Lee Lowenfish

My August started with another memorable week teaching Baseball and American Culture in the Special Studies program at Chautauqua, the adult education mecca located in southwestern New York State just past Jamestown. Our theme this year was baseball and comedy. Co-teaching with veteran literature teacher Mark Altschuler, we started with Abbott and Costello's evergreen "Who's On First?" Next up was the hilarious baseball scene in Buster Keaton's 1927 film "College" followed by Ring Lardner's "Alibi Ike" - originally written in 1914 and soon to become a phrase in the American language. We delved into both the short story and Joe E Brown's movie interpretation.

 

I had never taught "Damn Yankees" before and whatta revelation. That was Walter Mitty Me! in the opening scene of the movie when Joe Boyd, the frustrated middle-aged Washington Senators fan, is screaming at his black-and-white TV: "Don't try to murder the ball - just hit it up the middle!" Soon Boyd is transformed into slugging hero Joe Hardy played in the movie by Tab Hunter.  Ray Walston and Gwen Verdon recreated their Broadway roles in the film as the Devil and his assistant Lola. Costumed hilariously, Jean Stapleton, later to become immortal as Edith Bunker, has a memorable turn as one of the neighbors of Joe Boyd's wife. 

 

Douglass Wallop's novel "The Year The Yankees Lost The Pennant" fortuitously came out in 1954, the year the Yankees DID lose the pennant. The Broadway musical opened in 1955, the only year the Brooklyn Dodgers beat the Yankees in the World Series. The show ran into 1957 including a London run as "What Lola Wants". '57 was also the year the Yanks lost in October to the Milwaukee Braves but the play has lasting power not because of its Yankee-bashing, but because of its warm and convincing take on the  life crisis of a middle-aged male.  It continues to be performed in high schools, and with a diverse cast, opens in the Washington DC area this fall. It is hard to match "You Gotta Have Heart" for a peppy optimistic number and "Whatever Lola Wants (Lola Gets)" for good clean seduction.  The lament of Lola and Joe Hardy, "Two Lost Souls" with Verdon also dancing with choregrapher Bob Fosse (and future husband), touched me.   

 

Whatta great name for a writer about baseball, Wallop. Douglass Wallop (1920-1985) was actually a onetime news service reporter who transcribed General Eisenhower's 1948 memoir "Crusade in Europe". He wrote several novels and a baseball history, but if remembered at all, it is for his whimsical novel which was reissued in 2004 in a new edition introduced by the first famous baseball analyst Bill James.  BTW, Mel Allen, the Yankee broadcaster who used to call home runs White Owl Wallops (and Ballantine Blasts), appears as himself in the film.

 

Other highllights of the class included the showing of the mirthful short subject "Gandhi at the Bat" based on Chet Williamson's "New Yorker" story and Harpo Marx playing "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" on what was reportedly the most widely watched "I Love Lucy" show.  The claas ended with a showing of George Carlin's immortal "Baseball vs. Football" monologue that he performed on the first "Saturday Night Live" in 1975. Our surprise guest afterwards was Kelly Carlin, also a teacher at Chautauqua, a writer based in LA, and George Carlin's only child.  She has donated her father's archive to the National Comedy Center in nearby Jamestown, which is on its way to becoming a Comedy Cooperstown.      

 

Mark and I are talking about a Baseball Comedy Part II during Chautauqua's Week 5 at the end of July 2026. I'm lobbying for excerpts from Richard Greenberg's play "Take Me Out" in which the player agent who falls in love with baseball (and one of the stars) delivers this elegy:

"Baseball is better than democracy - or at least that democracy as it's practiced in this country - because, unlike democracy, baseball acknowledges loss.   While conservatives tell you, 'Leave things alone, and no one will lose,' and liberals tell you, 'Interfere a lot and no one will lose,' baseball says, 'Someone will lose.' Not only says it, insists upon it." (p34)  

Not exactly something that super-agent in the real world Scott Boras might say, but I believe this elegy is worthy of our.attention.  

   

And now for the sad tale of the return of the Woerioles.  In a year where there is no clear favorite for the World Series and a lot of surprise teams from the Heartland I think have a genuine shot - eg.  Milwaukee, Detroit, and Toronto - the O's never threatened.  I wish I am wrong but it seems like another "rebuild" is coming to Camden Yards as well as already-announced higher ticket prices and changes to the stadium that may spoil the acclaimed creation in the early 1990s that sparked the new wave of old-style baseball parks. 

 

All of the so-called young core of the team have had down years.  Some have mysteriously fallen into a baseball abyss like the switch-hitting catcher Adley Rutschman the number one pick in the country in the 2019 draft (Bobby Witt Jr now a Kansas City star shortstop was the number two).  Hard to pinpoint what happened to a former "can't-miss" prospect.  Probably the "high point" was his performance in the Home Run Derby at Seattle in 2023 when his father, along with his father scholastic coaching royalty in Oregon, pitched to him and Adley blastied home runs from both sides of the plate. It was just an exhibition and Dad was lobbing balls - and not real MLB baseballs - from 40 feet away.  

