Lee Lowenfish

Groundhog Day greetings from the polar vortex in New York City that has turned this winter into hoping that your long underwear survives and vigilantly taking short choppy steps to avoid disaster on icy sidrwalks and intersections. One consolation, of course, is that spring training is only 10 days away.  And 10 days ago in what I consider the unofficial opening to the new MLB season, I was delighted to attend the 59th annual dinner of the New York Pro Baseball Scouts Hot Stove League at Leonard's Palazzo restaurant in Great Neck. It was an evening as always filled with great camaraderie in spite of the stark reality that traditional eyes-and-ears scouts are "Baseball's Endangered Species." the title of my 2023 book about the mysterious but essential craft of scouting 

I dedicated the book "To Every Scout Who Wrote Down What Players Could Do, Not What They Couldn't Do."  Despite the analytical madness enveloping baseball, the spirit of positivity was in the air at the dinner.  Guest speaker Dave Sims, successor in the Yankee radio booth to John Sterling, spent many years broadcasting Seattle Mariners games (replacing another legend in Dave Niehaus).  Sims knows that he must keep abreast of the latest trend in statistics, but he said, "Grandma listening in Walla Walla is not interested in a hitter's expected batting average" - it's one of the modern stats that drives me crazy, too.  

In receiving the Turk Karam Scout of the Year award, Jim Cuthbert, now with the  Kansas City Royals, gave a spirited endorsement of the New York City scout who has to fight very hard to get into the exclusive ranks of the sport's evaluators. Once a backup catcher at St. Johns University in Queens, Cuthbert knew that playing pro ball was not in his future but he was spotted as a potential good scout by Cubs scout Billy Blitzer who has organized the dinner since the legendary Twins scout Herb Stein handed him the reins. Cuthbert used to work for Cleveland and he was lavish in his praise of manager Tito Francona (now skipper of Cincinnati) who treated him as an equal and read seriously his area scout reports.

The New York Hot Stove League has always honored local coaches and two of this year's award-winners, both from New Jersey, gave memorable speeches (all speakers tonight BTW came in under five minutes!). Don Bosco Prep coach Mike Rooney remembered the awesome feeling when Ralph DiLullo, another legendary scout, first gave him his card, it feeling like a passport to a future career. And how DiLullo mplored him to take care of his arm and wear his uniform the right way.   Johnny Johnson, winningest coach in the history of Brookdale Community College, urged up-and-coming scouts to always praise players when they made good plays.  "You're touching people's lives!" he said.

I couldn't help thinking of a line about scouting from Branch Rickey:  "If he makes a great play, he can do it again."  I am happy that I devoted an early chapter of BASEBALL'S ENDANGERED SPECIES  to Rickey's scouts who learned from and challenged the master.  Speaking of Rickey, one of his great grandnieces, poet and teacher Marjorie Maddox Hafer has just come out for a book for ages over 8, A MAN NAMED BRANCH: THE TRUE STORY OF BASEBALL'S GREAT EXPERIMENT (Loch Ness Books distributed by Sunbury Press, Mechanicsburg, Pa.). It is based on stories that she heard from family members about Rickey's longstanding commitment to racial equality that led to his signing of Jackie Robinson and other players of color. It includes many family photos.

As far as what to expect from the upcoming MLB season, I welcome real games starting in spring training before the end of the month and especially during the World Baseball Classic from Mar 6 through 17.  There is SO MUCH false info out there on the internet about trades and coming signings. Let's wait for real news on that front.  Sadly, more and more established sportswriters are writing about the inevitability of another owners' lockout of players when the current Basic Agreement expires in early December.  I refuse to believe in that inevitability, but more speculation about that in future blogs.   I need to read first what the Atlanta Braves balance sheet looks like because they are the only MLB franchise that must release accurate financial figures because it has legal status as a public enterprise.  

And now it's time to salute the NYU women's basketball team that won its 80th game in a row yesterday Feb 1, a rare one-point nail biter over Carnegie-Mellon of Pittsburgh. The Violets with only one senior Caroline Peper on its roster have been blowing away most opponents.   NYU goes on the road for the next two weekends including a Sun Feb 8 noon rematch at Carnegie-Mellon. They return on Friday night at 730P against Washington U of St Louis that holds the record for most Division III wins but the streak could be history by Feb 20. That's what I love about sports, the unpredictability. Sunday afternoon Feb 22 at noon, Violets play at home U of Chicago,  Only one regular season game left Sa Feb 28 against Brandeis at 3P, preceded by alumni game at 1045A. First round of post-season tourney will undoubtedly be at home in the Paulson Center on FriSa Mar 6-7.   

