Lee Lowenfish

Copies of my fifth book, BASEBALL'S ENDANGERED SPECIES: INSIDE THE CRAFT OF SCOUTING BY THOSE WHO LIVED IT (University of Nebraska Press, official pub date April 1), arrived at my doorstep a few days ago. To open that box was an amazing feeling, seeing years of work and doubt turned into a handsome hardback with legendary scout Tom Greenwade on the cover. 

As readers will find out, Greenwade famously signed not only Mickey Mantle but among others Hank Bauer and Bill Virdon for Yankees and Rex Barney and Cal McLish - Calvin Coolidge Julius Caesar Tuskahoma McLish - for Brooklyn Dodgers and gave thumbs up to Jackie Robinson after seeing him play for Negro League Kansas City Monarchs.

The calendar has turned to March and starting on the 13th I'll be in Sarasota to check in on Orioles spring training, listen to some of the music at the Sarasota Jazz Festival, and take in the lush scenery for a few days in and around Florida's most interesting city. 

It's my first visit to Sarasota in twelve years.  I'll never forget chatting in 2011 with three generations of fans while sitting in the left field pavillion at renovated Ed Smith Stadium. It was during an Orioles-Phillies exhibition game. It turned out the father of an avid 10-year old fan was slugger Ted Kluszewski's grand-nephew. 

His father-in-law happened to be a Madison (Wisconsin) West High School graduate as was Wisconsin Badger forward Keaton Nankivil (one of the great names ever in sports). 12 years ago Keaton and his

teammates were a lock to be entrants in March Madness. By 2014 they made the Final Four and in 2015, the Final Two only to lose to Coach K's Duke. 

I will never forget how Kryzewski, mercifully retired now, openly addressed the officials on national TV at halftime urging them to call more fouls on the Badgers. They complied and not long after the title went to the Blue Devils, one of the referees was led into retirement.

This year, the Badgers may miss the tournament for only the second time in an almost a quarter-century.  At least, they may have found a coming star in first-year guard Connor Essegian, who is not only the grandson of Chuck Essegian, who played in the Rose Bowl for Stanford and homered in the 1959 World Series for the Los Angeles Dodgers.  On his mother's side, Connor E. is related to Robin Yount. 

New Wisconsin athletic director Chris McIntosh, a former football lineman under Barry Alvarez, recently told fine Madison sportswriter Jim Polzin, that cager coach Greg Gard's job is safe for at least a couple of years. I hope that's true because Gard deserves the chance to right the ship.  

Getting sophomore point guard Chucky Hepburn's head in the right place is an important task ahead for Gard.  As well as getting his recruiters to find more able front court players and bring them to Madison.

The Big Ten regular season is a fierce mosh pit and no wonder that no team in what is really The Big 14 has won March Madness since Tom Izzo's Michigan State over 20 years ago.  They beat up on each other for 20 games and then play an intense tournament.  It says here that they are probably too battered to make a good national showing. 

On the other hand, my Columbia women's basketball team brings a 22-4 overall log and 11-2 league record into its final regular season game on Sat Mar 4 at 2p.  It will mark the final home game for three senior starters Kaitlyn Davis, Jaida Patrick, and Hannah Pratt, and four reserves Sienna Durr, Madison Hardy, Lillian Kennedy, and Carly Rivera.  

An interesting sidebar to Hannah Pratt's story is that her brother Michael Pratt was the Tulane University

quarterback that led the 2022 Green Wave to its best season in well over a half-century and a thrilling

victory over USC in the Cotton Bowl. 

I haven't even mentioned the emergence of junior sharpshooter Abby Hsu who is on a watch list for national recognition.  She is an improving defender, too, which is essential for playing in coach Megan

Griffith's fast-breaking fierce-defending system. 

Tickets are going fast for the last Sat home game and are available at gocolumbialions.com  For the third straight season, Columbia will then head for the Ivy League tournament the weekend of Mar 10-11, this year at Princeton where the red-hot defending champion Tigers are determined to hold off Columbia and Penn and Harvard. (In 2024 Columbia will host the tourney for the first time.)

That's all for this post.  But one last note.  Virginia Woolf's "Room of Her Own" is closing

on Sun Mar 5 on the first floor of the main branch of the 42nd Street/Fifth Avenue Public Library.

It might surprise you that Woolf was a great admirer of Ring Lardner's baseball writing. She wrote in 1925 that in an America without an established society, Lardner understood that baseball served that function. 

I didn't see any reference to baseball in the NYPL exhibit, but I was moved by her 1927 thoughts on gender:  "All we can do, whether we are men or women, is to admit the influence, look the fact in the face, and so hope to stare it out of countenance."

I'm also happy to report that the opera "The Hours," based on Michael Cunningham's novel inspired by

Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway," will return to the Met next season with the same all-star cast of Joyce DiDonato, Renee Fleming, and Kelli O'Hara. 

The music by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Kevin Puts reminds me of Samuel Barber more than

Philip Glass who composed the score for "The Hours" movie of 20 years ago.  That's a plus in my

book.  In the NYC area on Fri Mar 17, the opera "The Hours," taped at the Met, will be on PBS.

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

I'm trying to keep an even keel about all the anger from MLB players directed against the Houston Astros for their now-revealed high-technology methods and Keystone Kop execution that probably aided their World Series triumph of 2017. 

