Lee Lowenfish

Three recent feel-good stories have come out of Baltimore since we last met, dear readers, with the first one being a lovely surprise.  Veteran sportswriter Jim Henneman, 88, a life-long Baltimorean, was honored with the naming of the Camden Yards press box after him. 

 

I've known Jim for almost 50 years. He was a guest speaker in one of my classes in Sports in American Culture at UMBC (University of Maryland Baltimore County). As the Orioles went through their World Series drought in the last 40 years, Jim provided wise and realistic counsel as I despaired that the Birds would ever truly contend for a world title.

 

Jim recently dubbed me "The Prince of Paranoia" as I often expressed doubt that the current regime even with a 101-win 2023 regular season under their belt could pull the trigger on a trade to get us over the hump towards another World Series.  I admit to being paranoid not just about baseball but about politics and society in general. 

 

I was honored that at least he dubbed me a prince and not a false pretender, a knave, or worse.And lo and behold, in the second recent big news from Charm City, the regime of Mike Elias just made a trade that will bring onetime Cy Young award-winning righthander Corbin Burnes, 29, from Milwaukee.  Burnes hails from Bakersfield, CA and was signed in 4th round of 2016 draft out of St. Mary's College in Moraga in northern California.

 

Burnes can be a free agent after the 2024 season and his agent Scott Boras likes to get top dollar for his clients.  But the addition of Burnes certainly is a

major addition to the rotation.  And loving name play, I sure hope we get a Corbin-Corbin matchup in a game against the Washington Nats:  Corbin

Burnes versus LHP Patrick Corbin. 

 

Going to the Brewers will be LHP DL Hall, a 2017 #1 draft pick under the previous Dan Duquette regime.  At the age of 25, Hall is on the cusp of becoming an outstanding pitcher. He supposedly wants to be a starter, but I think Hall could be the kind of solid closer that can make Brewers fans forget Josh Hader, a former Orioles draft pick who recently signed a multi-year deal with the Houston Astros.   

 

Hall was signed after high school in Valdosta, Georgia, the home town of the late great scout Ellis Clary. The colorful Clary once told me that the area was so football crazy that "they wouldn't know a baseball player from a crate of pineapples."

 

It says here that Dayton Lane (DL) Hall has a chance to put Valdosta on the baseball map and I wish him the best in his new home.  He is only 25 and after recovering from injuries early in his minor league career, he contributed stellar work in the latter part of the 2023 season. He also was very effective in the Birds' disappointing sweep by the Rangers in the first round of the playoffs. 

 

In addition to a first round compensation pick in the 2024 draft, the Brewers will receive Joey Ortiz, 25, a brilliant defensive shortstop who can play several infield positions and whose bat has picked up lately.  From Garden Grove CA, Ortiz was a 2019 fourth-round draft choice from New Mexico State U., the same school as Orioles pitcher Kyle Bradish who likely slots to number 2 in the 2024 starting rotation behind Burnes.

 

The third major news from Orioleland is the proposed sale of the team to David Rubenstein, 74, a key member of the private equity firm the Carlyle Group. He is a lifelong Baltimorean who has always yearned to own his local team. He also had been rumored to be interested in buying the nearby Washington Nationals which are still for sale. 

 

To my knowledge, no owner has ever had more cultural credentials than Rubenstein who has been chairman of the board at the Kennedy Center in DC and has a David Rubenstein Atrium named for him near Lincoln Center in NYC.  It regularly hosts forums and concerts.   He also is the host of interview shows for PBS and Bloomberg News.

 

Members of his ownership group include another financial equity financier Michael Arougheti from Ares Capital; Michael Bloomberg, former Mayor of New York City; Kurt Schmoke, former Mayor of Baltimore and Rubenstein's City College high school classmate; and Oriole legend Hall of Famer Cal Ripken Jr. MLB owners will be meeting this week - the first full week of February - but it is doubtful that immediate approval will come. It is likely sometime later this season.

