Lee Lowenfish

During my non-commercial radio days in the 1980s, I made the acquaintance of the memorable publicist Irving Rudd. In his long career, he worked for many sports ventures including the Brooklyn Dodgers, Yonkers Raceway, and at the end for boxing honcho Bob Arum (BTW Arum was a graduate of Harvard Law School in the 1950s along with Dick Moss, a huge Pittsburgh Pirates fan who was the baseball-loving counsel for the nascent MLB Players Association under Marvin Miller.) 

 

Irving Rudd battled throat cancer for years but was always a vital and smiling presence on the sports scene.  When I asked him one day how he was doing, he rasped, "Bobbing and weaving."  It has become my stock answer for the age we are living in and for any baseball season.  . 

 

What a difference a week makes!  In my last blog, I praised Kyle Gibson's insights into starting pitching philosophy and he practiced what he preached in a sterling win against the Yankees.  His mentee Grayson Rodriguez did not listen or couldn't execute when he opened the Friday night home series against the resurgent Texas Rangers who seem for real under new manager Bruce Bochy.  

 

Rodriguez was sent down to Triple A Norfolk after giving up 9 runs in less than 4 innings. He's still only 23 and was drafted by the Dan Duquette regime out of high school in Texas. He joins DL Hall another high school signee from the previous

regime who has also yet to show consistency. 

 

One of the old adages of baseball is that you can't give up on young pitching, but right now the Oriole staff is being saved by the two horses in the bullpen, the Rock, Yennier Cano, a Cuban defector they obtained as a throw-in from the Twins in the Jorge Lopez trade last summer, and the Mountain, Felix Bautista who has emerged after more than a decade of toiling in the lower minors. 

 

The groin injury to Cedric Mullins suffered late in the Memorial Day shutout loss to Cleveland looks serious and he could be out for a considerable amount of time. The Birds' outfield depth in the minors will have to come to the rescue. The loss of Mullins will definitely be felt, but I think the Birds have shown enough resilience to stay in the divisional race. 

 

Youneverknow what will happen in baseball. Look at Wrigley Field in Chicago on Memorial Day.  The high-flying Rays who just had won a hard-fought series at home against the Dodgers - possible World Series preview? - got one-hit by former Met Marcus Stroman WHO THREW A COMPLETE GAME.  It can happen if the analytic-drenched brains controlling so many teams can let go for a while and watch the pitcher show mastery. 

 

Now, it's time for the rundown on what New York City-area and northeastern teams made the 64-team college baseball regionals leading to the 8-team College World Series starting in Omaha on June 16. 

All double elimination regionals will start on Fri June 2 and will be televised on some ESPN platform. 

 

**Army plays top-seeded Virginia at Noon on ESPN+ - E. Carolina and Oklahoma are also in regional.

 

**Ivy League winner Penn plays at Auburn on 7p on ESPN+ with Southern Miss. and Samford also in regional.

 

**Central Conn. St from New Britain plays at South Carolina with Campbell (Cedric Mullins' alma mater) & NC State.

 

**Rider from Trenton NJ plays at Coastal Carolina at 7p on ESPN+ with Duke and UNC-Wilmington in same regional.

 

**UConn, a rare #2 from Northeast, plays #3 Texas Tech at Florida at 1p on ESPNU with #1 Gators playing Florida A & M  Hall of Famer Andre Dawson's alma mater - I tell the story of signing of Dawson by scout Mel Didier in my new book BASEBALL'S ENDANGERED SPECIES. 

 

**In a rare #2=#3 matchup of eastern teams, Maryland, Big Ten champion, and Northeastern, coached by Michael

Glavine, Hall of Famer Tom Glavine's brother, at 1p on ESPN+  Host Wake Forest plays George Mason in other game-

 

**Finally, Maine faces U of Miami at Miami at 7p ESPN+ with Texas and Louisiana (the former Louisiana-Lafayette) also in regional. 

 

Last but not least here is the quarter-final lineup for the PSAL high school playoffs on Tu May 30 at 330p

#1 Luperon from Upper Manhattan hosts South Bronx at Randall's Island Field 20 

#2 Tottenville hosts John Jay at its Staten Island field

#3 Monroe hosts Inwood at Mike Turo Field on the Monroe campus in east Bronx near 177th Street

#4 George Washington hosts #5 Grand Street of Brooklyn (Dellin Betances' alma mater)

 

The semi-finals will be best two out of three at higher seed's field over the weekend of June 2-3-4.

The final will be at Yankee Stadium on Mon June 12.  There will also be the AA final at that time.

 

That's all for now.  One cultural note - the new production of Mozart's last opera "The Magic Flute" can be seen

through June 10.  The music remains sublime and the production is both lively and profound. 

