Lee Lowenfish

I am a rooter at heart. I can watch sports events dispassionately but life always seems more vibrant and hopeful when my teams are doing well. So let me begin with good news on my favorite basketball teams, Columbia women and Wisconsin men.   

 

On Fri night Jan 31 in a game televised nationally on ESPNU, the Ivy League-leading Columbia's women's basketball team virtually ran Harvard's contenders out of their own gym in an 80-71 triumph. If Jalen Hurts and Pat Mahomes throw long passes as accurately as Lions guards Cece Collins and Kitty Henderson did on the last day of January, it will be a helluva Super Bowl. 

 

The Lions' BST (Big Scoring Three) of sophomore standout guard Riley Weiss and senior captains Collins and Henderson accounted for 65 of the team's points, but the bigger story was the defense that forced Harvard senior star Harmoni Turner and her teammates into several early turnovers that set the tone early on.

Columbia junior forward Susie Rafiu has become a steady presence on the court on both sides of the ball.  

 

The next afternoon at Dartmouth (and kudos to the Ivy League for scheduling earlier weekend games these days), the Lions experienced a not surprising letdown after the intensity of the Harvard game.  They fell behind 17-10 after one period but quickly got control in the second quarter. Led by Weiss's 26 points they won 71-48. Many reserves played good minutes in the second half as the Lions coasted to the victory and didn't need help from the other members of the BST.  

 

It's hard to believe that the regular season is half over. After a 2P matinee at Brown on Sa Feb 8, Columbia returns to face Dartmouth again on Valentine's Night at 7P and the Harvard rematch will be Su Feb 16 at noon, again televised on ESPNU. The rematch with Princeton will be at Jadwin Gym Sa Feb 22 at 530P again with national TV coverage. The Lions end the regular season with 3 games at home: Brown Fri Feb 28 at 4P, Yale Sa Mar 1 at 2P and Cornell Sa March 8 at 2P.  The top 4 teams in the league play in the tournament on FSa Mar 14 & 15 at the Pizzitola Sports Center on the Brown campus this year. The men compete on SaSu Mar 15 & 16 with all games, men and women, broadcast on ESPN channels.

 

Meanwhile down in Greenwich Village, the undefeated NYU Division III Violets go for 50 in a row on Fri night Feb 7 at 730P against the University of Chicago

five who they beat in the Windy City last Friday.  Another reprise happens on Sun at noon when Washington U of St. Louis comes into the Paulson Center on Mercer Street.  The Violets host Carnegie Mellon and Case Western on Feb 21 730P and Feb 23 12N.  The first and second rounds of the Division III

tournament will be Mar 7 & Mar 8 (probably at NYU), Sweet 16 & Elite 8 Mar 14 & Mar 15 and the Final Four this year will be in Salem, VA, Mar 20 & Mar 22.  

 

An interesting trial balloon was sent up last week by NBA commissioner Adam Silver when he suggested that maybe the league should consider switching to 10 minute quarters like the WNBA and all international play.  It probably won't happen - the old guard seems happy with the 12-minute periods - but it is a testimony to how exciting the women's game has become.   It is such a fast-paced game - as is the men's game - that rests after ten minutes of playing time could allow for more recovery time and also give the players something to shoot for - like winning each quarter.  

 

Meanwhile my Wisconsin Badgers, picked for 15th in the geographically expanded 18-team Big Ten, are 7-4 in the league and 17-5 overall as they prepare to face Indiana at home on Tu Feb 4 at 9P (on Peacock).     The Wisconsin comeback victory against Northwestern on Sat aft Feb 1, aired on FS1, was very heart-warming because senior forward Carter Gilmore, a walk-on who only this season has earned a full athletic scholarship, set a career high with 15 points and added 7 rebounds.  Gilmore is a product of small town Wisconsin whose father Brian Gilmore played for retired Hall of Fame coach Bo Ryan when UW-Platteville won the Division III title in 1991.  Carter's mother is in the UW-Platteville Hall of Fame after her outstanding basketball career.  

 

The schedule ahead for the Badgers is not easy.  After Indiana, they go on the road to Iowa on Sa Feb 8 at 1P on NBC, the following Sa Feb 15 they meet powerhouse Purdue in their raucous building.  On Tu Feb 18 at home 830P on FS1, they face Illinois, another title contender that has beaten Greg Gard's team NINE times in a row.  How they compete with these big boys will give us an indication of how far this team can go in March Madness. But to even have modest hopes in early February is a plus after all the dire forecasts and the wails and whines of the doom-and-gloom fair weather fans. 