 

The general mood in Baltimore for the imminent departure of the Peter Angelos family from majority ownership is relief, to put it mildly.  My only hesitation is to remember when the Angeloses bought the team in 1993 from prior owner Eli Jacobs, a New York financier who had gone bankrupt, local feeling was euphoric.

 

That mood changed sour in a hurry when patriarch Peter Angelos hired Davey Johnson as manager and Pat Gillick as general manager. Both had deep roots in the Orioles glory years from 1960 through 1983 but Angelos ran them off when they didn't bring immediate championships. 

 

He also ran off popular broadcaster Jon Miller after the 1996 Jeffrey Maier playoff when Angelos claimed that Miller wasn't sufficiently indignant on air when the 12-year-old Yankee fan seated in Yankee Stadium's right field stands interfered with Orioles right fielder Tony Tarasco's attempt catch of Derek Jeter's fly ball that was ruled a home run by right field ump Rich Garcia who was too close in the play IMO.

(It's an ongoing pet peeve of mine those extra umps in post-season games - if we must have them, they should be positioned as in Japan, under the foul poles to judge fair or foul home runs.)

 

Peter Angelos' sons, John and Louis, grew to have more power and less success. The most recent embarrassment was with Peter incapicated for over 10 years, a suit was brought by younger son Louis against both John and his mother Georgia claiming that he had been illegally cut out of decisions by the ownership group.  It was finally settled out of court and now new ownership blood is heading to Charm City. 

 

My only caveat - being of course the Prince of Paranoia - is the old saying, "An owner comes into baseball and says he knows nothing about the business of baseball.  In six months he announces he knows everything."  I do have the cautious hope that David Rubenstein will act with more discretion and calmness than Steve Cohen, a fellow private equity mogul who has turned the Mets into another soap opera in their long history of dysfunction. 

 

And now here are some TCM tips for the next couple of weeks: 

Wed Feb 7 8p  EST "Antonia: A Portrait of The Woman" (1974)   It is a re-release of a 58 minute documentary that I saw when it first opened.  The film was the brainstorm of Judy Collins who took piano lessons from Antonia Brico in her home town of Denver.  She discovered the remarkable story of a woman conductor who trained in Holland and Germany and had a regrettably brief but remarkable career as a rare woman conductor in the all-male

sanctuary of classical music. 

 

I was blessed to see "Antonia" again this past Sat night Feb 3 at Museum of Modern Art with both Judy Collins and director Jill Godmilow in attendance.

Also on the bill was the equally poignant 28 minute new documentary "The Only Woman in the Orchestra" - the story of Erin O'Brien, the double bassist in the New York Philharmonic who retired recently after joining the NY Phil in 1966. 

 

The film was the idea of Molly O'Brien, Orin's niece and a documentary film producer.  She knew that the story of an self-effacing only child of early Hollywood screen stars Marguerite Churchill and George O'Brien was worth telling.  Orin spoke briefly before the showing, making a heartfelt plea for those of us who love classical music to keep it alive. 

 

 

Here are just a few TCM highlights with sports themes: 

Tu Feb 6 11:30A  "The Jackie Robinson Story" (1950) with Jack playing himself and Ruby Dee as Rachel

 

Tu Feb 13 11:15A "Woman of the Year" (1942) the first Tracy-Hepburn film with Spencer as sportswriter and Kate as social justice activist

 

F Feb 16 for the night owls 

130A "The Stratton Story" (1949) Jimmy Stewart as the injured pitcher trying to make a comeback and June Allyson as his wife

 

Later on Feb 16 for early risers:

745A "Crazylegs" (1953) with U of Wisconsin football star Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch playing himself & Lloyd Nolan as his coach

 

10:15p "Pride of the Yankees" (1942) the Gehrig classic with Gary Cooper and Teresa Wright 

 

Happy to report that Columbia women's basketball keeps rolling in Ivy League play since losing their only league game

at perennial power Princeton last month.  The rematch is Sa Feb 24 at 2p at Columbia but they know they cannot look too far ahead.

