Lee Lowenfish

I have to confess that though I am an ardent fan of the Columbia Light Blue and White, I wanted a playoff game against the Penn Quakers just like last year to decide who will play Dartmouth for the Ivy League title and the automatic NCAA tourney bid.

My love for more good games between good teams was rewarded as both doubleheaders were split, home field advantage meaning little. Columbia did succeed the hard way, losing the first games each day only to reward themselves with close victories in the nightcaps.

The Quakers and Lions are so evenly matched that no team this weekend ever led by more than three runs. So this Saturday May 2 there is a one game playoff at Columbia to decide who meets Dartmouth, winners of the 14 in a row coasting to the northern Rolfe Division title, on May 9-10 for the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.

College baseball in the Northeast remains a niche sport, and fields are often hidden away far from campuses. Columbia plays five miles north of Morningside Heights on the northern tip of Manhattan behind the football stadium. Robertson Field at Satow Stadium is a gem with the Hudson River streaming behind the outfield fences. The clatter of Metro-North trains and the whistles of Hudson River Day Line excursion boats add lovely touches.

If Columbia’s field is far away, words can barely describe how remote Penn’s Meiklejohn Stadium stands far from the main campus in Philadelphia. I finally figured out the location on foot by winding my way alongside historic football Franklin Field across two bridges and then down and around a circuitous path alongside a highway to finally reach the stadium located on the Schuylkill River.

One plus about Meiklejohn Stadium is that it possesses a readable electronic scoreboard that records hits and errors. One glaring negative: It does not have bathrooms – just Port-o-Johns.

Now back to the most important subject, game action:
Penn’s two victories in the opening seven-inning contests were led by complete games from senior Ronnie Glenn, a 4-3 victor, and righty sophomore Jake Cousins who won 2-0, holding the Lions to one hit. A fourth inning homer by Ivy-leading home run hitter senior shortstop Mitch Montaldo provided the only run Cousins needed. Columbia junior starters George Thanopoulos on Sat. and Kevin Roy on Sun. pitched creditably in defeat.

In its 1-0 Sat. nightcap triumph, Columbia junior starter Adam Cline pitched six gritty innings despite yielding 9 hits. After giving up a leadoff double, sophomore Ty Wiest retired 9 Penn hitters in a row for the save. Senior dh Joey Falcone drove in the only run with a fifth inning single.

On Sunday the entire Lions team contributed to the victory with every starter getting at least one hit except Falcone who drove in the first run in a 3-run first inning with a sacrifice fly. Sophomore speedster Will Savage, who previously walked four times in a row, started the 10th inning winning rally with an infield single. He raced home on junior catcher Logan Boyher’s long double to left. Ty Wiest got the save for the second straight day.

One of the joys of watching Ivy League and small college baseball is that you see the players grow from year to year. Baseball remains the most difficult game of all to master and it is wonderful to see how these young fellows try to do it. Here’s to them and their coaches, Columbia’s Brett Boretti and Penn’s John Yurkow, and their parents who have spent countless hours and significant family funds to give their offspring the chance to create memories and friendships to last a lifetime.

A FEW CLOSING THOUGHTS ON THE PROFESSIONAL FRONT:
My intuition that the 2015 MLB season would be hard to predict has certainly come true in the early going. My only hope for your teams, including most definitely my Orioles, is that they stay in sight of .500 into May.

As of Monday morning April 27, 2015 only the Milwaukee Brewers at 4-15 have dug themselves a significant hole, 9 games behind St. Louis. But the loss of the Cardinals ace Adam Wainwright might bring the soaring Redbirds down to an earth in the highly competitive NL Central. The Cubs with the influx of their highly touted rookie infielders Kris Bryant and Addison Russell might hang tough as I think so will the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The Joe Maddon-less Tampa Rays under new skipper Kevin Cash are tied with the Yankees at 11-8 but the tailing Orioles and Blue Jays are only two games behind with the Red Sox definitely in the mix. However, as someone not enamored with but reluctantly accepting the DH, I am offended by the Bosox having two DHs as key players - David Ortiz and Hanley Ramirez who on paper is purportedly playing left field.

The Mets have built a 7-game cushion in the NL East with the surprisingly underperforming Washington Nats in the basement. But there is a long long way to go. My advice remains enjoy these wonderful days of spring with increasing daylight until late June and games every night to enthrall you and yes occasionally infuriate you.

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

YIBF (Yours In Baseball Forever),
TENY YMOTA (The Earl of New York, Your Man On The Aisle)

PS Teny just saw the musical “An American In Paris,” inspired by the Gershwin score and the Gene Kelly movie. All who love dance and great American music should put a visit to the historic Palace Theatre on Broadway and 47th Street on their calendar.
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It is the first morning of June and time to recount some of the highlights of my May baseball travels. I’ve been to so many games - from Minneapolis to Miami - that I’ve coined a new nom de plume Hyberb O’Lee and a new acronym YIBF – Yours In Baseball Forever.

Before I begin, I do want to give a shout-out to Dallas' Sports Angel Robin Valetutto whose Saturday noon show on KVCE 1160 radio I guested on yesterday. It was the morning after MLB's annual Civil Rights game in Houston. In a moving touch, Robin played a tape of Maya Angelou's reading "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings" as an intro to our interview.