 

Here's the rest of the schedule:  On Sa Feb 22 Badgers host Oregon at noon on the main Fox channel, Tu Feb 25 they host at 9P U of Washington on Peacock, Su Mar 2 at 130P CBS, host perennial power Michigan State, W Mar 5 visit Minnesota 830P on Big Ten Network, and end regular season vs. Penn State at home, Sa Mar 8 1P - all times in all the listings above EST  

 

AND NOW IN MEMORIAM FOR BASEBALL LIFERS WHO RECENTLY LEFT US:

BOB UECKER, 90, passed away on Jan 16 at the age of 90 after a long battle with leukemia.  I never met Uecker but from all accounts he was a memorable personage deeply devoted to his home area of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  He parlayed a career as a rarely-used backup catcher into a successful broadcasting and acting career. The latter was aided by his self-effacing appearances on Johnny Carson's NBC Tonight Show, the host dubbing Uecker "Mr. Baseball".

 

Uecker was hilarious as the play-by-play man in "Major League" and its two sequels and he also starred in TV's "Mr. Belvedere" series (and as a regular in the Miller LIte Beer TV ads), but in reality he was an excellent and underrated baseball broadcaster.  His call of Mets first baseman Pete Alonso's home run off the Brewers reliever Devin Williams (now a Yankee) that knocked Milwaukee out of the playoffs last October will be remembered forever. But I think that the measure of Uecker as a man is the story told that on the last days of their lives, Hall of Famers Hank Aaron and Bob Gibson phoned Uecker so they could get one more laugh from him.      

 

JEFF TORBORG, 83, died on Jan 19 after a multi-year battle with Parkinson's disease. I knew Torborg in the 1980s when he was a coach for 9 years with the Yankees and I was doing my WBAI "Seventh Inning Stretch" radio program.  Jeff was almost universally admired for his even temperament and deep knowledge of the game. He loved to talk baseball and when I quoted Muddy Ruel's lament that the catching gear were "the tools of ignorance," Torborg demurred with a laugh: "No, they are the instruments of the intelligentsia."

 

Signed for $100,000 out of Rutgers University by LA Dodgers scout Rudy Rufer (who later inked another NYC area product Bobby Valentine from Stamford CT),

Torborg never developed as a hitter but had an ten-year career as an outstanding defensive catcher. He caught three no-hitters - Sandy Koufax's 1965 perfect game, Bill Singer's 1970 gem, and Nolan Ryan's first no-hitter in 1973 when Jeff was catching for the Angels.

 

His greatest success as a manager came with the White Sox when he was voted 1990 AL Manager of the Year leading the Pale Hose to 94 wins.  He broke in as rookies the future Hall of Famer Frank Thomas and third baseman Robin Ventura who remembered him fondly when told the sad news. "I smile as I think of him in the dugout wearing his soccer cleats as he managed his team," Ventura wrote on legacy.com.  Thomas told the LA Times that he "gave me a chance to shine right away." Torborg's time as skipper of the 1992-93 Mets, immortalized as "the worst team that money can buy," was not happy and he didn't have great success later with the Expos and Marlins but his intelligence and good spirits will be his enduring legacy.        

 

In closing, there are not too many TCM sports movie tips in this post as the network plays Oscar films all month.  Noir Alley doesn't return until Mar 8.

But here are a few movies worth noting in the next two weeks:

W Feb 5 2P "The Stratton Story" (1949) the film that cemented Jimmy Stewart's place as a star.  He spent many weeks learning how to act and play ball with a brace on his leg to make believable the story of the onetime major league star pitcher Monty Stratton who got injured in a hunting accident.