 

Wisconsin blew a big lead at Nebraska for second year in a row last Thursday and Sunday Feb 4 lost a home game to Purdue despite great

effort by the lively home crowd.  Purdue looks like a possible Final Four team but Badgers have a chance to rebound this week at subpar

Michigan on Wed and Sat noon at Rutgers. 

 

I plan to attend the game at Rutgers despite being 0-5 in seeing the Badgers live in recent years.  More about that experience in next blog.

 

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

 

   

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

The annual January dinner of the New York Pro Baseball Scouts Association has nicely served in recent years as the unofficial opening of the 2024 MLB season.  At last Friday's Jan 19 gathering at Leonard's Palazzo (formerly Leonard's of Great Neck), guest speaker David Cone set the proper tone early on. "We need the human touch more than ever," he declared. 

 

Cone shared warm memories of the Kansas City Royals area scout Carl Blando who signed him after high school in the KC area.  Like all the best scouts,

Blando kept tabs on his signee as he worked his way up the ladder.  When Cone bought a fancy car with his $17,000 bonus and didn't report the money to the IRS, Blando helped get him out of tax troubles.

 

Carl Blando lived until 2018 and was part of a great Royals scouting tradition that saw them become a contender faster than any expansion team under the leadership of Art Stewart and others. I was glad to devote a chapter to this story in my recent book on scouting, BASEBALL'S ENDANGERED SPECIES.

 

David Cone, now an effective broadcaster after his long successful career in the majors, noted, "My whole education was the minor leagues." He said that he missed almost two full seasons because of a knee injury incurred when he was running in from the mound to try to block home plate.

 

Longtime scout Jim Cuthbert was presented with the Jim Quigley Service to the Game award (I was blessed to receive the honor in the name of former scout Quigley in 2010). A Brooklyn native who became a walk-on catcher for St. John's of Queens, Cuthbert described himself as someone who started with no connections in the game beyond being an ardent listener of Mike and the Mad Dog on WFAN 660 AM in NYC when it went on the air nearly 40 years ago. 

 

Cuthbert worked his way up the scouting ladder to become an advance scout for Terry "Tito" Francona's Cleveland Indians. He was in awe of one of the giants of the game, but Francona assured him, "Your work [your scouting reports] is your ticket into my office."  After recently working for the Marlins, Cuthbert begins a new position in 2024 with the Royals. (Francona, plagued by illness, has now retired and will be replaced by rookie manager Stephen Vogt.)

 

The Turk Karam Scout of the Year award-winner was Matt Hyde, longtime northeastern area scout for the Yankees. "Show up and do your work," Hyde advised. "If you do what you love, you'll never have to work a day in your life." He added, "The lessons never stop."   

 

Hyde is also a Michigan Wolverine as well as a Yankee, and Rich Hill, a Massachusetts-bred and fellow Michigan grad, came to honor his homeboy.  Now 43, Hill has played for 13 MLB teams but not ready to retire.  He is not in a hurry to sign for 2024 because he wants to see his 12-year-old son play his final season of Little League. (Fans often forget how much players miss in their family lives because of the demands of the long long season.)

 

Along with Red Sox scout Ray Fagnant, an earlier winner of the Karam award, Matt Hyde has run a summer program that since 2012 has brought high school and young college prospects to the Northeast for several days of clinics and then a concluding game at a top-level pro ballpark.  Hyde listed the remarkable number of players who have gone on to pro careers:  102 have made the majors, 57 were first-round draft choices.

 

Hyde introduced to the audience Jen Mead, widow of Yankee scout Kelly Rodman who passed away in 2020 at the unconscionable age of 44. Mead runs The Kelly Rodman Baseball Foundation and the final game of the summer clinic program is called the Kelly Rodman Memorial Classic. For more on this worthy enterprise, check out jen@thekellyrodmanfoundation.com 

 

Rodman had been a huge advocate for Yankee shortstop Anthony Volpe, the team's number one draft choice in 2019.  "Kelly is the angel in the outfield looking down on me," Hyde quoted Volpe. (Readers of this blog will know how much l like the 1950 original film of that name - I spoke about it at last spring's Symposium on Baseball and American Culture at the Hall of Fame).

