Lee Lowenfish

The annual January dinner of the New York Pro Baseball Scouts Association has nicely served in recent years as the unofficial opening of the 2024 MLB season.  At last Friday's Jan 19 gathering at Leonard's Palazzo (formerly Leonard's of Great Neck), guest speaker David Cone set the proper tone early on. "We need the human touch more than ever," he declared. 

 

Cone shared warm memories of the Kansas City Royals area scout Carl Blando who signed him after high school in the KC area.  Like all the best scouts,

Blando kept tabs on his signee as he worked his way up the ladder.  When Cone bought a fancy car with his $17,000 bonus and didn't report the money to the IRS, Blando helped get him out of tax troubles.

 

Carl Blando lived until 2018 and was part of a great Royals scouting tradition that saw them become a contender faster than any expansion team under the leadership of Art Stewart and others. I was glad to devote a chapter to this story in my recent book on scouting, BASEBALL'S ENDANGERED SPECIES.

 

David Cone, now an effective broadcaster after his long successful career in the majors, noted, "My whole education was the minor leagues." He said that he missed almost two full seasons because of a knee injury incurred when he was running in from the mound to try to block home plate.

 

Longtime scout Jim Cuthbert was presented with the Jim Quigley Service to the Game award (I was blessed to receive the honor in the name of former scout Quigley in 2010). A Brooklyn native who became a walk-on catcher for St. John's of Queens, Cuthbert described himself as someone who started with no connections in the game beyond being an ardent listener of Mike and the Mad Dog on WFAN 660 AM in NYC when it went on the air nearly 40 years ago. 

 

Cuthbert worked his way up the scouting ladder to become an advance scout for Terry "Tito" Francona's Cleveland Indians. He was in awe of one of the giants of the game, but Francona assured him, "Your work [your scouting reports] is your ticket into my office."  After recently working for the Marlins, Cuthbert begins a new position in 2024 with the Royals. (Francona, plagued by illness, has now retired and will be replaced by rookie manager Stephen Vogt.)

 

The Turk Karam Scout of the Year award-winner was Matt Hyde, longtime northeastern area scout for the Yankees. "Show up and do your work," Hyde advised. "If you do what you love, you'll never have to work a day in your life." He added, "The lessons never stop."   

 

Hyde is also a Michigan Wolverine as well as a Yankee, and Rich Hill, a Massachusetts-bred and fellow Michigan grad, came to honor his homeboy.  Now 43, Hill has played for 13 MLB teams but not ready to retire.  He is not in a hurry to sign for 2024 because he wants to see his 12-year-old son play his final season of Little League. (Fans often forget how much players miss in their family lives because of the demands of the long long season.)

 

Along with Red Sox scout Ray Fagnant, an earlier winner of the Karam award, Matt Hyde has run a summer program that since 2012 has brought high school and young college prospects to the Northeast for several days of clinics and then a concluding game at a top-level pro ballpark.  Hyde listed the remarkable number of players who have gone on to pro careers:  102 have made the majors, 57 were first-round draft choices.

 

Hyde introduced to the audience Jen Mead, widow of Yankee scout Kelly Rodman who passed away in 2020 at the unconscionable age of 44. Mead runs The Kelly Rodman Baseball Foundation and the final game of the summer clinic program is called the Kelly Rodman Memorial Classic. For more on this worthy enterprise, check out jen@thekellyrodmanfoundation.com 

 

Rodman had been a huge advocate for Yankee shortstop Anthony Volpe, the team's number one draft choice in 2019.  "Kelly is the angel in the outfield looking down on me," Hyde quoted Volpe. (Readers of this blog will know how much l like the 1950 original film of that name - I spoke about it at last spring's Symposium on Baseball and American Culture at the Hall of Fame).

 

l am very pleased that the story of Hyde and Fagnant's program and Rodman's inspiring exhortation to players, "Be Great Today!", made for the closing story in BASEBALL'S ENDANGERED SPECIES. 

 

NOW . . . HERE'S A MISCELLANY ABOUT RECENT EVENTS:

**Shame on those Chicago Bulls fans who on Fri Jan 12 booed the presentation of the Ring of Honor to the late Jerry Krause, the mastermind behind the Bulls' dynasty in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Krause was instrumental in the Bulls' drafting Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen and trading Charles Oakley to the Knicks for Bill Cartwright (who BTW was from Elk Grove California near Sacramento and was a fine baseball player until one of his scholastic basketball coaches made sure he stuck to the hard court game.) 

 

Because Krause never stroked the press, he was scapegoated for the Bulls' fall from grace after the retirement of their key players.  The boorish behavior earlier this month brought Krause's widow Thelma to tears, an awful stain on what should have been an elegiac evening.  Krause finished his career scouting for Yankees and then Mets and always said that he loved baseball even more than basketball. 

