Last night, the Cleveland Indians rallied for three runs in the bottom of the ninth inning to record a (7-6) win over the Washington Nationals.
It certainly was not the first blown save by Washington closer, Jon Papelbon.
Though the Indians are a good team, the loss comes after a sub par “Wash” homestand, vs less than stellar teams.
I still think the Nationals will win the N.L. East but they are driving their fans and perhaps manager Dusty Baker, a bit bonkers with their play.

No politics, just a note on the two convention cities.
Last week, Cleveland the home of this year’s NBA champions, the Cleveland Cavaliers, hosted the Republican Party national convention.
Currently, Philadelphia, the home of this year’s college basketball champions, the Villanova University Wildcats, is hosting the Democratic Party national convention.
Are basketball and politics strange bedfellows?!

Looking through some pictures, I found one of Norman “Hurricane” Smith.
He did work with The Beatles and had a monster hit with “Oh Babe What Would You Say?”
I had the great fortune of seeing him perform the song for the first time since he sang it on The Tonight Show.
Somewhere I have a tape of the Tonight Sow performance. In fact, it is on You Tube below.
Mr. Smith and the performances were great.

Norman “Hurricane” Smith pictured above.
Click below to view Mr. Smith “Goes to” (singing) “Oh Babe What Would You Say?”
Hurricane Smith – “Oh Babe, What Would You Say?”
I still do not know why Dodgers’ manager Tom Lasorda elected to pitch to Jack Clark with an open base in game 6 of the 1985 NLCS.
Mr. Clark’s home run which essentially clinched the series for the Cardinals, might still be going.
In game 5, Ozzie Smith hit a game ending home run to give the Cardinals a victory and a three games to two NLCS lead.
The NBC graphic had just been posted indicating Ozzie had never hit a home run batting from the left side.
Speaking of the “left side,” in my opinion, that was quite a good speech by Senator Bernie Sanders, last night, at The Democratic Convention.

On ESPN.com now for some time, Sunday’s baseball scores are correctly in place for yesterday but the same scores for all 15 big league games are listed there for Saturday July 23rd. See below.
Saturday, July 23
Above are Sunday’s scores not Saturday but listed as Saturday.

Sloppy Joe’s are good, such reporting and tabulation of game information such as that shown above by ESPN.com is not.
The Baltimore Orioles started last week losing the first three games of a four game series at New York vs the Yankees but ended the week with 4 straight wins and have the best record in the American League by a slight margin at the moment.
They salvaged the fourth game at Yankee Stadium on Thursday afternoon past and won all three home games vs the A.L. Central leaders, the Cleveland Indians.
Baltimore with a (57-40) record leads the A.L. East by a game and a half over the Boston Red Sox and three games over the defending A.L. East champion, Toronto Blue Jays.

Garry Marshall, whom we sadly lost last week, grew up in the Bronx.
As stated in my previous post, he never forgot where he came from and those he knew in the neighborhood.
Naturally, having some excess money, well earned entertaining so many, Mr. Marshall could afford to do so.
However,not many if any, would remember his old group of friends and arrange for transportation and/or lodging for a trip to Garry’s home.
The arranged activity was a recreation of the great times and specifically, the great games they played back in the day.
I said “wow” when I heard that story and a bigger WOW to the life and contribution of the great Garry Marshall.

A true comedic great, the highly successful Garry Marshall died last Tuesday at the age of 81.
I felt in touch with this man who gave us such television as “Happy Days,” “The Odd Couple, ” and “Laverne And Shirley” which co starred his sister Penny, in a positive way in 1975, telling all I can, “Happy Days” went from very good to better than great, with the added time given to the legendary television character, “The Fonz” played by Henry Winkler.
I have incredible memories of watching Happy Days and then game 3 of the great 1975 World Series on a Tuesday night in October, 1975. “Games People Play” by The Spinners rounds out the nice memory and Mr. Marshall’s greatness is all over it.
Marshall was behind that and his family and area backround, having grown up in an Italian family in the Bronx, was evident in his work.
Once on a Sunday morning interview, the day of the New Orleans Saints Super Bowl victory vs Peyton Manning and the favored Indianapolis Colts in early 2010, he talked of putting a couple in a room and hoping for a happy ending, with a kiss. That shaped many of his movies
Now Marshall, who saw the good in life and added to it with his great body of work, also never forgot people he met before achieving great success. In my next post I will recount a fine example.

A reliable “source” informed me that “The Fan,” a long time baseball Giants’ fan dating back to their days as the New York Giants, attended the first two games of the Giants’ series at Yankee Stadium.
The teams exchanged one run wins and I realized things have changed regarding the Fan, who will not attend today’s rubber game of the series.
See in addition to 3 Giants’ titles all since 2010, the Fan has been blessed with grandchildren, all born since I attended a Giants at Yankees game with him in 2002, and that takes priority.
He is family “orientated” (of course the word is oriented!) said the source, as an explanation as to why the Bellman has not helped the source.
Somehow the gods/God/the force that controls these things, has blessed the very selfish Fan and his wife.
I might question this and much else as “Tevya” does in “Fiddler On The Roof,” but maybe the answer is beyond God’s “press kit.” My parents, if they were here, might say, keep my eyes on myself and I will do that, hoping and working and good things might just manifest.

Mr. Hemingway, I believe would be amused by all this, and perhaps surprised (“bells and whistles was said on the radio as I wrote and thought “bell”) that at times the bell tolls in ballparks, subways and other not so obvious places.






























