"Creating a winning culture" is one of the most popular phrases these days in the world of sports - so easy to say and so hard to achieve. This past Sunday May 18, Columbia won its 6th Ivy League baseball title in the last 10 seasons with a convincing 14-6 victory over surprise finalist Harvard at Yale's George W. Bush Field.
I took MetroNorth to New Haven and then a cab to see my Lions roar undefeated through the double elimination tourney. Wiping away the memories of being winless at home in the first two Ivy post-season tournaments in this format, the Lions won two extra-inning nail-biters - over defending champion Penn and surprise entrant Harvard - and then beat Harvard a second time, leaving no doubt after they built an early 10-0 lead.
Senior southpaw co-captain Jagger Edwards, a reliever last season, pitched into the sixth inning and sophomore Will Harrigan got the 3 2/3 inning save, his fifth of the season. The Cantabs had eliminated host team Yale earlier on Sunday with a come-from-behind 8-6 victory. The Lions blasted 7 homers, including two each by senior right fielder Anton Lazits, the MVP of the tourney, and sophomore catcher Owen Estabrook.
Columbia coach Brett Boretti always schedules the toughest pre-Ivy League competition and it pays off in the crunch time of the season. I am not sure how much was learned by a March 1 loss at perennial power Oregon 35-1, but it sure helps to understand how much improvement you need before you become a real contender. Columbia will learn on Memorial Day May 26 what regional they will play in - the news will be broadcast on ESPNU at 12N EDT. The goal as always is to make the 8-team College World Series in Omaha starting in mid-June.
When I visited the Oregon campus in Eugene 14 years ago (speaking about my Branch Rickey biography), there was a sign on the stadium outfield wall that read:
Opportunity
Makeup
Attitude
Hustle
Always Put The Team First
No Ivy League team has ever made a Super Regional that is played the weekend before the College World Series starts, but Boretti and other Ivy League coaches believe that one year it will happen. As I've mentioned before in this blog, the topnotch Columbia women's basketball team led by coach Megan Griffith won its first ever March Madness game this season and also its first outright Ivy League regular season title.
The last chance to see this very special edition of the Columbia baseball Lions will be this Saturday May 24 when Holy Cross, winners of the Patriot League, comes down from Worcester MA to play a doubleheader at Satow Stadium just north of W 218th Street and Broadway. First game starts at 1230P.
Here's also a shoutout to Howard Endelman's men's tennis team that made the NCAA quarter-finals for the second year in a row. They lost to eventual national champion Wake Forest in a highly competitive watch in Waco, Texas. The Lions won three matches in the new Milstein Bubble in the Baker Field complex. Attendance is free at the tennis matches (and at the regular season baseball games), and I've heard that the atmosphere is very lively. No shushing for "silence!" from judges as in the pro matches.
I am especially glad to spread the good news about Columbia athletics under the direction of AD Peter Pilling because it is hard not to despair about the political polarization on campuses these days. It is part of the Trump administration's crusade to punish Columbia and other Ivy League schools and higher education in general. Sports can be such a unifying force if we allow it to be. So once again a huge hurrah to the players, the coaches, the parents, and the loyal fans of alma mater who have brought joy and distinction in these troubled times.
And now some concluding thoughts on What Has Happened To The Orioles? At 16-32 with a series at Boston starting tomorrow Fri May 23, it is unlikely that
the 2025 Orioles are a playoff team. But there is still a lot of baseball left, and if they start playing decent defense and straighten out a woeful starting pitching rotation,
I don't think they will need to start another painful rebuild. Certainly long-suffering Baltimore fans won't flock to see more non-competitive baseball.
In my last blog, I implored new Oriole owner David Rubenstein to try to re-sign Cedric Mullins, the outstanding center fielder who is the longest tenured Oriole and
lived through the difficult 100-loss seasons before the team broke out with the 101-win season in 2023. Alas, there is no sign that Rubenstein is willing to do this.
It took too long for "President of Baseball Operations" Mike Elias to admit this week that the team had become mediocre and indeed under .500 since the middle of last summer.
The firing of field manager Brandon Hyde who lived through bad times and led through the good times was inevitable. It wasn't that he "lost control of the team," a favorite cliche when a manager is fired, but he seemed stuck in the past, thinking that somehow the good times would magically return. It remains to be seen whether another young baseball lifer, third base coach Tony Mansolino, can lift the Birds at least to respectability.
Despite the woes of the Orioles and the truly hapless franchises - the White Sox, the Rockies, and the Pirates - the season for most teams remains hopeful. The Yankees and Tigers have leads of at least 5 games before games of May 22 and the double-digit winning streaks of the Twins and the Cardinals have brought both of them into contention. Because of market size and congenital arrogance, I still hope for anything but another Yankee-Dodger World Series. But I don't always get what I want or
need. So it goes. Baseball remains the greatest game despite a century and a half of leadership issues.
Oh yes that reminds me - what do I think of Pete Rose between taken off the ineligible list? Yawn! He was his own worst enemy though a great Hall of Fame worthy player.
But selling memorabilia in Cooperstown on Hall of Fame induction weekend and living the life of a gambler in Las Vegas didn't help his cause. It remains for the writers to
decide his eligibility and there is plenty of doubt that he will ever get in.
As for commissioner Rob Manfred caving in to Donald Trump's express wish in behalf of Pete Rose, Manfred is not the first executive in the USA to be very wary of what Trump wants to do. Baseball has been admirably in the forefront of the DEI programs which the new administration wants curtailed. Manfred and the owners that pay him
are hoping for a bonanza in streaming services. They are not sure what policies the government will espouse in this area. So Manfred played it cautiously. I'm not going to get on a high horse to decry this.
That's all for now. I'm heading to Cooperstown next week to talk on Frank Frisch the Fordham Flash at the Hall of Fame's annual Symposium on Baseball and American
Culture. I'm calling my talk "Urbane Roughneck" because although Frisch was a fierce competitor on the field - known in his early years as "John McGraw's Boy" - he
was a genuine lover of classical music and good books and a devoted gardener. His thoughts on baseball were mostly Old Guard but always delivered with intelligent passion.
I have not run across any sports films on TCM but here is a list of some especially good ones being shown as part of Memorial Day programming:
Sat May 24 630P "The Steel Helmet" (1951) Director Sam Fuller's hard-hitting film set during the Korean War
Sun May 25 12M and 10A - Eddie Muller's Noir Alley presents "Cornered" (1945) Dick Powell, shedding again his bobby-soxer persona, searches for the Nazi killers of his wife
Sun May 25 8P "Bridge On the River Kwai" (1957) - the "Colonel Bogey March" will stay with you after seeing David Lean's direction of Allied prisoners of war in Japan
during World War II with Alec Guinness/Jack Hawkins/William Holden
Tues May 27 1015P "Duel in the Sun" (1947) - Gregory Peck sheds his halo in a rare bad guy role with Joseph Cotten and Jennifer Jones
W May 28 215P "The Man Who Came To Dinner" (1942) - this film may be broadcast more often than any on TCM but it is hilarious with great performances by
Bette Davis, Ann Sheridan, and Monty Woolley in the title role based on the writer Alexander Woollcott. Jimmy Durante plays Banjo a role based on Harpo Marx.
That's all for now. Always remember: Take It Easy But Take It, and even with RFK Jr raising havoc with our health systems, Stay Positive Test Negative!