Lee Lowenfish

It is sad but not surprising that the baseball lockout is impacting spring training.  

The greatest words in English language, "pitchers and catchers are reporting to spring training," mean nothing to the powers in baseball ownership intent on rolling back salaries and letting the hired help realize at long last who is Boss.  

 

MLB Opening Day on March 31, another special occasion, looks threatened, too. Let me be clear, though, that there will be baseball on other levels soon. In fact, the Fordham Rams open their season on Fri Feb 23 at 3P against Sacred Heart of Fairfield, CT, at Houlihan Stadium at Jack Coffey Field.  

 

The park is a little treasure located behind the football stadium and across the street from the New York Botanical Garden.  And if you are into a healthy walk, it's just a little over a mile walk east on Fordham Road to the Bronx's Little Italy on Arthur Avenue.    

 

Manhattan College - now playing home games in Pomona New York at the independent league Rockland Boulders ballpark - waits until March 4 to open its season against Fairleigh Dickinson of Teaneck.   

 

My Columbia Lions head to Jacob DeGrom country to open its season Feb 25 thru 27 against the Stetson Hatters in Deland, Fla.  Stetson is DeGrom's alma mater

where he started as a shortstop until he needed Tommy John surgery.  

 

Columbia's home opener is against Penn with a doubleheader on Sa March 26 starting at 1130A and Su Mar 27 a 12N single game. Satow Stadium at Robertson Field is located west of Broadway & 218 St. Like Fordham, the baseball field is down a little hill behind the football field and affords a lovely view of the Hudson River.   

 

Deland, Florida is the home town of David Fultz, a forgotten but important figure in MLB labor history. Briefly a major leaguer in the early 20th century, Fultz was a well-respected football referee, and the president of the short-lived Baseball Players Fraternity of America.

 

The Fraternity vied with the owners around the time of the Federal League third league challenge and won some small concessions  It died shortly after the Feds folded by the end of the 1915 season.

 

It seems my mind never strays that far from the perennial labor wars in MLB, but, Virginia, let me stress that there will be baseball this year.  Exactly when on the MLB scene is not clear. I still don't know - nor does anybody - who is capable of making a deal on either side.

 

"You Must Believe In Spring" remains one of my favorite mantras.  Thank you Michel LeGrand for your lovely melody with lyrics by the Bergmans, Alan and Marilyn.

 

Meanwhile, my favorite college basketball teams continue to bring me pleasure and hope.  Wisconsin enters a Lincoln's Birthday Feb 12 game against improving Rutgers with a

18-4 overall record and locked in a first place Big Ten tie with formidable Illinois and Purdue.

 

Columbia's women basketball Lions got spanked by defending Ivy League champion Princeton last Saturday, but they will have a rematch at home on Wed Feb 23 at 5p. 

Can't wait to bring my newly acquired cow bell as spectators are welcomed back. 

 

The women Lions can't afford to overlook games against tough Yale on road and Harvard and Dartmouth at home before tackling the mighty Tigers again.

 

And now some tips on the music and movie scenes:

I heard last night (Wed Feb 9) on WQXR's long running series, David Dubal's "Reflections from the Keyboard," his second show dedicated to pianist Arturo Benedetto Michelangeli.

 

Brahms' Second Ballade, an early work, and Chopin's First Ballade in G-Minor, op. 23 took my breath away.  Talk about harmonies that stir the emotions and open the heart!  

A rarely heard Chopin Op. 45 Prelude in C-Sharp Minor was a highlight of the first Michelangeli show.

 

Also featured in Tribute #2 was the slow movement from Beethoven's Piano Concerto #5. One of its melodies must have inspired Leonard Bernstein when he wrote "There's A Place For Us" for "West Side Story".  

 

The Michelangeli show will be rebroadcast on Sunday night Feb. 13 from 10-11P and streamed at wqxr.org   Maybe listen in and mute the Super Bowl which might still be going. 

 

On the live scene, "Friends of Mozart" returns for another season:  

Wed Feb 16 at 7P with a Mozart Oboe Quartet, Beethoven's Variations of "La Ci Da Rem La Mano" from Mozart's "Don Giovanni," & an early Beethoven trio for piano, violin, and cello.  

 

The concert will be at the comfortable and welcoming St. Stephen's Church at 120 W 69 St just east of Broadway. There is no admission charge but a contribution is suggested.

 

On the TCM front, the Noir Alley selections for the rest of February look enticing.

