Lee Lowenfish

Major League Baseball has been celebrating April 15th as Jackie Robinson Day since 1997,  the year that was the 50th anniversary of Opening Day at Brooklyn's Ebbets Field when Jackie Robinson broke baseball's 20th century color line by starting at first base for the Dodgers.

Thanks to a suggestion by future Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr., every player now wears the number 42 on April 15.  (I'm glad I'm not an inexperienced official scorer on that day.)

This year I decided shortly before Apr 15 to visit the newly opened Jackie Robinson Museum on 75 Varick Street in downtown Manhattan at the corner of Canal Street not far from the Holland Tunnel. (Varick is the extension of 7th Avenue South).   

The modern 20,000 square foot museum is well-equipped with all kinds of devices that bring to life the story of Robinson's event-filled 53 years as ballplayer and civil rights pioneer. They should especially appeal to the youngsters who may have just heard the name of Robinson in a book. 

Robinson received many letters from admirers who were awed by his courage. Among the more traditional exhibits was a letter to "dearest Jackie" that came from a sophomore in a segregated high school in Johnson City, Tennessee. He wrote his hero that he was following his every move, he was playing first base, and hoped to one day follow in his footsteps at UCLA. (Of course, Robinson only

played first base in 1947 and then moved to second and later third base.) 

A museum visitor can also click a button and watch such notable people as pitcher Carl Erskine  - who at 95 is the oldest of Robinson's surviving teammates - tell the story of how Jackie "literally changed the face of America." He calls it "a piece of history I was glad to see." 

(For more on Carl Erskine's remarkable life story, check out "The Best We've Got," Indianapolis film maker Ted Green's full-length documentary now available on DVD. It is narrated by Long Island native Charlie Steiner, LA Dodgers broadcaster and former Yankees broadcaster.)

As a Branch Rickey biographer, I was glad that letters from Rickey and Robinson are exhibited that show the genuine paternal relationship that existed between the two Type-A personalities who changed the face of baseball and this country. 

The Jackie Robinson Museum is open Thursday through Sundays from 11-6 PM. I highly recommend a visit.

PRELIMINARY THOUGHTS ON THE SEASON SO FAR:

As for the first few weeks of the 2023 baseball-history-in-the-making, the old adage remains very true.  You can't win a pennant in April, but you sure can lose one this early even during a time when 12 of 30 teams make the post-season.   

I have been increasingly concerned about the disparity between haves and have-nots in today's MLB.  2022 was the first year in MLB history that four teams finished with 100 or more wins AND four finished with 100 or more losses.  

I have doubts that there will be that many 100 game winners in 2023, but the outlook sure looks grim for Royals, Nats, Rockies, and especially A's who seem destined for Las Vegas. It's one thing to support the short season of football and a longer but not baseball-long hockey season. That MLB will be

successful in Las Vegas is hardly a slam dunk. 

As an Oriole fan, I am happy that before games on Friday Apr 21, we are four games over .500 which is where we finished 2022.  It will all come down to pitching and defense and just enough offense for Baltimore and all teams.

I will have more to say about 2023 developments in MLB and on the college baseball front in the

next post. Also I'll share some highlights from the round of interviews I've been doing for my new book on scouting. You can order BASEBALL'S ENDANGERED SPECIES on the main page of this blog. 

That's all for now.  Always remember:  Take it easy but take it, and these days especially remember:

Stay positive, test negative.  

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Copies of my fifth book, BASEBALL'S ENDANGERED SPECIES: INSIDE THE CRAFT OF SCOUTING BY THOSE WHO LIVED IT (University of Nebraska Press, official pub date April 1), arrived at my doorstep a few days ago. To open that box was an amazing feeling, seeing years of work and doubt turned into a handsome hardback with legendary scout Tom Greenwade on the cover. 

As readers will find out, Greenwade famously signed not only Mickey Mantle but among others Hank Bauer and Bill Virdon for Yankees and Rex Barney and Cal McLish - Calvin Coolidge Julius Caesar Tuskahoma McLish - for Brooklyn Dodgers and gave thumbs up to Jackie Robinson after seeing him play for Negro League Kansas City Monarchs.

The calendar has turned to March and starting on the 13th I'll be in Sarasota to check in on Orioles spring training, listen to some of the music at the Sarasota Jazz Festival, and take in the lush scenery for a few days in and around Florida's most interesting city. 

