Lee Lowenfish

Happy April, dear readers.  I can now focus again on baseball with the college basketball season over. Kudos to Connecticut, the men's winner over Purdue for a second straight title and huzzahs to undefeated South Carolina copping the women's title over Caitlin Clark's Iowa. In a fascinating development that was driven in large part by Clark's popularity, the women's championship drew far better TV ratings than the men's game. 

 

And now onto to baseball.  It always helps to get off to a good start and rise comfortably above .500 to have a cushion for the inevitable losing streak

that occurs in the long long season. 

 

One of the most pleasant surprises in the first handful of 2024 games comes from Pittsburgh where the Pirates are tied with the Yankees for the best record in baseball at 9-2 (after games of Mon Apr 8). They just won a weekend series against my Orioles thanks to two walkoff victories.

 

In the Sa Apr 6 Pirate victory, another truism about baseball came true: Beware The Traded Player In First Games With New Team. Catcher Joey Bart, once the number two draft pick in the nation for the San Francisco Giants, hit a two-run HR in his first AB as a starter for Pittsburgh.  Bart followed that with a double and even had a chance to win the game with the bases loaded and two outs in the 10th inning but struck out.  

 

Not to worry. The young and improved Buccos won it in the 11th on a single by their budding young star shortstop O'Neill Cruz that scored the ghost runner - the Manfred man - from second base. (Cruz, incidentally, is named for former Yankee right fielder and current Yankee color man Paul O'Neill). Writing with tongue firmly in cheek, I suggest that perhaps freed from the pressures of the Bay area and its BART public transit system (Bay Area Transit System), Joey Bart may find more success in Pittsburgh where the Pirates have used TWELVE catchers in the last two seasons and still haven't decided on a regular. 

 

There are 153 games left in the Orioles regular season so the Prince of Paranoia yours truly will not agonize over the back-to-back walkoff losses.  The Sunday game was marked by brilliant defense by the Baltimore outfield and a wonderful relay throw by Jorge Mateo, new to playing second base, that cut down a Pirate run at the plate. 

 

But with regular Baltimore closer Craig Kimbrel unavailable after working two games in a row, setup man Yennier Cano couldn't hold a 2-1 lead in bottom of the 9th. In a very dramatic ending with two outs and the bases loaded, the winning runs were scored on DH Edward Olivares' hot smash up the middle that Bird shortstop Gunnar Henderson snared with a diving stop behind the second base bag.

 

Last year's American League Rookie of the Year tagged second base with his glove but threw wildly to first and the tying and winning runs scored. 

Running towards second from first base, beefy Rowdy Tellez, not exactly known for his swiftness, made a very smart decision by not sliding into second but came in standing up.

 

MLB has been enforcing obstruction rules against runners who slide too aggressively and Tellez's decision forced Henderson into a difficult angle for his throw to first. Head down after his error, Henderson almost broke into tears, another example of his zealous intensity - perhaps overzealous - which makes him easy to root for.

 

A loss is a loss and the Orioles have slipped to 5-4 as they prepare for Boston's home opener on Tu Apr 9.  After pounding the Los Angeles Angels in the first two games of the season, Baltimore bats have gone very cold. 

 

Some impatient fans are already howling for the immediate callup of some of the sluggers at Triple-A Norfolk who are pounding the ball at record rates. I say it is too early to panic.  The pitching has been excellent and the defense often spectacular, but the bats of such veterans as outfielders Austin Hays and Cedric Mullins and third baseman-second baseman Ramon Urias do need to awaken soon.   

 

The Mets started the season losing 5 games in a row at home before salvaging the second game of a doubleheader against the Detroit Tigers in walkoff fashion.  Going on the road has been a tonic because after winning a weekend series in Cincinnati, they held on to beat the Atlanta Braves, 8-7, on M night April 8.  Brandon Nimmo had 2 HRs and 5 RBI, a career offensive night for the leadoff man.

 

April 8 marked the 50th anniversary of Hank Aaron breaking Babe Ruth's career HR record of 715 and the Mets SNY cablecast team did themselves proud.  Before the game they ran a lengthy excerpt of Kevin Burkhardt's interview in 2014 of Al Downing who threw the fateful home run pitch. 

 

Burkhardt, a graduate of William Paterson University in Wayne, New Jersey who used to do commentary on Mets telecasts and now is the top voice on Fox Sports NFL football coverage, asked probing questions of the classy Downing, a former 20-game winner for the Yankees and their first African-American pitcher.  He finished his fine career with a 123-107 W-L record and 3.22 ERA and later became a broadcaster himself. 

 

Born in Trenton, NJ a year and a day before me, June 28, 1941, Downing made it clear how much he treasured his friendship with Aaron and how much his stoic poise in the face of hatred meant to not only black people in the U.S. but all decent people of any color. Downing recently appeared as an insightful talking head in moving Yogi Berra documentary, "It Ain't Over". 