 
This is February, the slowest month of the sports year now that the Super Bowl is over. The build-up to college basketball's March Madness has not shifted into high gear. And the NBA basketball and NHL hockey playoffs are still a ways off.

So reporters are desperately looking for stories. Angry players are providing plenty of copy from Florida and Arizona.

It says here the protests won't amount to much because it will be impossible to prove exactly how much the signals affected game outcomes. The anger has almost made lament the pre-free agency days of baseball.

In the years when the reserve clause ruled baseball (through the 1976 season), spring training stories were usually about holdouts of players not satisfied with contract offers. 

In the vast majority of cases, they were one-year contract offers. Usually the pot was sweetened a little bit by management, and on went the regular season without interruption. 

The old system was obviously unfair to the players economically but it provided stability for the owners and for the fans could deeply identify with their favorite players. 

It was interesting if somewhat bizarre to watch Red Sox co-owner John Henry's press conference the other day trying to explain why Boston had traded star outfielder and recent AL MVP Mookie Betts to the Dodgers.

He spent a good deal of time reminiscing about Stan Musial, his favorite player growing up in St. Louis.  He waxed rhapsodic about how Red Sox fans felt the same attachment towards Ted Williams.

Both stayed with their original team forever. John Henry even noted that Musial turned down in 1946 a huge salary increase by spurning an offer from the short-lived Mexican League. 

Henry professed his approval of Betts' wanting to get "market value" for his services.  Yet neither finance mogul Henry nor his partner TV mogul Tom Werner (a former San Diego Padres owner who I remember most as the man who hired Roseanne Barr to sing a disastrous National Anthem) addressed in any great detail the real reason why Betts was traded. 

They didn't want to pay any more "luxury tax" into MLB coffers that a long-term contract to Betts would have required. They insisted that they didn't think a draft pick at the end of this season would be sufficient.

Yet the return for Betts seems questionable.  Two minor leaguers and a young outfielder Alex Verdugo may have a high ceiling but who will start season on the disabled list. 

To add to Red Sox questionable decisions, they selected as Cora's replacement Ron Roenicke (brother of former Oriole left fielder Gary Roenicke). Ron enjoyed only moderate success in prior MLB managerial jobs with the Brewers and Angels.

The Red Sox will face more bad news when beleaguered commissioner Rob Manfred announces the results of his investigation into Red Sox malfeasance during Alex Cora's reign as manager, especially their 2018 championship season. 

With too many stories in baseball resembling the troubling wider political world these days, you can see, dear reader, why I try to find solace in the college basketball seasons of my alma maters. 

The Wisconsin Badgersmen and Columbia Lions women have given me considerable pleasure. Picked for sixth in the 14-team "Big Ten", the Badgers have a chance at a top three finish and another trip to March Madness. 

They are maddeningly inconsistent to be sure. One center with the combined talents of Nate Reuvers' sweet touch and Micah Potter's toughness might be an All-American.  But last I looked cloning players has not been approved yet by the NCAA.  

With just eight players getting regular playing time, the Badgers have overcome great adversity to keep hope alive. First, there was the pre-season loss of  assistant coach Howard Moore whose wife and daughter were killed in a horrific auto crash - Moore himself is recovering slowly from his serious injuries and a subsequent heart attack.

Then last month, the streaky but talented swing man Kobe King abruptly left the team. The Lacrosse, Wisconsin native's reasons were sketchy at best.  Not being appreciated beyond a basketball player was one of them.  

Under coach Greg Gard's firm and steady hand, the Badgers have regrouped and are on their first three-game Big Ten winning streak of the season.  That's a modest number of course, but the flashes of offensive production from the likes of juniors Brad Davison and Aleem Ford and consistently tough defense have me pulling my chair up close to the TV these days.

I thought the Columbia women would be worth watching in 2019-20 and I have not been disappointed.  Under youthful coach Megan Griffith, Columbia class of 2007 grad and former assistant at league powerhouse Princeton, the Lions last weekend swept two Ivy League opponents for the first time since 2011, Dartmouth and Harvard.

There is now a four-team tournament in the Ivy League and Columbia has a chance to make it if they continue to grow and play hard and smart and well. 

Last year's rookie of the year, forward Sienna Durr from Grinnell, Iowa has stepped up her all-around game. 

Guard Abby Hsu from Parkland, Florida is a strong candidate for this year's rookie award.  The only senior on the squad, feisty guard Janniya Clemmons from Accoceek, Maryland outside DC, is another solid presence.

Both point guards sophomore Mikayla Markham from Manasquan on the Jersey shore and first-year Carly Rivera from Arlington, Virginia are getting plenty of playing time. They are sparkplugs for a frequently-employed full-court defense.

Tigers on the boards and adding a lot of energy to the team are first-year Caitlyn Davis from Norwalk, Ct. and sophomores Lilian Kennedy from Buford, Ga. and Hannah Pratt from Boca Raton, Fla. 

Unfortunately, the Columbia men have fallen into the Ivy League basement. It's a familiar story - close losses and no conistent scoring except from senior guard Mike Smith who hasn't had a lot of help and winds up taking too many shots.

After a good start to the season, the Wisconsin women have fallen near the bottom of a tough Big Ten conference. Hopefully, both teams end the season with good efforts and confidence-building results to give hope for better days ahead for both teams. 

That's all for now.  Always remember:  Take it easy but take it.