 

**The news yesterday Tu Jan 23 of Adrian Beltre's election to Cooperstown was no surprise.  His numbers certainly were overwhelming - 3161 hits, 477

HRs, and he and Derek Jeter are the only Hall of Famers in the 3000 hit club to win 5 Gold Gloves. 

 

Todd Helton and Joe Mauer's enshrinements - Mauer during his first year of eligibility - are a little more problematic. Helton had been scrutinized for playing home games in Denver's Coors Field, but ultimately his overall stats made the case for him:  2131 hits and an OBP (On Base Plus Slugging Percentage) of .855 higher than Hall of Famers Tony Gwynn, Eddie Murray, and Dave Winfield.  In a very rare accomplishment in recent years, Helton also finished with a positive walk:strikeout ratio, 1335:1173. 

 

Minnesota's Joe Mauer played only 7 years behind home plate before concussions forced his switch to first base where he never supplied the power expected of that position. From the same St. Paul, Twin City of Minneapolis that has produced three other Hall of Famers, Paul Molitor, Jack Morris and Dave Winfield, Mauer was a home town hero who never played for another team. Helton, who also starred in football at U of Tennesee, was a lifelong Colorado Rockie. 

 

It says here that if playing for one team only is now considered a valid reason for selection, maybe the chances for Don Mattingly and Thurman Munson have been enhanced. In any event, kudos are due Josh Rawitch, top executive at the Hall of Fame, for making the announcements on MLBTV in both Spanish and English.  

 

Before I sign off, let me mention three passings in recent weeks not connected to baseball but these octogenarians lived lives worth remembering.

 

**Gus Alfieri, 87, on Jan 1, former St. John's basketball player and author of a fine biography of his coach, LAPCHICK (Lyons Press, 2006). Alfieri became a legendary coach at South Huntington, Long Island's St. Anthony HS and longtime director of a summer All-American Basketball Camp.  If Joe Lapchick, an Original Celtic (long before the Boston pro team took the name) and Knicks coach, said nothing else in his life than "Peacock today, feather duster tomorrow," I would say he led a life well-lived.     

 

**Paul Chevigny, 88, on Dec 11, NYU law professor and noted civil liberties and civil rights lawyer. His book GIGS (Routledge, 1991) contributed to the end of the restrictive cabaret laws. He dedicated it to "Thelonious Monk, JJ Johnson, Billie Holiday, and Buell Neidlinger, and all the other good musicians who had a problem with NYC cabaret laws." 

 

**Jay Clayton, 82, on Dec 31, improvisational vocalist with a lyrical gift. Her live rendition of "Young and Foolish" (from the 1950s musical set among the Amish, "Plain and Fancy") was as beautiful as anything I ever heard.  (I first heard the tune on Bill Evans' early album "Everybody Loves Bill Evans."  Barbara Cook performed in the original production of "Plain and Fancy" but she doesn't mention the song in her informative and often very moving memoir "Here and Now" (2016). 

 

That's all for now.  Always remember: Take it easy but take it and stay positive, test negative.  

 

 

 

 

 

One of the well-worn yet correct cliches about the immense MLB season is that it is a marathon not a sprint.  Yet as autumn approaches, when there are barely 20 games left to determine division winners and wild card participants. each game takes on added importance. Only the mentally strong can balance the pressure of the schedule with the need to trust your own stuff and understand what you body is capable of doing on the given day. 

 

In the National League, two divisions have been long ago decided, Atlanta in NL East and LA Dodgers in NL West.  They are assured byes in the first round of the playoffs that will begin early in October with a best-of-3 wild card series in each league.   The third division champion doesn't get a bye but plays the third wild card in its league.  

 

For most of this season, the NL Central was surprisingly inept, the perennially contending Cardinals falling to the basement and no other team really excelling. But now two teams are comfortably above .500, the Brewers, before games of Mon Sep 11, leading the Cubs by 4 games and the surprising Reds also with a shot at the last wild card.

 

Defending NL champ Phillies have the lead in first wild card but only two games ahead of Cubs, narrowly holding 2nd wild card by two games over the surprising Diamondbacks who have a slight lead over Marlins with Reds and Giants still alive. 

 

You can't beat the drama of last weekend.  The Cubs salvaged the last game of a 4-game series against upstart Arizona at Wrigley Field.  Balls were flying unpredictably all over the ancient ballpark on Chicago's North Side, everywhere but towards the outfield stands as windblown home runs.  So pitching was at a premium and Zac Gallen, another onetime St. Louis Cardinal rashly traded, threw a complete game victory.

 

To me, the Cubs southpaw Justin Steele has established himself as a legitimate Cy Young contender - unlike Blake Snell of the vastly disappointing Padres, Steele wants to go deep into games and has 16 wins to prove it.  After a late season slump, Gallen may be back in the Cy Young conversation. His teammate, crisp speedy outfielder/leadoff man Corbin Carroll, looks like a Rookie of the Year favorite. 

