith who if you “will,” earlier “slapped” a sac fly yielding (1-0) L.A. , but could not repeat such, in the same man on third/1 out “sitch,” with L.A. down (2-1) B7 flew out to Soto in right. (Soto’s throwing error and perhaps failure to catch Ohtani’s B8 double was “part and parcel” of L.A. finally scoring when they did not even need a hit to do so).
The L.A. 7th inning failure cited above was after L.A. manager, Roberts outraged me (no second guess, I was emphatic that you do not “sac” in that situation) having K. Hernandez sacrifice, as he Smith popped out and L.A. failed to tie, what was a “twists and turns” baseball classic, almost certainly, yielding big ratings for the Fox Network.
Back to bottom 10 as Cousins “sinned,” walking Lux, who had failed 2nd and third 2 outs in that B7.
Next Tommy Edman, the NLCS MVP, singled off defensive replacement Cabrera’s glove with Lux getting only to second, after falling not far from it, likely on his way to making it to third.
Boone summoned left handed pitcher Cortes, a decision with which I had/have no problem, to face lefty hitting Ohtani and after Verdugo in left, ran toward the line and caught Ohtani’s fly ball, a la Sandy Amoros for Brooklyn vs Yogi (Berra) and the Yankees on the one occasion the Brooklyn Dodgers “titled,” some 69 years in the “rearview.”
However, unlike Amoros, Verdugo fell over the rail (that moved each runner up a base) and it also did not manifest in a happy ending for the Yankees, who intentionally walked Mookie Betts, before Freeman, with Fox cameras again “staying on the batter,” not where the ball was going, hit a “no doubt” game winning home run.
Amoros saved the decisive 7th, this was game 1. Freeman’s obviously super clutch blast does evoke memories of Kirk Gibson hitting an also 2 outs/ 2RHR, B9 that lifted L.A. (5-4) in the ’88 W.S. opener en route to their lone full season crown, since Sandy (Koufax) shutout the Twins in game 7, of the 1965 World Series.
Kirk Gibson, pictured above.
It was/is far more important that the superb pitcher, Fernando Valenzuela, who died days back far too early and eerily before the first Yankees/Dodgers World Series since 1981 when Fernando, more than anyone led L.A. to its first crown, albeit strike affected since 1965, pitched truly well in 4 of his 5 post-season starts than the “Fernando-Mania” all-time pitching he did at his career’s beginning.
However, I start there as Fernando had a brilliant start to his career (8-0)? with less than 1 run per game allowed.
I fondly recall one of those early career starts (May-1981), being at “Big Shea” (Shea Stadium) when Fernie escaped a bases loaded one out bottom first jam, up (1-0) and that is how the game ended, certainly a factor, as the Dodgers won the so called “first half,” thus qualifying for the only pre wild card 8 teams playoffs and eventually won the ’81 crown. (Mike Scott, who 5 years later would have his own brilliant season most notably in a losing NLCS vs the Mets was the Mets’ starter and losing pitcher that night despite an excellent no earned runs allowed/7 innings line).
As stated above, Valenzuela pitched truly well in 4 of his 5 ‘offs starts, going (3-1), winning once each in all 3 rounds– a complete game (what are those?) (2-1) win vs Houston in #4 of the extra round, then going 8 and two thirds innings, with help from Bob Welch, who certainly died too soon, in another (2-1) win to clinch the pennant in the decisive 5th game of the NLCS at Montreal (Expos).
Finally in #3 of the World Series, as was the case in Dodgers’ annals with John Podres in 1955 and Claude Osteen 10 years later, Valenzuela won #3 of an eventual Dodgers’ triumphant World Series, after trailing (2-0) in games. Fernando did so, struggling, but winning a complete game, (5-4) vs the Yankees in 1981.
Fernando Valenzuela pictured above and ex teammate and fellow ’81 title team member, Dave Stewart, who recently and rightfully lamented that the A’s were playing their last game in Oakland, both authored no-hit games on the same day in 1990.
“There was something in the air” (excitement among other good things) when Fernando (Valenzuela) pitched in a baseball game.
Sidenote: as the great group ABBA is heard and seen above and though I was a “Strato” man, this ABBA to baseball link evokes APBA baseball.
Andy B Sports 