 

l am very pleased that the story of Hyde and Fagnant's program and Rodman's inspiring exhortation to players, "Be Great Today!", made for the closing story in BASEBALL'S ENDANGERED SPECIES. 

 

NOW . . . HERE'S A MISCELLANY ABOUT RECENT EVENTS:

**Shame on those Chicago Bulls fans who on Fri Jan 12 booed the presentation of the Ring of Honor to the late Jerry Krause, the mastermind behind the Bulls' dynasty in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Krause was instrumental in the Bulls' drafting Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen and trading Charles Oakley to the Knicks for Bill Cartwright (who BTW was from Elk Grove California near Sacramento and was a fine baseball player until one of his scholastic basketball coaches made sure he stuck to the hard court game.) 

 

Because Krause never stroked the press, he was scapegoated for the Bulls' fall from grace after the retirement of their key players.  The boorish behavior earlier this month brought Krause's widow Thelma to tears, an awful stain on what should have been an elegiac evening.  Krause finished his career scouting for Yankees and then Mets and always said that he loved baseball even more than basketball. 

 

**The news yesterday Tu Jan 23 of Adrian Beltre's election to Cooperstown was no surprise.  His numbers certainly were overwhelming - 3161 hits, 477

HRs, and he and Derek Jeter are the only Hall of Famers in the 3000 hit club to win 5 Gold Gloves. 

 

Todd Helton and Joe Mauer's enshrinements - Mauer during his first year of eligibility - are a little more problematic. Helton had been scrutinized for playing home games in Denver's Coors Field, but ultimately his overall stats made the case for him:  2131 hits and an OBP (On Base Plus Slugging Percentage) of .855 higher than Hall of Famers Tony Gwynn, Eddie Murray, and Dave Winfield.  In a very rare accomplishment in recent years, Helton also finished with a positive walk:strikeout ratio, 1335:1173. 

 

Minnesota's Joe Mauer played only 7 years behind home plate before concussions forced his switch to first base where he never supplied the power expected of that position. From the same St. Paul, Twin City of Minneapolis that has produced three other Hall of Famers, Paul Molitor, Jack Morris and Dave Winfield, Mauer was a home town hero who never played for another team. Helton, who also starred in football at U of Tennesee, was a lifelong Colorado Rockie. 

 

It says here that if playing for one team only is now considered a valid reason for selection, maybe the chances for Don Mattingly and Thurman Munson have been enhanced. In any event, kudos are due Josh Rawitch, top executive at the Hall of Fame, for making the announcements on MLBTV in both Spanish and English.  

 

Before I sign off, let me mention three passings in recent weeks not connected to baseball but these octogenarians lived lives worth remembering.

 

**Gus Alfieri, 87, on Jan 1, former St. John's basketball player and author of a fine biography of his coach, LAPCHICK (Lyons Press, 2006). Alfieri became a legendary coach at South Huntington, Long Island's St. Anthony HS and longtime director of a summer All-American Basketball Camp.  If Joe Lapchick, an Original Celtic (long before the Boston pro team took the name) and Knicks coach, said nothing else in his life than "Peacock today, feather duster tomorrow," I would say he led a life well-lived.     

 

**Paul Chevigny, 88, on Dec 11, NYU law professor and noted civil liberties and civil rights lawyer. His book GIGS (Routledge, 1991) contributed to the end of the restrictive cabaret laws. He dedicated it to "Thelonious Monk, JJ Johnson, Billie Holiday, and Buell Neidlinger, and all the other good musicians who had a problem with NYC cabaret laws." 

 

**Jay Clayton, 82, on Dec 31, improvisational vocalist with a lyrical gift. Her live rendition of "Young and Foolish" (from the 1950s musical set among the Amish, "Plain and Fancy") was as beautiful as anything I ever heard.  (I first heard the tune on Bill Evans' early album "Everybody Loves Bill Evans."  Barbara Cook performed in the original production of "Plain and Fancy" but she doesn't mention the song in her informative and often very moving memoir "Here and Now" (2016). 

 

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