 

In the inter-league matchup of the Brewers at Yankee Stadium (I must think twice to say "interleague" because I, for one, still consider in my bones Milwaukee an AL team and Houston an NL team), Milwaukee won the series but lost out on a sweep despite reigning Cy Young winner Corbin Burnes throwing a 8-inning no-hitter and closer Devin Williams putting up a zero in the 9th.

 

But the Brewers could do nothing against American League Cy Young favorite Gerrit Cole who threw a 7-inning 3-hitter and the Yankees' first bullpen pitchers kept putting up zeroes. Brewers twice took leads in extra innings but Yankees came back and ultimately won 4-3 in 13 innings.

 

Turning to the AL, the Central division is virtually decided with the Minnesota Twins holding a comfortable 7 1/2 game lead on the sub-.500 Cleveland Guardians.  They will not get a bye but will play the third wild card entrant in that 3-game series with home field advantage.

 

The other two AL divisional races are still up for grabs.  Prior to games of M Sep 11, the surprising Orioles led the perennially contending Rays by 3 games, 4 in the lost column. 4 big head-to-head matchups come up Th thru Su Sep 14-17 in Baltimore. Birds cannot afford to overlook at home 3 games with the disappointing-but-still-potent Cardinals and ditto the Rays playing 3 on the road in Minnesota.

 

The AL West has turned into a three-way tussle featuring defending World Series champion Houston, now narrowly in first place two lost games ahead of both Seattle and Texas.  As I mentioned in my last post, the Astros have likely the easiest schedule playing one series each against the A's and the Royals, teams on their way to over 100 losses.  The return to health of Jose Altuve, Jordan Alvarez, and Michael Brantley really deepens the Astros' lineup. Whether their overall pitching is as good as last year's will be something to watch carefully.    

  

In another dramatic series last weekend, Tampa Bay knocked the Mariners out of first place by winning at home the last 3 games of their 4-game series.  A controversy erupted after Tampa's come-from-behind Fri night victory when George Kirby, impressive young pitcher for the Mariners, emotionally confessed to reporters that he felt gassed after throwing 90 pitches in 6 innings and holding a two-run lead. 

 

He felt that he didn't want to pitch in the 7th and proceeded to lose the lead after giving up a 2-run homer to backup catcher Jean Pinto who like many Rays has emerged from minor league obscurity to be a big contributor.  Kirby immediately apologized the next morning, saying he never wants to be taken out of a game, but it was too late. 

 

The many pundit nay-sayers all over the baseball world, including former pitchers like hotheaded David Wells, branded Kirby as the poster boy for the spoiled 21st century starting pitcher who never wants to go beyond 5 or 6 innings in any game. 

 

I call myself a "lively dinosaur" because I, too, along with a lot of oldtime baseball fans, yearn for complete games by pitchers who want to complete what they started.  Yet I cannot overlook a lot of data that indicates after 100 pitches, pitchers tend to weaken. It was not the case in Cy Young award-winning Corbin Burnes' 8 no-hit innings against the Yankees on Sunday, but he was moved after throwing 109 pitches, 6 short of his career high.

 

Trying to look to the future dispassionately, the big problem is that today virtually every organization doesn't allow any minor league pitcher to work more than 5 or 6 innings. How can you develop major league arms that way?  Learning to pitch when tired to me is the essence of good pitching. And the essence of good coaching should be to teach pitchers to understand their arms and bodies and to help them understand the difference between being simply sore as opposed to be seriously injured. 

 

I know how hard it must be to make this distinction when adrenalin, testosterone, and competitiveness in service to the team all are in the mix.

Since common sense is so uncommon, especially in sports, you can see how this will be a long uphill struggle.  But one worth definitely worth exploring and fighting for sanity. 

 

Before I close this edition, here's a shoutout to another successful Kelly Rodman Memorial All-Star Game held on August 24th, a day early because of rain in the forecast at Worcester's Polar Park, home of the Red Sox Triple-A farm club the WooSox.  Spearheaded by veteran scouts Matt Hyde of the Yankees and Ray Fagnant of the Red Sox, the game features promising high school and college players from all over the country. 

 

The game is the culmination of a late summer program of clinics and intrasquad games that in its 14 years of existence has sent three dozen players into pro baseball.  Since 2020, the game has been dedicated to the memory of Yankee scout Kelly Rodman who rose quickly in the organization to become an advocate for amateur players like promising rookie shortstop Anthony Volpe.

 

She left us far too early at 44 years old, but her exhortation to aspiring players, "Be Great Today!," sums up the fiercely optimistic spirit that any successful player must exude.  I believe that telling her story was a perfect way to end my recent book, BASEBALL'S ENDANGERED SPECIES:  INSIDE THE CRAFT OF SCOUTING BY THOSE LIVED WHO LIVED IT.       

 

That'a all for now.  Always remember:  Take it easy but take it!  And don't forget - stay positive, test negative.