Last performances are W May 31 at 730p,  Sat Jun 3 at 1p (broadcast on national radio),  Tu June 6 at 730p, Th June 8 at 730p, and final performance of season for the Met, Sa Jun 10 at 730p   More info at metopera.org  

 

Always remember:  Take it easy but take it, and these days especially, stay positive test negative.  

 

 

    

Friday September 29 was the 63rd anniversary of Willie Mays’ great catch off Vic Wertz in Game 1 of the 1954 World Series. Along with a timely Dusty Rhodes home run over the Polo Grounds short right field fence, Mays’ defensive gem sparked the New York Giants to a sweep over the favored Cleveland Indians.

To commemorate this anniversary, New York City's Mayor Bill DeBlasio proclaimed Sept 29 Willie Mays Day. In a noontime ceremony, the sign Willie Mays Drive was unveiled at the northeast corner of 155th Street and the Harlem River Driveway.

Down below stood the Polo Grounds where I saw my first baseball game at the age of 6 in the summer of 1948. Now a school and housing project occupy the space.

One of the prime movers in this celebration was City Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez who represents the 10th city council district that includes the Polo Grounds on Harlem’s Sugar Hill. Normally the City of New York does not permit streets to be named for living people but Rodriguez lobbied successfully to make an exception in the case of Mays.

Councilman Rodriguez is a native of the Dominican Republic who came to NYC as a eighteen-year old. He thrust himself into community affairs as a student at City College and has been a longtime advocate for making his constituents aware of the rich athletic history of his neighborhood.

Another honored invitee was fellow Dominican Rico Pena, the coach of the Luperon High School baseball team that in its brief history has already become a contender for the city championship. Pena brought several of his players to the ceremony.

Mays is now 86 — Willie Mays is 86 years old! - and makes his primary home just south of San Francisco (though he has long kept an apartment in the western Bronx neighborhood of Riverdale). He didn’t make the trip for this honor but his adopted son Michael Mays was on hand. So was Mario Alioto, the executive VP of Business Operations for the SF Giants.

“I don’t make history, I just catch fly balls,” Mays once said. He was being modest because he was the epitome of the five-tool player who could run, throw, field, hit for average, and hit with power. In one of his pithiest phrases, Branch Rickey once said of Mays, “The secret to his success is the frivolity in his bloodstream.”

At a reception after the ceremony at the Rio III gallery on the SE corner of St. Nicholas Avenue and 155th Street, a portrait was unveiled of Mays playing stickball
with neighborhood Harlem kids.

The lower floors of this handsome new building on 898 St. Nicholas Ave. house The Sugar Hill Children's Museum of Arts and Storytelling. This new facility was designed by famed architect David Adjaye who created the acclaimed African-American cultural museum in DC and just was selected to build the new Studio Museum in Harlem.

The Sugar Hill Children's Museum should be a must-visit for parents who want to educate their children about the rich cultural history of their neighborhood and urban and rural life in general.

Before I conclude this first October blog, I want to say a few more words about the achievements of three great baseball people who passed on in recent weeks.

Gene Michael, 79, may have been the classic "good field, no hit" player. But he learned from his failures to become a top-notch player evaluator who somehow survived the George Steinbrenner firing machine to be a key part of the Yankees resurgence in the 1990s.

Gene Bennett, 91, spent his whole career with the Cincinnati Reds. Growing up in Branch Rickey country of Scioto County in southern Ohio, Bennett was advised by Rickey to take a job as scout instead of minor league manager.

"You can get fired if one season you are given a bad team," Rickey sagely advised. A good scout, though, can perform a service to the team if he finds prospects year after year. "TALENT SETS THE STAGE, CHARACTER SETS THE CEILING," was one of Bennett's most memorable adages.

Last but not least, Mel Didier, 91, left a remarkable legacy in baseball. He was the only man to work on the ground floor of three expansion franchises - the Montreal Expos, the Seattle Mariners, and the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Didier signed future Hall of Famers Gary Carter and Andre Dawson for Montreal. He tried valiantly to sign Kirk Gibson for Seattle but team owners weren't supportive and Gibson insisted on finishing his athletic career at Michigan State.

Ten years later when working for the LA Dodgers, Didier was instrumental in getting Gibson to sign with LA as a free agent. It was his scouting report on Dennis Eckersley's penchant for throwing sliders on 3-2 counts that Gibson remembered when he hit his walkoff homer in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series that propelled LA's sweep of the Oakland A's.

Didier wrote often on baseball and its techniques. His memoir with sportswriter T.R. Sullivan, PODNUH LET ME TELL YOU A STORY is one of the best of its kind.

That's all for now. Next time we'll have a better sense of how October baseball is shaping up. I still sentimentally like Cleveland to win the World Series, perhaps over Washington (but another injury to hurler Max Scherzer puts that outcome in doubt.)

In the meantime always remember: Take it easy but take it!
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