 

Th Feb 6 915A "Strangers On A Train" (1951) vintage Hitchcock with some memorable scenes shot at Forest Hills Tennis Club as Farley Granger plays but

       tries to avoid demonic Robert Walker

               4P "Million Dollar Mermaid" (1952) an Esther Williams swimming flick with Walter Pidgeon, Victor Mature

 

W Feb 12 a boxing night starting with 8P "The Champ" (1931) with Wallace Beery and young Jackie Cooper

               945P "The Fighter" (2010) with Christian Bale

               12M "Raging Bull" (1980) Scorsese directs Robert DeNiro in the Jake LaMotta story

 

and the next three have nothing to do with sports but are true classics: 

 

Th Feb 13 8A "Naked City" (1948) Howard Duff, Barry Fitzgerald & others in the Mark Hellinger classic that he never lived to see in theaters but

    at least he saw in previews

              10A "Picture of Dorian Gray" (1945) with Hurd Hatfield, George Sanders, briefly Donna Reed - based on Oscar Wilde classic story

 

F Feb 14   10P "Marty" (1955) the surprise hit of the year with Ernest Borgnine but sadly the last film that Betsy Blair made in America - as I learned in the

      wonderful volume of interviews about the Hollywood blacklist TENDER COMRADES (1997) ed. by Patrick McGilligan and Paul Buhle, Blair never got another          Hollywood offer after this film despite its success - she made London her permanent home and married director Karel Reisz.  The greatness of

      TENDER COMRADES are the nuances brought out in the interviews.  She remained friendly with her ex-husband Gene Kelly whom she married when

      she was a teenager. 

 

 

That's all for now.  Always remember:  Take it easy but take it, and still despite everything STAY POSITIVE TEST NEGATIVE & STAY HEALTHY AND STAY SANE.

 

 

 

 

 

  

They tell me that there was a college football game on the night of January 20th.  It was quite a day that happened to coincide with this year's Martin Luther King Jr Birthday and the cruelly ironic inauguration of Donald Trump to a second non-consecutive presidential term.  I hear that Ohio State beat Notre Dame for the first title under the new 12-game college football playoff system.  Bully for them for recovering from an embarrassing home loss to arch-rival Michigan and running the table with four convincing playoff wins. 

 

For me, however, the place to be on the frigid night of M Jan 20 was up at my alma mater's Levien Gym on Broadway/120th Street. Along with over 2200 other passionate fans, we saw the Columbia women's basketball team roar back from a 10-point halftime deficit to beat longtime nemesis Princeton, the co-2024 Ivy League champion with the Lions, 58-50.  Columbia played airtight defense the whole game forcing 24 turnovers and finally capitalizing on them in the second half when they held the Tigers to 6 points in the third period and 20 overall in the half.  

 

Junior forward Susie Rafiu had a career game with 13 points on 6-10 shooting, 3 rebounds, 4 steals, 1 assist, and no turnovers. Reliable veteran senior tri-captain Cece Collins led the scoring with 18 points, her 3 assists and 2 steals overcoming her 4 turnovers. After a scoring drought that lasted until early in second half, sophomore Riley Weiss, the team's leading scorer, hit two big threes to keep the Lions ahead once they gained the lead late in the third quarter.  

 

It was Princeton's first league loss and they will undoubtedly be heard from before the season is over.  Senior center Parker Hill, trying to fill the shoes of the departed all-world Ellie Mitchell, chipped in 12 points and sophomore guard Ashley Chea, trying to fill the equally formidable shoes of departed Kaitlyn Chen (now a graduate player at UConn), had 16 points but commited 6 of the turnovers.

 

The rematch at Princeton will be on Sa Feb 22 at 530P.  You can be assured that the Tigers under coach Carla Berube, who played at perennial power UConn and has rarely lost coaching Princeton, will insist on improvement.  In the meantime, Columbia hosts Penn this Sa Jan 25 at 2P, a rematch of a hard-fought 15-point win earlier this month. 

 

The two games with Harvard, the other likely contender for top Ivy honors, will be Fri Jan 31 at Columbia at 7P and Su Feb 16 at Harvard at noon.

The top four teams will meet in the league post-season tourney at Brown in Providence RI on the weekend of March 14-15. 

 

(In a sad symbol of Columbia basketball teams going in different directions, earlier on Jan 20 the Columbia men blew a 33-15 halftime lead at Princeton and fell in the last seconds, 71-67.  The men under coach Jim Engles, a onetime Columbia assistant who was hired at the same time as women's caoch Megan Griffith, have just not come through in close Ivy League games.  They are now 0-3 in league play after an 11-1 start that is somewhat misleading because it is padded by expected routs over the Merchant Marine Academy and Sarah Lawrence, yes Sarah Lawrence. In prior years in mystifying pre-season scheduling, Bard and SUNY-Delhi have been sacrificial lambs to the Lions.)  