Sa midnight Feb 13 repeated 10A Sun - "Side Street" (1949) with Farley Granger

 

Sa Feb 20-Su Feb 21  "Cast A Dark Shadow" (1955) with Dirk Bogarde the Brit who was a heartthrob of my late sister Carol Norton. He plays a bad guy out to do violence against

Margaret Lockwood.

 

Sa Feb 27-Su Feb 28 "No Way Out" (1950) Sidney Poitier young doctor assigned to treat an unrepentant racist, Richard Widmark.  Also featuring Linda Darnell, Stephen McNally (who played one of the most hateful characters ever in "Johnny Belinda", Jane Wyman's Oscar.) Directed by Joseph Mankiewicz.

 

Other TCM films of note include:

 Th Feb 17 will be Gene Tierney night starting with: 

8P with "Laura" (1944) with Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb, Vincent Price, directed by Otto Preminger.  I'm not a collector but I'd love to know the story of the "Baseball" ball bearing game that Andrews is noodling with as he interviews Webb at beginning of film. 

 

945P "The Ghost and Mrs Muir" (1947)

 

1145P "Whirlpool" (1949)

 

Back to Linda Darnell, the Museum of Modern Art has a Darnell festival through the end of March.  The alluring and talented actress, who died at 41 from injuries in a fire, stars in:

F Mar 4 at 130P with Rex Harrison in "Unfaithfully Yours" (1948)

 

F Mar 11 at 130p as part of the great cast in "A Letter to Three Wives" (1949)

 

W Mar 23 at 130p in Rene Clair's "It Happened Tomorrow" (1944) with Dick Powell, on his path from bobby soxer roles into full-fledged dramatic noir, and Jack Oakie who might never have exceeded his portrayal of a Mussolini character opposite Charlie Chaplin's Hitler in "The Great Dictator" but he was a talented and humorous actor who enjoyed a long career.

 

That's all for now.  Try to stay positive and test negative, and take it easy but take it!

.

I can't resist the old joke.  "Why are people tired on April First?"  Answer - Because they have just been through a March of 31 days.  

 

OK, it's pretty bad but please give me some leeway. 

There will be no Columbia baseball for the second year in a row as the Ivy League has called off all spring sports - my Wisconsin Badgers basketball team is collapsing into the nether regions of the tough Big Ten - and although "President Biden" remains a lovely two-word phrase, the problems of governing this divided country remain imposing.

 

I try to find half-filled glasses.  

**The growing number of available vaccinations against Covid are a positive.  Now if people wear masks and keep practicing social distancing, there will be light at end of the tunnel. 

 

**The Orioles' Trey Mancini got a hit in his first Grapefruit League at-bat on Sunday after missing a season recovering from Grade 3 colon cancer.  Rooting for him will be the easiest job of the season.

 

The Orioles seem committed to his playing first base which is a good move. The highest paid, least productive Oriole, Chris Davis, might DH now and then, or just ride the pine as he collects two more years on his enormous contract. 

 

Let's hope the full MLB season is played.  The Triple-A season was supposed to start on April 6 and the Double-A season on May 4. Now because of covid concerns, Triple-A baseball won't start until early May.

 

One of the quirks of the new Double A schedule is that there will be a lot of six-game series with a Monday off.  It reminds of the 192-game schedule of the old Pacific Coast League before the Giants and Dodgers' relocation to SF and LA in 1958 prompted its restructuring.

 

On the basketball scene, there have been no Columbia losses to gripe about because there was no season.  We alums can and do BIRG - bask in reflective glory - about the play of our star point guard Mike Smith's great season as a graduate transfer at the University of Michigan. 

 

The Wolverines now stand as the number two team in the country after throttling contending Iowa last week.  They have lost only one game all season in the very tough Big Ten. 

 

Freshman seven-foot center Hunter Dickinson from DeMatha HS in Hyattsville MD (outside DC) has been a revelation and seems to be improving each game.

 

"March Madness" will be held in only one city this year, Indianapolis, and #1 Gonzaga and Michigan right now look like teams to beat.  Gonzaga has never won the title so it says here that the ghosts of past failures will be a significant hurdle for them to overcome. 

 

On the pro scene, the New York Knicks under new coach Tom Thibodeau are at .500 which is a huge improvement over recent seasons.  Thibodeau has finally got them playing defense and I enjoy his intensity.  

 

He reminds me in some ways of Rodney Dangerfield. I can almost envision him grumbling behind his mask, "We get no respect!" 