 

During the game, Gary Cohen and Keith Hernandez invited Dusty Baker into the SNY booth for his remembrances of being on-deck on the night that Aaron broke Ruth's record. Dusty is one of the great raconteurs in the sport and he described how his locker and teammate Ralph Garr's locker were on each side of Aaron.  Hank never talked about the hate mail he got for daring to break Babe Ruth's record, but they could see his concerned reaction to the venomous bigoted words.   

 

Thank you SNY for making it a broadcast that made me feel proud to be both a passionate baseball fan and a concerned citizen that sees the larger good that baseball has done for American society in its pioneering role in racial desegregation. The cherry on the sundae last night was the Mets narrowly holding on to their come-from-behind 8-7 victory.    

 

On the college baseball front, I am happy to report that my alma mater Columbia is riding a 8-game Ivy League winning streak into Homecoming weekend against Yale this weekend April 13-14. At 8-1, the Lions are 2 games up on Cornell (6-3) and 3 ahead of defending champ Penn (5-4)   

 

Columbia's 2014 Ivy League champions will be honored between games of the Sat Apr 13 twinbill with first game starting at 1130P and second game approximately at 3p.  The single game will be Su Apr 14 at noon.  There is no charge for the games played at Satow Stadium/Robertson Field in the Baker Field complex, north of Broadway/218th Street. 

 

BTW After sweeping Dartmouth this past weekend in Hanover, NH, Columbia coach Brett Boretti has become the winningest coach in school history, 351 and counting.

 

St. John's is on a roll, too - 3-0 in the Big East, 22-5-1 overall. 

After playing the April 12-14 weekend at UConn in Storrs (605P, 205P, 105p), the Red Storm host Columbia

in a non-league game on Tu Apr 16 at 330p at Kaiser Stadium in Queens not far from Union Turnpike.

They host Butler of Indianapolis the weekend of Apr 19-21 (6P, 3P, 1P)

The Big Ten's Rutgers come in for non-league game on Tu Apr 23 at 3P

 

Rutgers is enduring a 5-game losing streak and is 1-5 in Big Ten though 19-12 overall.

Tu Apr 9 they head to Seton Hall at Shepard Stadium/Carroll Field at 4p in South Orange NJ in a non-league game.

Weekend of Apr 12-14 Nebraska comes in to Bainton Field in Piscataway at 6P, 3P, 1P

Tu Apr 16 3P Monmouth (from Long Branch NJ) comes to Bainton Field.

Tu Apr 23 6P St John's visits. 

 

Seton Hall is 1-2 in Big East and 17-14 overall but pitcher Ryan Reich nearly threw a no-hitter at Georgetown on Sa Apr 6.   

 

Division III NYU (3-5 in Univ. Ath. Assn., 16-8 overall) returns to the Staten Island Hospital Stadium near the ferry on the weekend of Apr 19-21 to play a top rated Case Western Reserve team from Cleveland (7-1, 21-6).  Fri at 4p, Sa doubleheader 12N & approx. 3p, Su 11A.   

 

And before I wrap up this first April post, here is word of a special Noir Alley ahead on Sat midnight/repeated on Sun 10A April 14:

"The Breaking Point" (1950) John Garfield's last commercial film for Warner Brothers. His testimony before the Red-baiting Hollywood committee

led Warners to cease promoting this film which is a classic and extremely worth seeing. 

 

Directed by Michael "Casablanca" Curtiz, based on the Ernest Hemingway story "To Have and To Have Not".

Screenplay by Ranald McDougall who wrote "Mildred Pierce" and later Harry Belafonte's fascinating exploration of race in a nuclear-destroyed NYC,

"The World, Flesh, and the Devil" (1959). 

Co-starring Patricia Neal as a femme fatale to end femme fatales.

With other fine actors Wallace Ford, Juano Hernandez, Phyllis Thaxter.

The intro and outro will feature commentary by Noir Alley creator Eddie Muller and the late Robert Osborne.

 

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

 

 

 

  

Opening Day in baseball is not as special as it used to be but what is these days? If I had my way, Cincinnati would host the home opener as it often did last century because the Reds franchise is the oldest MLB team, its roots going back to the Cincinnati Red Stockings of 1869.

 

This year MLB actually opened in Seoul, Korea on Mar 20 & 22 with the Dodgers and Padres splitting games. During the Korean trip, the shocking news broke that over $5 million of the bank account of Shohei Ohtani, the Dodgers' new superstar hitter-pitcher, was used to pay off the gambling debts of Ippei Mizuhara, his American-born interpreter/roommate/best friend since Ohtani's arrival in the USA as a member of the Angels in 2018.    