This remarkable Violets team is finally getting media attention. In an excellent piece the Athletic's Eden Lasse wrote in the Fri Jan 30 print NY Times, head coach Meg Barber, who played for NYU early this century, observed, "Basketball is basketball. Division III does not mean third rate." She added admiringly, "These kids are insanely talented at other things.  But right now, at this moment in time, they see themselves as basketball players."  For more info on NYU basketball where the men's team is also doing very well, check out nyu.edu/athletics

Meanwhile in the Ivy League women's race, my Columbia Lions on Fri night Jan 30 briefly rose into a first-place tie with Princeton by beating the Tigers on their home court, 73-67,  for the third time in the last four years. Unfortunately, the next night at Penn they fell to the Quakers, 66-57, and fell back into second place after Princeton beat improved Cornell.  The Lions play in Ithaca this Sat Feb 7 at 2P and will try to avenge their loss to the Big Red that opened the Ivy League season.  The big rematches with Princeton and Penn will be at home at Levien Gym on Fri Feb 13 at 6P - televised on ESPNU - and against the Quakers on Sat Feb 14 at 5P.  The top four teams will qualify for the Ivy League post-season tournament in mid-March held this year at Cornell.     

There is not much to report about sports in film on TCM in early Feburary except for one special comedy short.

Th Feb 5 1030P. "Baseball Bugs" (1946) Bugs Benny takes on a whole baseball team! 

For Marx Brothers fans, there is the rarely shown:

Su Feb 9 115P "The Big Store" (1941) with Tony Martin singing "The Tenement Symphony"  

The last Noir Alley for over a month as TCM's 31 Days of Oscars commences on March 13 will be

Su Feb 8 12M repeated at 10A "Vice Squad" (1953) an oddity that might be somewhat interesting with Edward G. Robinson/Paulette Goddard

Su Feb 15 2P Hitchcock's "Strangers On A Train" (1951) with memorable scenes taken at the Forest Hills Tennis Club

and at 8P "White Heat" (1949) James Cagney's memorable turn as gangster Cody Jarrett, Virginia Mayo as his moll, and a memorable late cry, "Top of the world, Ma!"

That's all for now.  Stay Positive, Test Negative, and Take It Easy But Take It!

This Oriole fan is not emotionally involved in 2025 post-season baseball. But I must say that the gripping 15-inning elimination game last Friday night (Oct 10) that eliminated the Tigers and propelled the Mariners to the ALCS caused me to post on Facebook: "It is sad that either team has to lose." Both teams, especially Seattle, had many chances to win in the first extra innings but failure to execute sacrifice bunts cost the Mariners two innings in a row.  Finally, former Minnesota Twin Jorge Polanco came through with the deciding single against well-traveled Tommy Kahnle.   It was a tough loss for the Tigers but they certainly bounced back from their astounding collapse in the last three months of the regular season.  (The Mets' decline started in mid-June and cost them a playoff spot entirely.)

From being booed in Seattle when not healthy in 2024, Jorge Polanco is now a household name. I recently learned that he hails from San Pedro de Macoris in the Dominican Republic, the so-called cradle of shortstops going back almost 50 years when Toronto's standout the late Tony Fernandez emerged along with many others.  Polanco, 32, has now found a home at second base where his idol, countryman Robinson Cano, also made his mark.  Sadly, like Cano, Polanco a few years ago served a suspension for performance-enhancing drugs but nowhere near as long as Cano's whose career in MLB is long gone.   

Polanco continued to get big hits in the first two games of the ALCS at Toronto. But it looks like the old canard "Anything can happen in a short series" has come to fruition again as Toronto awakened in Game 3 at Seattle in a 13-4 rout silencing a Mariner crowd eager to root on their heroes to a World Series for the first time in its history - talk about a sentimental favorite, the Mariners are the only one of 30 MLB teams never to play in the World Series. 