 

The other big women's basketball story in NYC concerns NYU's Division III Violets rolling along at 14-0 as they seek a second straight undefeated season and national championship.  They have been rarely tested so far this season, but there should be better competition on upcoming back-to-back weekends against longtime UAA (University Athletic Association) rivals, the University of Chicago and Washington U of St. Louis.  The games begin on the road in Chicago,

F Jan 31 730P and in St. Louis Su Feb 2 12 Noon.  The teams then return to the Paulson Center west of Broadway just north of Houston Streeet on Mercer Street on F Feb 7 at 730 with U Chicago coming in and Su Feb 9 at 12N the Violets host WUSL.  

 

My other favorite basketball team, the University of Wisconsin-Madison Badgers, has been surprising a lot of people this year.  How I love it when my teams are expected to do nothing because of transfer portal departures and supposedly uninspired coaching and wind up making the best of the situation.  Although the Badgers took a tough 86-84 loss at UCLA on Tu night Jan 21, they are 15-4 overall and 5-3, tied for 5th place (with recent nemesis Illinois that has beat them 9 times in a row), in the now 18-member Big Ten conference.  (The Badgers cannot overlook any game in the moshpit of Big Ten competition but I have Tu Feb 18 marked down when Illinois comes into Madison - 830P EDT nationally televised on Fox Sports !). 

 

Graduate transfer John Tonge (pronounced TAHN-jay, I think I've finally got the pronunciation down) was scoreless in last Sat's convincing win over USC but hit for 24 in the UCLA loss.  Sophomore John Blackwell pitched in with 23 although his second half technical foul was costly in the two-point loss.  But as long as he learns to control his temper and the team still has his back, Wisconsin could make the rest of the year into March Madness interesting. It's always very nice to see a team that seems to like to pass and run and not just shoot and dunk and play indifferent defense (BTW like too many NBA teams!).  

 

LATE JANUARY THOUGHTS ON BASEBALL PAST AND PRESENT:

The 2025 Baseball Hall of Fame class is now complete.  To no one's surprise, Ichiro Suzuki won a virtually unaminous selection. One still unidentified voter was evidently trying to draw attention to himself and didn't vote for the Japanese star.  His numbers are astounding: He amassed 4367 hits, 3,089 coming in the USA most of them with Seattle but some of them with the Yankees. In the USA he hit .311 (compared to .355 in Japan) and slugged .402 and was a sterling defensive player and base runner.

 

The stature of Ichiro is such that he needs only one name for ID.  He also exudes humility and an obvious love for the game.  But don't ignore his fierce competitiveness.  When Korea beat Japan in one international tournament and a rubber match ensued, Ichiro defiantly proclaimed that Japan would beat Korea so soundly they wouldn't dream of another rubber match for a half-century. Japan did win that game. 

 

I can accept the other Hall of Fame awardees although in the case of Billy Wagner I sense he got in mainly because San Diego's star reliever Trevor Hoffman is already enshrined.  Both did not do well in the post-season and for me that could be a reason for non-admittance. Remember that enshrinement should be for the great, not merely the very good. 

 

I think what probably turned the voters in favor of CC Sabathia, who was elected in his first year of eligibility, was his 250 career wins, a nice round number/ He also collected 3093 strikeouts, only the 3rd of 16 pitchers to reach the 3000 level. But I must say that since  the modern game has eliminated the stigma on striking out, I am less impressed with raw strikeout numbers because batters these days rarely cut down on their swings on two strikes. But CC did pitch capably in post-seasons with Milwaukee and the Yankees. He, Ichiro, and Billy W will join veterans committee picks Dick Allen and Dave Parker in the Hall of Fame induction ceremonies at Cooperstown on Sunday July 27.  

 

As for the news from the current free agent "re-entry" market, most Oriole fans expected Anthony Santander to leave for greener (as in $$$$) pastures. In his case, it will be for Toronto for five years in the neighborhood of $90 million.  The Blue Jays need a lot more than Santander to become a true contender again but no real fan begrudges the very likable Santander his new fortune.  I just hope he doesn't feel added pressure to produce because first baseman/DH Vladimir Guerrero Jr. might be headed to free agency after 2025 and the rest of the Toronto lineup doesn't look too imposing. Oriole fans have to hope that Tyler O'Neill, former Cardinal and Red Sox outfielder and son of a renowned Canadian body builder, can fill the void left by the switch-hitting 44 HR 102 RBI man in 2024. 