 

After Mizuhara initially told ESPN in an exclusive interview that Ohtani had full knowledge of the payments but the interpreter insisted that he never bet on baseball, 24 hours later word came from Ohtani's camp that the prior interview was inoperative.  Ohtani's people didn't actually use the word "inoperative" in their statement, but it is one of my favorite words from the Nixon White House as the Watergate scandal metastasized over 50 years ago.   

 

The Dodgers quickly fired interpreter Mizuhara and word came out that his resume claiming that he previously had worked for other baseball teams turned out to be George Santos-like in its falsehoods. The team is charging Mizuhara with "theft" of the 5 million from Ohtani's account.

 

How big this scandal becomes is up to how thoroiugh media coverage will be as well as the depth of the MLB investigation which was somewhat belatedly promised. I am among the large group of skeptics who wonder whether such a probe will actually happen given the status of the popular Ohtani who signed in the off-season a $700 million Dodgers contract for 10 years with the money heavily backloaded. 

 

The wits and wags are already having a field day with this story. My favorite so far is: "If Pete Rose had an interpreter, he'd be in the Hall of Fame." (Thanks to Jay Goldberg, creator of the "Memory of America" project taping reminiscences of people's first baseball game, for sharing that beauty.)

 

This case broke in California because it is one of only 12 that doesn't allow legal bookmaking. In the Murphy v. NCAA case decided in May 2018,  a unanimous Supreme Court ruled that the long-standing NCAA edict against players betting on its games violated the constitutional rights of the 50 states.  

 

As a historian needing to stay aware of the decaying civic life of his country, I cannot ignore this story. Yet I remain more devoted to the game on the field and the sagas of those who play this difficult and beautiful game. 

 

So let me turn now to my Orioles' promising start which actually began with a 23-5 record in spring training games, however meaningless the results were. With brand-new onwer David Rubenstein in attendance, Baltimore won its home opener on Th afternoon Mar 28, 11-3, over the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, not exactly a prime opponent. 

 

New ace Orioles starter Corbin Burnes, a 2021 Cy Young winner for the Brewers, gave up a solo home run to Mike Trout in first inning and nothing more in six sterling innings that included 11 strikeouts.  

 

They took a 2-1 lead on Jordan Westburg's timely two-out single in bottom of the first and never looked back. How I love driving in the run from third with two out!  If I have a tombstone, it will read: AT LEAST HE DIDN'T DIE ON THIRD. 

 

Long home runs by right fielder Anthony Santander, a free agent after this season as will Corbin Burnes, and centerfielder Cedric Mullins added rich icing to the tasty cake of starting the year 1-0. 

 

It is a heady feeling for an Oriole fan to root for a genuine contender.  I like it, I like it.  Last year I put aside my alter ego Masochist Mel as the Birds soared to 101 regular season wins.  They couldn't handle the eventual world champion Texas Rangers in the playoffs but no team could. 

 

One other aspect of Opening Day that was especially heartwarming was the first ball thrown out by 10-year-old Aubree Singletary, the daughter of a Baltimore city postal worker.  The look of awe and bliss on her face as she walked on the field and gazed at the 45,000 people in the stands and the billowing Oriole flags on the field were enough to make a prince of paranoia forget his doubts about the future of his team and our great game itself. 

 

Cal Ripken Jr., who will be a part of the new ownership group, caught Aubree's short toss from in front of the mound.  What made this moment especially endearing is that David Rubenstein is the only child of a Baltimore city postal worker. 

 

Back to some reflections on the game. Westburg, a native of New Braunfels, Texas and a product of Mississippi State's fine program, was starting at DH but he should also see action at 2B and 3B during the year.  The Orioles seem loaded at almost all positions with a lot of hot young prospects - infielders Jackson Holliday and Coby Mayo and outfielders Heston Kjerstad and Kyle Stowers, among them - starting the year in the minors. 

 

Thanks to my quick finger on the remote clicker, I was able to see Yankee newcomer Juan Soto's great throw from right field that prevented the Astros from tying their home opener in bottom of 9th innning. One out later, the Yankees could enjoy an impressive 5-4 come-from-behind victory.  If Soto's performance in the field picks up to match his offensive productivity, the Yankees may be a worthy adversary for the Orioles throughout 2024.

 

Of course, it is far too early to make any accurate predictions but the rest of the AL East could be very competitive making for a great race.  Unfortunately, the so-called "balanced" schedule has cut intra-divisional games from 19 to 13 so there will be fewer dramatic August-September matchups. 

 

 

Now on to some brief basketball post-mortems for my favorite college teams:  The Wisconsin men and the Columbia women will have to wait until next year.   The Badgers landed with a thud on Friday Mar 21 when the upstart James Madison Dukes from Harrisonburg, Virgina rushed out to a 18-5 lead and never looked back.  But on the following Sunday, the blue blood Duke Blue Devils gave JMU a thrashing of their own to make the Sweet Sixteen against powerhouse Houston on Fri Mar 28. 