I like both Toronto and Seattle as cities and as franchises that entered the AL as expansion teams in 1977.  Toronto became a contender quickly and within a decade were frequent playoff participants under manager Bobby Cox and general manager Pat Gillick.  By 1993 they won it all on Joe Carter's walk-off home run off Phillies closer Mitch Williams. The late Toronto broadcaster Tom Cheek delivered a memorable closing call: "Touch 'em all, Joe, you'll never hit a bigger home run in your life." 

Seattle has also enjoyed a memorable broadcaster in its history, the late Tom Niehaus whose "swung on and belted!" prepared listening audiences for good news. I''l never forget being allowed at a friend's wedding to relay news of the final game of the Mariners' division series against the Yankees in 1995.  Edgar Martinez's game-winning double drove in a flying Ken Griffey Jr. for a victory that in reality helped save the franchise because afterwards voters approved funding for a new stadium to replace the dreary indoor Kingdome. But the 1995 Mariners couldn't beat Cleveland in the 1995 ALCS.

In 2001, they won 116 games with two future Hall of Famers Ichiro (Suzuki) and DH Edgar Martinez. But they couldn't get past the Yankees in the ALCS. Now, 24 years later, they may have the good mix of pitching and defense and offense but I'm glad the Blue Jays, the team with the best regular season record in the AL, didn't roll over in Oct 15's Game 3. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. awakened to go 4 for 4 as the Mariners absorbed a 13-4 loss.  Toronto manager John Schneider managed Guerrero in the minors and he obviously sensed that Vladdy didn't want to be remembered in 2025 mainly for his leading the team to its victory over the Yankees in the ALDS.  Afterwards, along with some of his teammates, Vladdy led a raucous singing of their version of Yankee announcer John Sterling's loud end-of-game call, "The Yankees winnnnn!" - they turned it into "The Blue Jays winnnnnnn!"   Kinda interesting that Guerrero and company didn't know that John Sterling retired a year ago, but after being dissed by still-active Yankee announcer Michael Kay as not being a real first-place team, these Blue Jays can be forgiven their exuberance.   

Milwaukee now faces the same pressure as Toronto, having to win two games in Los Angeles to bring the series back to Wisconsin.  Many times in this blog I have called the Dodgers the Evil Empire West for its huge payroll and advantage in market size including seemingly endless ability to sign the best Japanese players.  But i have to give credit to Dodger front office's evaluation of the lesser lights, the grinders like Kike (Enrique) Hernandez who has been a huge part of their rallies and playing capably all over the diamond.  Ditto Tommy Edman, one of the many Cardinals that outgoing St. Louis "president of baseball operations" John Mozeliak let get away.   It's also hard to root against Mookie Betts who, defying many critics, is playing a great shortstop and is a crucial part of the lineup because no opponent really wants to pitch to Shohei Ohtani batting leadoff in front of Betts.  

All I want is for Milwaukee to make a series out of the NLCS because they have a lot of grinders too and budding stars in their leadoff man 21-year-old outfielder Jackson Chourio and a gritty star catcher in William Contreras.  The Brewers did win the most games of any MLB team so would have home field advantage in the World Series.  Their route to the Series seems obviously threatened now, but here's to a comeback for them and a continued comeback for Toronto.  Then more elimination games to keep winter away!  

In closing, here are a couple of TCM tips, not from baseball but from the rich fountain of other vibrant aspects of American culture: 

Th Oct 16 530P "Harry Warren America's Foremost Composer" (1933) a 15-minute short about the man who wrote "I Only Have Eyes for You," "Jeepers Creepers" (Where Did You Get Those Peepers"), "I've Got A Gal in Kalamazoo" and many other memorable tunes

F Oct 17 12N "The Big Lift" (1950) one of many Montgomery Clift films on TCM this day, with Paul Douglas as flyers in the aftermath of WW II

Sa Oct 18 430P "The World, The Flesh, & The Devil" (1959) I've mentioned this film before on this blog.  Harry Belafonte produced and stars in a film about a nuclear explosion

wipes out all of the US except seemingly Belafonte a steel worker in Penna. who was underground in a mine when the bomb went off.  He drives to an empty NYC and meets Mel Ferrer and then Inger Stevens and you can guess what happens next - a rivalry between two men and a woman.

Sa Oct 19 at midnight/repeated 10A Sun Oct 20. Noir Alley presents "Black Tuesday" (1954) Edward G. Robinson and Peter Graves break out of prison and plan a heist

That's all for now.  I repeat as always:  Take it easy but take it, and Stay Positive, Test Negative!