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"I Love Baseball and I Love Baseball Players": Highlights of the Mid-Atlantic Baseball Scouts Association Dinner

The Saturday before Thanksgiving posed a dilemma for yours truly. It was the last game of the season for my Columbia football Lions, a home tussle with state rival the Cornell Big Red.

A win would mean a 6-4 overall record and a second straight winning season under coach Al Bagnoli in his fourth year at the helm. Already Columbia had earned a record number of 13 wins over two seasons, a testimony to good coaching, good recruiting, and good playing.

However, as I get deeply into working on my next book that will be about baseball scouts, a celebration of baseball’s unrecognized talent hunters trumped alma mater football. So I journeyed on Amtrak to Dempsey’s restaurant in Oriole Park at Camden Yards for the 28th annual banquet of the Middle Atlantic (Major League Baseball) Scouts Association (MASA).

The train was thankfully only a little late and I got to the ballpark in plenty of time for cocktail hour. It’s eerie to walk into a shuttered and empty stadium (no cracks please about how similarly it looked during the Orioles’ 115-loss 2018 season - there is a new management team in place and soon a new field manager and more on that before end of the year).

On this Saturday night Nov. 17, it was wonderful to see the restaurant come alive with the arrival of the scouting community and friends and families. Many generations of scouts were represented and I felt immediately the sense of camaraderie.

Scouts may work for many different organizations but for the most part scouts are collegial not just competitive. There were also many college and high school coaches in attendance, adding to the spirit of cooperation.

Steve Fleming of the Rockies, originally signed as a player by Murray Cook of the Pirates, and Billy Swoope of the Cubs were the 126th and 127th scouts to be inducted into MASA’s Hall of Fame - their names next season will be added to the plaque at Camden Yards.

Mike Siani, a left-handed outfielder from Philadelphia’s Penn Charter H.S., was given the Amateur Player of the Year award. He was a fourth round choice of the Reds in 2018 and will be moving up the team’s minor league ladder.
(MASA's amateur award is named for Nick Adenhart, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim pitcher who was killed in an automobile accident shortly after his MLB debut.)

Tim Adkins, now with the Cubs, delivered the line of the night when he accepted the Crosschecker of the Year award. “I love baseball and I love players,” said the bow-tied scout from West Virginia. Adkins was hailed for his role in signing for Chicago four picks from the Mid-Atlantic area in this past season’s draft.

There are still many cold and barren weeks ahead before the trucks start loading the equipment for the trip to blessed spring training. But nights like this one make me realize again what the continuity of baseball past, present and future is all about.

And before I forget, Columbia did beat Cornell in that game I couldn’t attend. Dramatically too with a 87-yard-kickoff return by first-year wide receiver Michael Roussos. And my graduate alma mater Wisconsin finally showed some winning form with their own come-from-behind triple-overtime victory at Purdue.

That’s all for now. Hope Thanksgiving starts a rewarding season for one and all.
And always remember: Take it easy but take it.
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Dealing With Wisconsin's Bleak First Saturday in December & More Angst In The Life of an Ardent Fan

The undefeated Wisconsin Badgers football team went down on Saturday night Dec 3 to an inspired Ohio State Buckeyes team, 27-21. It marked the third time in four years that the Badgers had lost the Big Ten championship game.

The odds-makers who favored the Buckeyes by 6 or 6.5 points had it right. Wisconsin had not played any team as tough and swift as Ohio State all season. The Buckeyes scored three touchdowns on plays over 50 yards in the first half, tying the number of big plays the vaunted Wisconsin defense had allowed in their 12 previous games.

Though the 21-10 halftime deficit proved too much to overcome, the second half was thrilling and almost classic - if only Wisconsin had mounted a serious threat late in the game to save their unblemished season.

But all game the stout Ohio State defense throttled Jonathan Taylor, Wisconsin’s sensational freshman running back, holding him to just 41 yards in 15 carries, far below his season average. Ohio State's freshman star running back J.K.Dobbins was much more productive and was voted game MVP.