It's my first visit to Sarasota in twelve years.  I'll never forget chatting in 2011 with three generations of fans while sitting in the left field pavillion at renovated Ed Smith Stadium. It was during an Orioles-Phillies exhibition game. It turned out the father of an avid 10-year old fan was slugger Ted Kluszewski's grand-nephew. 

His father-in-law happened to be a Madison (Wisconsin) West High School graduate as was Wisconsin Badger forward Keaton Nankivil (one of the great names ever in sports). 12 years ago Keaton and his

teammates were a lock to be entrants in March Madness. By 2014 they made the Final Four and in 2015, the Final Two only to lose to Coach K's Duke. 

I will never forget how Kryzewski, mercifully retired now, openly addressed the officials on national TV at halftime urging them to call more fouls on the Badgers. They complied and not long after the title went to the Blue Devils, one of the referees was led into retirement.

This year, the Badgers may miss the tournament for only the second time in an almost a quarter-century.  At least, they may have found a coming star in first-year guard Connor Essegian, who is not only the grandson of Chuck Essegian, who played in the Rose Bowl for Stanford and homered in the 1959 World Series for the Los Angeles Dodgers.  On his mother's side, Connor E. is related to Robin Yount. 

New Wisconsin athletic director Chris McIntosh, a former football lineman under Barry Alvarez, recently told fine Madison sportswriter Jim Polzin, that cager coach Greg Gard's job is safe for at least a couple of years. I hope that's true because Gard deserves the chance to right the ship.  

Getting sophomore point guard Chucky Hepburn's head in the right place is an important task ahead for Gard.  As well as getting his recruiters to find more able front court players and bring them to Madison.

The Big Ten regular season is a fierce mosh pit and no wonder that no team in what is really The Big 14 has won March Madness since Tom Izzo's Michigan State over 20 years ago.  They beat up on each other for 20 games and then play an intense tournament.  It says here that they are probably too battered to make a good national showing. 

On the other hand, my Columbia women's basketball team brings a 22-4 overall log and 11-2 league record into its final regular season game on Sat Mar 4 at 2p.  It will mark the final home game for three senior starters Kaitlyn Davis, Jaida Patrick, and Hannah Pratt, and four reserves Sienna Durr, Madison Hardy, Lillian Kennedy, and Carly Rivera.  

An interesting sidebar to Hannah Pratt's story is that her brother Michael Pratt was the Tulane University

quarterback that led the 2022 Green Wave to its best season in well over a half-century and a thrilling

victory over USC in the Cotton Bowl. 

I haven't even mentioned the emergence of junior sharpshooter Abby Hsu who is on a watch list for national recognition.  She is an improving defender, too, which is essential for playing in coach Megan

Griffith's fast-breaking fierce-defending system. 

Tickets are going fast for the last Sat home game and are available at gocolumbialions.com  For the third straight season, Columbia will then head for the Ivy League tournament the weekend of Mar 10-11, this year at Princeton where the red-hot defending champion Tigers are determined to hold off Columbia and Penn and Harvard. (In 2024 Columbia will host the tourney for the first time.)

That's all for this post.  But one last note.  Virginia Woolf's "Room of Her Own" is closing

on Sun Mar 5 on the first floor of the main branch of the 42nd Street/Fifth Avenue Public Library.

It might surprise you that Woolf was a great admirer of Ring Lardner's baseball writing. She wrote in 1925 that in an America without an established society, Lardner understood that baseball served that function. 

I didn't see any reference to baseball in the NYPL exhibit, but I was moved by her 1927 thoughts on gender:  "All we can do, whether we are men or women, is to admit the influence, look the fact in the face, and so hope to stare it out of countenance."

I'm also happy to report that the opera "The Hours," based on Michael Cunningham's novel inspired by

Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway," will return to the Met next season with the same all-star cast of Joyce DiDonato, Renee Fleming, and Kelli O'Hara. 

The music by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Kevin Puts reminds me of Samuel Barber more than

Philip Glass who composed the score for "The Hours" movie of 20 years ago.  That's a plus in my

book.  In the NYC area on Fri Mar 17, the opera "The Hours," taped at the Met, will be on PBS.

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