 

The Brooklyn Nets under rookie coach Steve Nash certainly have the firepower to contend for a NBA title.  I'm not crazy about the way James Harden manipulated his way to become part of the Big Three of Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving but he certainly has played well in his new home.

Unlike the other two, so far he has been very durable.  

 

Meanwhile, as always, TCM movies keep me believing that a culture that produced such thoughtful and vivid movies last century can figure out a way to get us through the pandemic and reach some kind of social understanding.

 

For the baseball fan in March, the TCM films are for the early riser or you can tape them.   

 

Sa March 6 at 630A "Big Leaguer" - 1953, first film directed by Robert Aldrich. Shot at NY Giants minor league camp with Edward G. Robinson as manager trying to save job, Vera-Ellen as niece, Jeff Richards and Richard Jaeckel as competing players and cameo appearances by Giants farm director and Hall of Fame pitcher Carl Hubbell and Al Campanis as a Dodger farmhand manager. 

 

Sa Mar 13 630A  "The Stratton Story" - 1949, based on true story with Jimmy Stewart playing pitcher Monty Stratton trying to make a comeback from a hunting injury. With June Allyson and Jimmy Dykes playing himself. 

 

Tu Mar 16 630A  "The Winning Team" - 1952 with Ronald Reagan as Grover Cleveland Alexander and Doris Day as his wife (Mondays in March are Doris Day days and nights ) 

 

I should have mentioned it last month, but I hope some of you caught John Garfield Tuesdays in February.   I had never seen "Humoresque" and Garfield, playing a gifted violinist, is at the peak of his fame and talent (1946). Clifford Odets' hard-hitting script is gripping. 

 

Maybe Garfield's chemistry with femme fatale Joan Crawford wasn't great, but Oscar Levant was never better as his sidekick whose actual piano playing is heard on the sound track which is filled with top shelf classical music.  

 

Another TCM highlight last month was the restoration of "Native Son," starring author Richard Wright as protagonist Bigger Thomas.  It was shown on Eddie Muller's Noir Alley Feb 21/22.  

 

Wright in his 40s was too old to play a character 20 years younger, and he was not an actor, but he gave a credible performance.  The film was shot in Buenos Aires in the late 1940s but the American version shown in the early 1950s had 50 minutes cut out.  

 

Blessedly, a full 108-minute print was discovered in Buenos Aires not long ago. Kudos to the movie archivists who lovingly brought it back to life. And to the very informative discussion before and after the film by Muller and TCM's talented silent movie host Jacqueline Stewart.     

 

So here is Eddie Muller's Noir Alley schedule for March, Sat at midnight, repeated Su at 10A.

March 6/7 - "Killer's Kiss"  an early film directed by Stanley Kubrick - 1995

March 13/14 "The Night Brings Terror" - 1955

March 20/21  "The Third Man" 1949 a classic Cold War film with Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, and one hour in Orson Welles and haunting zither music. Can't wait to hear Muller's take on it

March 27/28 "Pepe Le Moko" a French Noir classic from 1937

 

Special mention should be made of two showings of "The Mask of Dimitrios" 1944 

Sat Mar 6 12N and Wed Mar 24 8p with post-"Casablanca" Peter Lorre & Sidney Greenstreet

W Mar 24 has three Lorre-Greenstreet films back-to-back.

945P "The Verdict" - 1946

1130P Three Strangers" with Geraldine Fitzgerald

 

Fri Mar 12 6p "East of Eden" 1955 - I saw it last month for first time and glad it is coming up ahead.  James Dean's debut and NYC-born Jo Van Fleet's Oscar.  Set before and during World War I in John Steinbeck's California.  He wasn't pleased with the selections chosen from his book of the same name, but director Elia Kazan created a memorable film.

 

Tu Mar 30 8:15A  Kazan's equally memorable "Splendor in the Grass" 1961 with Warren Beatty and Natalie Wood and Pat Hingle and screenplay by William Inge  

 

Before I close, I want to remember my neighbor Susan Feingold who lived for 60 years in my building on West 104th Street near Riverside Park. She left us in late September 2020 at the age of 95. 

 

Alex Vadukul contributed a moving obituary in the Feb 26 NY Times.  A Holocaust survivor, Susan became a prominent advocate for childhood education. Her work influenced the Head Start program and she was honored by President Obama.

 

Always remember:  "There is no wealth but life" - John Ruskin   

As well as Woody Guthrie's immortal:  "Take it easy but take it!"