Badger sophomore southpaw quarterback Alex Hornibrook played nobly but didn’t have the arm strength or enough game-breaking receivers to pull off the comeback. His counterpart J.T. Barrett, one week removed from arthroscopic knee surgery, played a savvy game and did just enough with his arm and his challenged legs to lead his team to victory - despite two interceptions including a pick-6 by Badger linebacker Andrew van Ginkel that kept Wisconsin in the game during the first half..

Kudos to the outstanding punting on both sides. I’m a great believer in field position in football and Drue Chrisman of Ohio State boomed his punts deep into Badger territory and kept them high enough to prevent any return yardage. The Badgers' Anthony Lotti for Wisconsin also punted very effectively.

Despite the Buckeyes' victory to claim the Big Ten championship, it was left out of football's Final Four. One-loss Alabama got the fourth seed and will have a rematch with defending champion Clemson in the Sugar Bowl semi-final on New Year's Day. Oklahoma will meet Georgia in the Rose Bowl in the second semi-final.

Ohio State will meet USC in Dallas' Cotton Bowl and Wisconsin plays in Miami's Orange Bowl for the first time on Dec 30 against home team Miami which slumped badly at the end of the year after being undefeated.

Ohio State's 31-point loss to Iowa on the road was held against the Buckeyes and their 16-point loss at home to Oklahoma early in the season didn't help. But the bruising Big Ten plays nine conference games whereas Alabama's vaunted SEC only play eight and pad their schedule with cupcakes like Mercer.

(Alabama didn't even play for the SEC championship losing to Auburn on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. So they are a very dubious selection to the Final Four despite coach Nick Saban's protestations of their excellence.)

To add to the bad Saturday for the Badgers, earlier in the day the Big Ten opened its basketball season with Ohio State trouncing Wisconsin on the Badgers’ home court, 78-53. The Buckeyes led by 23 at the half and opened up a 35-point lead at one point in the second half. Wisconsin falls to 3-5 overall. The loss of four starters from last year's solid tournament team looks more and more ominous.

As if there weren’t enough sadness for an ardent fan of his alma maters, Columbia blew a 10-point lead in the second half and lost at Albany 86-82. The Lions fall to 1-6 on the season, all road games. They finally open their home season against Quinnipiac from New Haven CT this Monday Dec 4. Maybe home cooking will make the difference.

A final shout-out in 2017 is in order for Columbia’s football team that finished with its best record in 21 years, 8-2 overall and 5-2 in the Ivy League good for a second place tie with Dartmouth. Except for its 23-6 loss to eventual champion Yale in New Haven - the Elis’ first outright title since 1980 - the Lions proved they could play with anybody.

Great kudos to the 32 seniors who stuck it out after their winless freshman season under ousted coach Pete Mangurian. The arrival of proven Ivy League winner Al Bagnoli from Penn has made a great difference. Now as Bagnoli has said so wisely, the key will be to stay up there as a perennial contender every year.

Graduation losses will be significant - quarterback Anders Hill, running back Jim Schroer, and punter Parker Thome among them. (Thome BTW is a distant cousin of baseball's possible next Hall of Famer Jim Thome).

But Bagnoli and his recruiting staff seem to building what Earl Weaver and Yogi Berra used to call "deep depth." The prior punters for the Lions are taking advantage of a fourth year of eligibility by punting for top Division I schools - Cameron Nizialek's leg will be on display when Georgia plays Oklahoma and Matthew Nanton will be kicking for Kentucky in the Music City Bowl against Northwestern.

That’s all for now, dear blog readers. Next time there will be real Hot Stove League baseball news and hopefully more informed speculation to write about as baseball’s annual winter meetings convene in Orlando FLA in mid-December. Until then always remember: “Take it easy but take it!”
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