Angelou was scheduled to be honored along with football great Jim Brown and Motown founder Berry Gordy in Houston but she died at age 86 earlier in the week. It was thrilling to have poetry and civil rights (which really should be called human rights) as a lead-in to a discussion of baseball.

And now! the first entry of HYBERB O'LEE'S YIBF BASEBALL JOURNAL!
My May journeys began on Kentucky Derby Saturday with a trip to Target Field new home of the Minnesota Twins. For many years my Baltimore buddies and I rented a van to travel for long weekends to the new ballparks in Cincinnati, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh as well as older major and minor league ballparks.

Now with age and family obligations piling up, our trips have been shorter and fewer. But the Minny trip was a huge success despite the Orioles – showing their unfortunate tendency towards .500-team status – losing both day games to the Twins and their hardly Hall of Fame-quality righties Kevin Correia and Phil Hughes. (Hughes, freed from the pressures of Yankeedom, has actually become Minnesota’s ace . . . so far.)

Target Field is a must-see on any baseball bucket list. It is in downtown Minneapolis not far from the Mary Tyler Moore statue in front of Macy’s. It is easily accessible by public transit. In fact, a Metro train station stop leaves you within a few feet of a statue of Tony Oliva at one of the entrances to the ballpark.

Rod Carew, Kent Hrbek, and former owner Calvin Griffith who moved the team from Washington DC are also immortalized around other ballpark entrances. In front of Hrbek’s statue is a plaque that reads: “I don’t want to win the World Series for me, but for all of the fans of Twins baseball.”

(It's a nice sentiment though the purist in me feels the raging Minnesota crowds inside the Metrodome provided an excessive home field advantage for their World Series-winning teams of 1987 and 1991.)

Sight lines inside Target Field are good. Despite the inevitable advertisements in the facility, a fan’s focus on the playing field can be maintained. Concessions are generally tasty but there are delays at the grills that made this impatient New Yorker somewhat irritated. (Somewhat? Ha!)

In a sign of the times, this sign was posted at several entrances to the ballpark:
“The Minnesota Twins ban weapons on these premises.” Terrorists and sociopaths reading this blog, Take notice!

And now . . . A TRIBUTE TO MY COLUMBIA LIONS!
Their record-setting 29-win season ended on the last day of May with a tough 6-5 loss to the Bethune-Cookman Wildcats in the Miami regional of the NCAA Division I college baseball playoffs. The culmination will be in Omaha and the 8-team College World Series starting on June 14.

Lion fans will never know if the outcome would have been different if ace lefty/tri-captain David Speer had been able to pitch. Alas, the Ivy League Pitcher of the Year underwent an emergency appendectomy a few days before the regional. He dressed, participated in light drills before the game, but could not toe the bump (a lovely phrase I picked up from baseball people about straddling the rubber and going to work on the mound).

His replacement, sophomore George Thanopoulos, held the Texas Tech Red Raiders scoreless in the opening game but after getting out of two bases-loaded jams he was removed after four innings.

Texas Tech wound up winning a taut thriller, 3-2. The winning run came in the bottom of the 9th on a double by first baseman Eric Gutierrez. If any team beat Columbia, I’m glad it was Tech from Lubbock, Texas where the College Baseball Hall of Fame is located and where the next inductions will be held on June 28.

Columbia’s season ended the next day with another tough one-run loss, this time to Bethune-Cookman, the historical black college from Daytona Beach, Florida. The Lions spotted the Wildcats a 6-0 lead but roared back into the game with a 4-run seventh inning.

Dreams of their dramatic comeback against New Mexico in last year’s Fullerton, CA regional were dancing in the heads of fans and players. But Bethune-Cookman reliever John Sever (pronounced Seaver) stifled the rally by getting Columbia’s star senior shortstop Aaron Silbar to pop out to short right field after a dramatic long at-bat.

Columbia narrowed the gap to 6-5 with a two-out 9th inning single by right fielder Gus Craig. But the season ended with cleanup hitter Robb Paller’s lineout to center field.

If coach Brett Boretti’s team had to lose, you couldn’t have had a more fitting last inning where the three outs were all hard-hit liners to the outfield. Though disappointed by the loss, I was consoled that Bethune-Cookman had earned its first regional victory after 16 prior appearances of two-and-out. (In 2013 Columbia won its first NCAA tourney ever with the win over New Mexico.)

Looking ahead, though the Lions have recruited well during Boretti’s nine seasons, Columbia’s three starting seniors and tri-captains will be hard to replace: Speer, Silbar, and iron man catcher Mike Fischer who caught virtually every inning.

Fischer, whose older brother David is a pitcher in the Washington Nationals system, is definitely on the radar of pro teams as a “catch and throw” receiver. After Speer’s last two superior seasons, he certainly could be drafted. Even if he doesn’t break 90 on the radar gun.

Silbar’s career on Wall Street will start shortly but he left a legacy as a timely hitter and as a defensive shortstop/veritable “coach on the field” the likes of which we may not see in Columbia Light Blue and White for a long time.

His parents shared a wonderful memory of 3-year-old Aaron watching intently behind the home plate screen his older brother’s practices. Even then he was a student of the game.

The annual Major League Draft of amateur talent begins next week. More on that and the upcoming inductions into Lubbock’s College Baseball Hall of Fame in the next installments of HYBERB O’LEE’S YIBF BASEBALL JOURNAL.

In the meantime, always remember: Take it easy but take it!
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