Lee Lowenfish

As major league baseball passes the quarter-pole in the 2022 season, both the Yankees and the Mets have solid leads in their eastern divisions.  Neither success is that much of a surprise, but certainly a pleasant experience for fans of New York pro sports who have suffered greatly in recent years with the constant failures of the football Giants and Jets and the Knicks and the Nets.  

 

Expectation was high for the Nets but the Celtics wiped them out in four straight. I must say I almost enjoyed it because I don't like teams built from the top down with expensive free agents, especially one like self-absorbed Kyrie Irving who refused to get vaccinated and missed most of the season.   

 

Another positive development in Gotham this spring has been the emergence of a young and likable New York Rangers hockey team.  They knocked out the Pittsburgh Penguins in the first round in a gripping seven-game series.  They have rallied to tie at two games apiece the Carolina Hurricanes with the pivotal fith game scheduled for tomorrow (Th night May 26).

 

I never learned to ice skate but as a fan of many sports, I say that there is nothing like the intensity of Stanley Cup hockey where there is no doubt that players are going all out to inscribe their name in undoubtedly sports' most captivating trophy.

 

I have never liked the term "warriors" to describe athletes who usually will have another season to try again, unlike real soldiers who may never come home.  But when you see the bloody faces of hockey players and their near-exhaustion, maybe warrior does fit them.

 

I saw my first major league game of the season at New Shea last Thursday afternoon May 19.  It was a dramatic encounter, won in the bottom of the 10th on a long Pete Alonso home run.  

It was very comforting to be in a crowd again - although with Covid-19 still a constant danger, I don't blame anyone for staying away. 

 

It was tonic for my soul to gaze upon the wonderful variety of fan affection for their heroes.  

I saw two Met fans sitting near the home dugout wearing Javier Baez jerseys, a homage to last season's rental who was only here for two months before signing a big free agent contract with the Tigers. (It is one of the season's early disappointments that the Tigers and their rival in the AL Central, Kansas City, are dong so poorly after signs of growth in 2021.)

 

I also saw a Cardinal fan wearing an Allen Craig jersey - a hero of many years ago who flamed out quickly.  An older woman sporting a gray ponytail and carrying a cane honored a more durable Cardinal hero with her jersey, Stan Musial.

 

I have not made a journey to Yankee Stadium yet but on the first Sunday in June, I will see them against the Tigers.  But I've been alerted that the game will start at 1135A as part of MLB's exclusive arrangement with NBC's Peacock streaming service. 

 

How many shekels baseball's moguls are receiving from its deals with "advanced media" is a highly-guarded secret.  It is obvious, though, that the inconvenience of early times to both fans and players was not a concern when MLB made this decision.

 

I mentioned Four Cheers in the title line for this blog so it is time to salute Columbia and Rutgers, two outstanding local baseball teams whose seasons are continuing.  My Lions pulled off a doubleheader sweep at Penn on Sunday May 22 to win their sixth Ivy League title

in the last fifteen years under the steady hand of coach Brett Boretti.  

 

I was a bit uneasy when they ran off 19 games in a row after losing their first series of the season to Penn at home. Baseball gods exist and you don't tempt with long streaks.  Sure enough, Dartmouth broke Columbia's streak in Hanover on the last weekend of the regular season. 

 

Then in the rubber match, the Big Green erased a 10-4 deficit in the eighth inning to win in the tenth inning.   It cost Columbia home field advantage against Penn for the best-of-three Ivy League Playoff.

 

After losing the first game at Penn, 13-4, this past Saturday May 21, the Lions shut down the powerful Quaker offense in the Sunday twinbill by the scores of 4-2 and 9-1. 

 

Nothing exemplifed the balance in their lineup than the 9-1 victory in which leadoff man Cole Hage drove in four runs and number nine hitter Austin Mowrey also drove in four. Coach Boretti's team now have an impressive 18-6 record in elimination games.

 

Down in New Brunswick, Rutgers set a school record with forty-one wins this season and they will have a number 2 seed in the upcoming Big Ten tournament in Omaha. Rain has delayed the opening of the tourney until Th May 26.  

 

Maryland will be the top seed in the 8-team tourney with the winner getting an automatic bid to the competition leading up to the College World Series also in Omaha starting on June 17.  Who said that northeastern baseball can't hold its own against any region of the country? 

 

The sad one note in this blog is the loss of Roger Angell at the age of 101 on Friday May 20.  Beginning in the early 1960s, Angell's thoughtful and beautiful essays on baseball in "The New Yorker" were must-readings for baseball fans who appreciated good writing.   