 

Adley is now on the IL with his second oblique injury of the year, supposedly not as bad as the first one on the other side of his body.  What I had long feared has come to fruition - the buildup for Samuel Basallo the heir apparent to Rutschman has begun.  After only FOUR GAMES IN HIS MLB CAREER, the Orioles with great fanfare held a press conference to announce that the 21-year-old from the Dominican Republic had been signed to a 8-year contract, meaning that his salary arbitration years had been bought out plus two more of his free agency.

 

Not surprisingly, Basallo has gotten off to a slow start with the bat while catching a little and playing some first base and DH-ing.  None of the other vaunted core with more MLN experience has provided much offensive help with the slight exception of shortstop Gunnar Henderson who has seemingly lost his power bat and who good pitching tends to stifle.  Sadly, fellow infielder and grittier Jordan Westburg must now be burdened with one of the worst adjectives in baseball parlance, "injury-prone". Jackson Holliday, the 2023 top pick in the country, has not shown much improvement and he might even miss playing shortstop.  Not sure he has the arm for that and he is still showing signs of feeling overmatched at the major league level.  

Recently, fired manager Brandon Hyde made his first comments since his ouster, expressing regret on how Holliday was rushed to the majors.  Sure hope that Basallo doesn't meet the same

fate.  

 

The only truly bright spot in 2025 has the outstanding pitching of southpaw Trevor Rogers whose performance has taken away some of the sting from the trade of power-hitting outfielder Kyle Stowers to the Marlins (along with power-hitting infielder Connor Norby). Though not yet a contender and with ownership (like Baltimore's) not seemingly committed to spending money wisely, the Marlins are developing a scrappy, dangerous young team - ask the Mets who just lost three out of four at home to Miami.   

  

I feel for the Baltimore fans who will not accept another rebuild and last week allowed the Red Sox winnite fans to take over the ballpark. Just like doing the dark years before Buck Showalter led the turn around in 2012.   Undoubtedly Yankee fans will do the same when they visit Camden Yards September 19-21. In another item of bad news, the 2026 schedule was just announced and like this year the Orioles will wind up the regular season at Yankee Stadium.  At least they don't play in 2026 7 of their last 10 games against their rivals as they do late this month.  

 

I don't want to end on such a sour note so here are some kudos to some baseball people who are flying under the radar.

** The defensive quickness of rival third basemen caught my eye when I attended the last regular season home game of the Brooklyn Cyclones against the Hudson Valley Yankees on the Sunday before Labor Day.  Juan Matheus (pronounced Matthews) for the victorious Yankees and Diego Mosquera for the Cyclones are both Venezuelans, Matheus from Lara and Mosquera from Valencia. Interestingly, they both have the same slender build, 5' 10 and 155 pounds -  it possibly projects them more to the middle infield.  

 

I love going to minor league games.  Pat O'Conner, the last president of the National Association of minor leagues before Rob Manfred took over and even more their offices to NYC, used to guarantee that at every minor league game you will see a future major leaguer.  I like to believe he was right.  The Cyclones, the Mets' top High Single-A farm club, are coasting to the playoffs in which they are likely to host Game 2 on Th Sep 11 and if necessary Game 3  F Sep 12.   For further info, check out brooklyncyclones.com     

 

**Third baseman Caleb Durbin, who come to Milwaukee from the Yankees in the Devin Williams trade, went to Washington U of St Louis, hardly a baseball factory. After doing a little digging, I realized that catcher and later baseball exectutive Muddy Ruel went to WUSL before World War I. After World War II so did Dal Maxvill who won World Series rings for the St. Louis Cardinals as both a shortstop and a GM.

 

**On Sept 4, YouTube will start showing a documentary about the late Jeff Torborg, the former Rutgers star and catcher of three of Sandy Koufax's no-hitters and later a highly respected manager and coach. 

 

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

A little googling has turned up the origin of the phrase “dog days”. It comes from the ancient Greeks who coined the term for the period from early July to mid-August when Sirius, the so-called dog star, rose just before the sun.

Dog days in baseball are obvious because players are dragging from the effects of the long long season. My Orioles are a vivid example. They are stumbling along looking like no more than a .500 team. Now they will have to do without key reliever Darren O'Day for the rest of the month, his second trip to the DL this year, this time with an ominous shoulder issue.

Yet except for probably the Cubs there are no super-teams out there so the last weeks of the season should be "fun" to watch, if one calls it fun to agonize with every pitch and possible pitfall.