And maybe lefthanded hitting Hestor Kjerstad, a few years removed from a very serious heart condition, can become a productive hitter.

 

As for the LA Dodgers loading up on the best free agents - pitchers Blake Snell, Tanner Scott, the young Japanese wunderkind Roki Sasaki and re-signing outfielder Teoscar Hernandez - it is hard to see how competitive balance is helped by this spending spree that few franchises outside of the major markets can afford.  But who talks about competitive balance any more?  LAD will be overwhelming favorites in 2025 but they'll still have to do on the field. But I do know that despite LAD management chortling about how the Dodgers will become "Japan's team" now with Shohei Ohtani and pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto already in the fold, even some ardent fans in Japan do feel that enough is enough in bringing in outsiders to a team that used to boast about its farm system from the days in Brooklyn of Branch Rickey and Buzzie Bavasi through their early years in LA.   

 

Here's some good news though for those who need a baseball fix before spring training and the regular season start.

Starting at 450P EST on F Jan 31, MLBTV will be showing the full Caribbean Series with broadcasts in English. For the first time, Japan, the virtually perennial winner of international competition, will be joining the familiar group including the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, and Mexico.  The games will be shown daily through the championship on F Feb 7. 

 

And what would be a LeeLow post without some TCM news.  On Sa Jan 25, TCM will be providing a PopUp program at the 92nd Street Y on Lexington Ave

on New York's Upper East Side.  Eddie Muller will not be there but  other TCMs wil be on the program. Ddoors will open at 1230P and at

1P TCM host Ben Mankiewicz will converse with Martin Scorsese for an hour.  What films or film clips will be shown is not clear and prices begin at $30.

This program is available online as well as in person.  All the other programs are in-person only.

 

330P TCM host Jacqueline Stewart interviews Drew Barrymore, followed by the showing of "Twentieth Century" with her noted forebear John Barrymore and

Carole Lombard one of the most talented and revered actresses of the Golden Age of Hollywood who perished in an airplace accident after completing with

classic Lubitsch film "To Be Or Not To Be".

 

7P Drew B. returns with TCM host Dave Karger and they interview Steven Spielberg and then "E.T." will be shown.

More info at 92stY.org

 

On the TCM channel itself, here are some highlights: 

Sa Jan 25 415P "Jim Thorpe, All-American" with Burt Lancaster in title role and Charles Bickford as coach Pop Warner

    745P an always-whimsical Robert Benchley short, "How To Watch Football"

Sat midnight (repeated Su Jan 26 at 10A)  "Woman on the Run" with Ann Sheridan/Robert Keith/Dennis O'Keefe - some wonderful San Francisco

    photograph and above-average Noir story - the last Noir Alley until March because of the Oscar films shown in Feb prior to Mar 2 Oscar ceremony

 

Sun Jan 26 4:15P "Somebody Up There Likes Me" (1956) boxer Rocky Graziano's life story starring Paul Newman with Sal Mineo/director Robert Wise

  Adapted from the book of same name by author Rowland Barber who a few years later would collaborate on "Harpo Speaks," Harpo Marx's wonderful

  memoir

 

M Jan 27 8P "The Pawnbroker" (1965) with Rod Steiger and the always fascinating Geraldine Fitzgerald

 

Tu Jan 28 the last night of the George Raft "Star of the Month" festival

8P "Johnny Allegro" (1948) with Nina Foch/George Macready

930P "Red Light" (1949) with Virginia Mayo/Gene Lockhart

11P "A Dangerous Profession" (1949) with Ella Raines/Pat O'Brien

 

One last comment:  I have been watching NFL playoffs and the final rounds have been pretty exciting.  I would like to see Buffalo finally win a Super

Bowl.  It is a city of loyal people and real fans and by the way the only city in Branch Rickey's doomed plan for the Continental League in 1959-60 not to get

a MLB franchise.  But there are good reasons for Kansas City to repeat and also for Philadelphia or Washington to wear theSuper Bowl crown.  Just hope the

injuries are few and the games go down to the last minute and even into overtime.  I have no real horse in this race so I can simply enjoy the games.

 

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