 

He occasionally guested on my WBAI-Pacifica "Seventh Inning Stretch" baseball shows in the 1980s.  I will never forget his inviting me to the memorial for baseball commissioner Bart Giamatti at Carnegie Hall in November 1989.  Harvard man Angell shared a profound love for the game along with the former Yale classics professor and university president. 

 

That's all for now.  Don't forget Noir Alley on TCM Sat after midnight and repeated at 10A on Sunday.  May 28-29's offering is "Bad Day At Black Rock" (1955) with Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, and Spencer Tracy.  

 

The film is usually labeled a Western but I'm sure host Eddie Muller will inform us about its Noir attributes. Coming up on June 4-5 is a truly classic Noir, "Out of the Past" (1947) with Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer.

 

Always remember: Take it easy but take it! 

"You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops." So wrote the late Bart Giamatti, baseball commissioner and onetime Yale professor and university president, in his classic essay "The Green Fields of the Mind."

How consoling are these words as Daylight Savings Time has ended for most of the country and we are faced with increased darkness until the arrival of the winter solstice around December 21. I watch my share of basketball and football and hockey on TV but it is no substitute for the drama and excitement of baseball.

Of course, we have our baseball memories, near and far, to sustain us. There is no doubt that the Boston Red Sox are worthy World Series winners. They showed it was no fluke that they won the AL East with a team-record 108 victories.

They eliminated the Yankees and defending champion Astros to win the American League pennant, losing only one game in each series. They won a generally well-played often gripping World Series in five games over the Dodgers, a bridesmaid for the second year in a row.

Perhaps the mettle of this year's Bosox squad was best exemplified by its reaction to its only World Series loss, a record-breaking 18-inning seven-hour-plus 3-2 defeat on Max Muncy's home run off Nathan Eovaldi.

Immediately thereafter brilliant rookie manager Alex Cora called a rare team meeting in the clubhouse to congratulate the team's effort. The team applauded Eovaldi's great six-inning effort out of the bullpen when he was listed as the Game 4 starter.
Big run producer J.D. Martinez said it might have been a loss but it was a great experience to compete in such a historic game.

Journeyman outfielder/first baseman Steve Pearce was voted the Series MVP for his batting heroics in the last two games. His solo homer tied Game 4 in 8th inning and his bases-clearing double provided the insurance runs in the 9th.

Pearce's two-run blast in the first inning the next night set the tone for the clincher.
It was a huge blow off losing pitcher Clayton Kershaw because it is hard to overestimate what scoring first means in any game, especially after the Dodgers had lost a four-run late lead in the prior game.

David Price won the final game with seven solid innings. A case could be made for Price to have won a co-MVP award although there were only five voters to assure that there was only one winner.

It was nice to see Price get the post-season monkey off his back because he had failed repeatedly in recent years to come up big in the playoffs. But this year he also won Game 2 with six solid innings and relieved effectively in the extra-inning classic third game.

Vanderbilt University baseball coach Tim Corbin has to be especially proud of his progeny because in addition to developing Price in college, another Commodore rookie Walker Buehler also pitched outstanding ball for the Dodgers.

Before I close, I want to remember Willie McCovey who passed away late last month from multiple ailments at the age of 80. He was one of many players who came up too late to help my first team the New York Giants who left New York for San Francisco after the 1957 season.

Imagine how McCovey and his teammates Felipe Alou and Orlando Cepeda would have fared with the short left and right field fences at the Polo Grounds. Certainly Willie Mays would have broken Babe Ruth's 714 home run record if he hadn't been consigned to the winds of Candlestick Park. At least he experienced five seasons in New York.

McCovey's debut in San Francisco was memorable. I happened to be listening to Les Keiter's recreating of Giant games on WINS radio on July 30, 1959. All Willie did was belt two triples and two singles off another future Hall of Famer Phillies pitcher Robin Roberts.

McCovey may be most remembered for a ball that became an out, the scalding line drive off Yankee pitcher Ralph Terry at Bobby Richardson that ended the seventh game of the 1962 World Series with the tying and winning runs in scoring position.

I prefer he be remembered for the body of his work on his field, including 521 career home runs, tying him with Ted Williams. He was a class guy on and off the field. He was always was accessible to fans and became a revered ambassador for the Giants who wisely named the water area beyond the right field fence at San Francisco's ATT Park "McCovey Cove."

There is a famous 100-year-old deli on the Upper West Side of Manhattan called "Barney Greengrass The Sturgeon King." Though McCovey never ate there, he heard about the sturgeon and had it mail ordered to the West Coast.

There is a picture of Willie in Barney Greengrass's window. I think of Willie "Stretch" McCovey when I stop in at Barney's and always will.

That's all for now. Again remember to express your vote on November 6th if we want our democracy to recover its balance. And never forget: Take it easy but take it!
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