Hall of Fame first baseman Jim Bottomley, the first great product of Branch Rickey's St. Louis Cardinals farm system, once offered this sage advice on how to deal with baseball’s inevitable ups-and-downs: "Win three, lose one, win three, lose one," etc etc. That way, he argued, there is no pressure from streaks, losing or winning." Of course, that is too rational a view. Fans live by passion and hopefully they are rewarded now and then.

My solution to the dog days this year was taking my first journey to the Chautauqua Institution in far western New York State 70 miles from Buffalo and just 15 miles from Erie, Pennsylvania. I co-taught Baseball and American Culture with veteran American Studies/Amer. Literature professor Mark Altschuler during the first week of August to an impressive group of 20 adult students.

They came from as far away as Mississippi and northern California, Ohio and Texas, Maryland and Kentucky. They learned a lot about Branch Rickey's long career from me and something about the importance of comedian Joe E. Brown's remarkable baseball passion.

Mark Altschuler had the brilliant idea of discussing the great interview with Wahoo Sam Crawford in Larry Ritter's classic oral history "The Glory of Their Times." He also led an exciting class on Jim Shepard's 1996 short story, "Batting Against Castro," set in pre-revolutionary Cuba (before Castro formed his guerrilla band in the mountains.)

Never missing a chance to see a minor league baseball game, my adventure actually started the previous Saturday night at Coca-Cola Field, home to the Buffalo Bisons, the Blue Jays’ Triple A affiliate in the International League. The Syracuse Chiefs, the Washington Nats’ top farm club, provided the opposition.

As always in minor league games, there was an interesting mixture of old and new, vets trying to hang on and prospects looking to make or return to The Show, the vivid term players use to describe the Majors.

Rehabbing infielder Ryan Goins showed some flash for Buffalo and soon he was back in Toronto--though he clearly is a sub now as talented Devon Travis has cemented his hold on the second base job.

Chiefs outfielder Brian Goodwin showed off the speedy tools that has left him for years on the cusp of a callup. And sure enough the Nats brought him up just last week for the first time.

There is always a poignant moment or two at a minor league game, a flash of yesteryear that comes along when you least expect it. Tonight it was seeing a Bisons pitching coach trudging off to the bullpen before the game. He had a little paunch and a fringe of longish gray hair framing the bottom of a largely bald head.

It was Bob Stanley, the longtime Red Sox reliever, who threw the pitch in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series that catcher Rich Gedman couldn’t handle before the infamous Mookie Wilson-Bill Buckner ground ball. Gedman’s passed ball tied the game but people only remember Buckner’s error that won it for the Mets who won the Series in Game 7.

I also saw stretching on the field before the game Chris Colabello, the disgraced ped user who was suspended for 80 games earlier this season. The first baseman-outfielder had been a feel-good story for last year's Blue Jays - rising from the independent leagues to become a productive major leaguer. But his success was tainted by the drug disclosure.
Toronto evidently has no plans to call him back to the majors.

On the Sunday before my classes began at Chautauqua, I paid a visit to the impressive Robert H. Jackson Center in nearby Jamestown, NY (home town of Lucille Ball where a Lucy and Desi museum stands - didn't have time to see it).

The Jackson Center is devoted to the life and work of the Supreme Court Justice appointed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt who served as chief prosecutor at the post-World War II Nuremberg Trials of Nazi war criminals. Center director Greg Peterson was gracious enough to tape an interview with me about my love of baseball and my work on Branch Rickey. It can be accessed at YouTube.

It is remarkable that Rickey, one of the leading Methodist lay preachers, never spoke at Chautauqua, an institution founded by Methodists after the Civil War as a retreat for Sunday school teachers. It quickly evolved into a center for all kinds of inquiry into culture and the arts.

"Cultivate Curiosity and Wonder" reads the sign on the wall of the giant Amphitheater that can seat 5000 people (though you must walk carefully going down the ramps to your seat.)
How true that statement is! I got to hear David Simon, creator of the classic HBO series "The Wire," talk about the futile war on drugs in his home town of Baltimore.

Most of all, I got to sense the special feeling of community that Chautauqua engenders. Once you get your gate pass that allows you in and out of the little town, you feel like you are in Brigadoon, the fantastic creation of the 1940s Broadway musical. I compare it to Cooperstown and Key West with water nearby and quaint houses everywhere and flowers and flowers galore.

Just two example of Chautauquan community - I told some ardent softball players who are intense fans of the Pittsburgh Pirates that I was an Oriole fan. The next day one of them gifted me with two 1965 Topps cards, one of Brooks Robinson and one of "Boog Powell outfielder"!

Second item - after indulging my metrosexual tastes with a massage and pedi-manicure,
the owners of the St. Elmo's Spa gave me some cherry tomatoes and organic corn on the cob from their garden. How tasty they were after my return to NYC.

For information of the nine weeks of Chautauqua in 2017, check out www.ciweb.org
Am making plans that some form of "Baseball and American Culture" returns.

That's all for now - always remember: Take it easy but take it!
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