 

Wisconsin was led in scoring this year by St. John's transfer AJ Storr but he thinks he is NBA ready and will not return next season.  Thanks to an Ian Eagle comment on a CBS broadcast, I learned that Storr previously had attended FOUR high schools before choosing St. John's and then Wisconsin.

 

Whenever I throw up my hands at the transfer portal and the NIL opportunities for the players (Name, Image, Likeness), I remind myself that the coaches have always had the opportunity for free agency.  The latest example is Mark Byington, who led James Madison, will now coach at Vanderbilt.,  

 

It seems to me that Purdue and Connecticut are heading for a final matchup in the men's March Madness (spilling of course into April) but we'll see.  As Red Barber wisely advised us, "That's why they play the games." 

 

On the women's side, I was saddened to see Abbey Hsu's brilliant Columbia career end on a minor note as the larger and defensive-minded Vanderbilt Commodores held her to 13 points on 3-14 shooting in Columbia's debut in the NCAA tourney. The final score was 72-68 but the Lions never recovered from a big hole in the second period that led to a Dores' 10-point halftime lead.   

 

It was still thrilling to be part of a crowd of over a thousand that watched the game from the Virginia Tech home court on the big scoreboard screen in Columbia's Levien gym.

 

Vanderbilt was spanked by Baylor three days later and now the NCAA and the ESPN-ABC TV combine are hoping that Caitlin Clark's sparkling game can carry the Hawkeyes into the women's Final Four. 

 

Clark wasn't that impressive in Iowa's narrow win over West Virginia's plucky team that knocked out Princeton, the perennial Ivy representative.  It says here that Dawn Staley's undefeated South Carolina Gamecocks will be hard to dethrone but once again we'll see what happens. 

  

On the college baseball side, Columbia won two of three from Harvard last weekend and now faces defending Ivy champion Penn in a Sat doubleheader on Mar 29 and a single Easter Sunday game at noon, all games at Satow Stadium just north of Columbia's football field overlooking the Hudson.  In a short 20-game league season, these early matchups are especially crucial because only two teams qualify for the best-of-three playoff at the home of the first place team.   

 

Rutgers won a series over UConn last weekend and are on the road at Michigan State the weekend of Mar 28.  They return home to Bainton Field for local matchups against Hofstra Tu Apr 2 at 3p, Marist W Apr 3 at 6p, a weekend series against Purdue April 5-6-7 at 6p, 3p, 1p.

They travel to Seton Hall in South Orange on Tu Apr 9 at 4p and host Nebraska F-Su Apr 12-14 at 6p 3p, 12N. 

More on these programs and the perennial area powers St John's and Seton Hall and NYU's Division III team in the next post.

 

And now some TCM Turner Classc Movie tips into early April. The starred ones have some baseball and/or sports content.

*M Apr 1 1PM  Buster Keaton in "The Cameraman" (1928).  His baseball pantomime filmed at an empty Yankee Stadium is a special 4-minute masterpiece.

 

Tu Apr 2 Ann Dvorak day in the daylight hours. 

115P "Dr. Socrates" (1935) dir. William Dieterle and co-starring Paul Muni.

*645P "Racing Lady" (1937) Ann is hired by a well-to-do millionaire (a film so obscure it isn't even Leonard Maltin's indispensable guide!)

 

Th Apr 4 - two classics back-to-back

8P "Annie Hall" (1977) - Woody Allen and Diane Keaton and Christopher Walken as Keaton's weirdo Wisconsin brother 

10P "Diner" (1982) one of Barry Levinson's bouncy Baltimore-based films

 

F Apr 5

*1015A "Woman of the Year" (1942) the first Tracy-Hepburn film with Spencer as sportswriter and Katherine as international political influencer 

     Later in the evening come back-to-back Billy Wilder classics

8P "Double Indemnity" (1944) Stanwyck and MacMurray and Edward G. Robinson

10P "The Major and the Minor" (1942) Ginger Rogers and Ray Milland and a Robert Benchley moment early in film always worth re-seeing 

 

Sa Apr 6 more back-to-back classics

545P "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" (1948) dir. John Huston with Bogart/Walter Huston/Bruce Bennett/Tim Holt

8P "Blood on the Moon" (1948) dir. Robert Wise with Robert Mitchum/Barbara BelGeddes/Robert Preston (pre "Music Man"!)

 

Su Apr 7 12M "Violence" (1947) Noir Alley brings you Michael O'Shea/Sheldon Leonard/Nancy Coleman

   later that evening two music-themed movies of interest

8p "Young Man With A Horn" (1950) dir. Curtiz. Kirk Douglas/Lauren Bacall/the great Juano Hernandez

10p "New Orleans" (1947) a bit too talky but good performances by Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday

 

That''s all for now.  Stay positive, test negative, and always remember:  Take it easy but take it!