Lee Lowenfish

Happy April, dear readers.  I can now focus again on baseball with the college basketball season over. Kudos to Connecticut, the men's winner over Purdue for a second straight title and huzzahs to undefeated South Carolina copping the women's title over Caitlin Clark's Iowa. In a fascinating development that was driven in large part by Clark's popularity, the women's championship drew far better TV ratings than the men's game. 

And now onto to baseball.  It always helps to get off to a good start and rise comfortably above .500 to have a cushion for the inevitable losing streak

that occurs in the long long season. 

One of the most pleasant surprises in the first handful of 2024 games comes from Pittsburgh where the Pirates are tied with the Yankees for the best record in baseball at 9-2 (after games of Mon Apr 8). They just won a weekend series against my Orioles thanks to two walkoff victories.

In the Sa Apr 6 Pirate victory, another truism about baseball came true: Beware The Traded Player In First Games With New Team. Catcher Joey Bart, once the number two draft pick in the nation for the San Francisco Giants, hit a two-run HR in his first AB as a starter for Pittsburgh.  Bart followed that with a double and even had a chance to win the game with the bases loaded and two outs in the 10th inning but struck out.  

Not to worry. The young and improved Buccos won it in the 11th on a single by their budding young star shortstop O'Neill Cruz that scored the ghost runner - the Manfred man - from second base. (Cruz, incidentally, is named for former Yankee right fielder and current Yankee color man Paul O'Neill). Writing with tongue firmly in cheek, I suggest that perhaps freed from the pressures of the Bay area and its BART public transit system (Bay Area Transit System), Joey Bart may find more success in Pittsburgh where the Pirates have used TWELVE catchers in the last two seasons and still haven't decided on a regular. 

There are 153 games left in the Orioles regular season so the Prince of Paranoia yours truly will not agonize over the back-to-back walkoff losses.  The Sunday game was marked by brilliant defense by the Baltimore outfield and a wonderful relay throw by Jorge Mateo, new to playing second base, that cut down a Pirate run at the plate. 

But with regular Baltimore closer Craig Kimbrel unavailable after working two games in a row, setup man Yennier Cano couldn't hold a 2-1 lead in bottom of the 9th. In a very dramatic ending with two outs and the bases loaded, the winning runs were scored on DH Edward Olivares' hot smash up the middle that Bird shortstop Gunnar Henderson snared with a diving stop behind the second base bag.

Last year's American League Rookie of the Year tagged second base with his glove but threw wildly to first and the tying and winning runs scored. 

Running towards second from first base, beefy Rowdy Tellez, not exactly known for his swiftness, made a very smart decision by not sliding into second but came in standing up.

MLB has been enforcing obstruction rules against runners who slide too aggressively and Tellez's decision forced Henderson into a difficult angle for his throw to first. Head down after his error, Henderson almost broke into tears, another example of his zealous intensity - perhaps overzealous - which makes him easy to root for.

A loss is a loss and the Orioles have slipped to 5-4 as they prepare for Boston's home opener on Tu Apr 9.  After pounding the Los Angeles Angels in the first two games of the season, Baltimore bats have gone very cold. 

Some impatient fans are already howling for the immediate callup of some of the sluggers at Triple-A Norfolk who are pounding the ball at record rates. I say it is too early to panic.  The pitching has been excellent and the defense often spectacular, but the bats of such veterans as outfielders Austin Hays and Cedric Mullins and third baseman-second baseman Ramon Urias do need to awaken soon.   

The Mets started the season losing 5 games in a row at home before salvaging the second game of a doubleheader against the Detroit Tigers in walkoff fashion.  Going on the road has been a tonic because after winning a weekend series in Cincinnati, they held on to beat the Atlanta Braves, 8-7, on M night April 8.  Brandon Nimmo had 2 HRs and 5 RBI, a career offensive night for the leadoff man.

April 8 marked the 50th anniversary of Hank Aaron breaking Babe Ruth's career HR record of 715 and the Mets SNY cablecast team did themselves proud.  Before the game they ran a lengthy excerpt of Kevin Burkhardt's interview in 2014 of Al Downing who threw the fateful home run pitch. 

Burkhardt, a graduate of William Paterson University in Wayne, New Jersey who used to do commentary on Mets telecasts and now is the top voice on Fox Sports NFL football coverage, asked probing questions of the classy Downing, a former 20-game winner for the Yankees and their first African-American pitcher.  He finished his fine career with a 123-107 W-L record and 3.22 ERA and later became a broadcaster himself. 

Born in Trenton, NJ a year and a day before me, June 28, 1941, Downing made it clear how much he treasured his friendship with Aaron and how much his stoic poise in the face of hatred meant to not only black people in the U.S. but all decent people of any color. Downing recently appeared as an insightful talking head in moving Yogi Berra documentary, "It Ain't Over". 

During the game, Gary Cohen and Keith Hernandez invited Dusty Baker into the SNY booth for his remembrances of being on-deck on the night that Aaron broke Ruth's record. Dusty is one of the great raconteurs in the sport and he described how his locker and teammate Ralph Garr's locker were on each side of Aaron.  Hank never talked about the hate mail he got for daring to break Babe Ruth's record, but they could see his concerned reaction to the venomous bigoted words.   

Thank you SNY for making it a broadcast that made me feel proud to be both a passionate baseball fan and a concerned citizen that sees the larger good that baseball has done for American society in its pioneering role in racial desegregation. The cherry on the sundae last night was the Mets narrowly holding on to their come-from-behind 8-7 victory.    

On the college baseball front, I am happy to report that my alma mater Columbia is riding a 8-game Ivy League winning streak into Homecoming weekend against Yale this weekend April 13-14. At 8-1, the Lions are 2 games up on Cornell (6-3) and 3 ahead of defending champ Penn (5-4)   

Columbia's 2014 Ivy League champions will be honored between games of the Sat Apr 13 twinbill with first game starting at 1130P and second game approximately at 3p.  The single game will be Su Apr 14 at noon.  There is no charge for the games played at Satow Stadium/Robertson Field in the Baker Field complex, north of Broadway/218th Street. 

BTW After sweeping Dartmouth this past weekend in Hanover, NH, Columbia coach Brett Boretti has become the winningest coach in school history, 351 and counting.

St. John's is on a roll, too - 3-0 in the Big East, 22-5-1 overall. 

After playing the April 12-14 weekend at UConn in Storrs (605P, 205P, 105p), the Red Storm host Columbia

in a non-league game on Tu Apr 16 at 330p at Kaiser Stadium in Queens not far from Union Turnpike.

They host Butler of Indianapolis the weekend of Apr 19-21 (6P, 3P, 1P)

The Big Ten's Rutgers come in for non-league game on Tu Apr 23 at 3P

Rutgers is enduring a 5-game losing streak and is 1-5 in Big Ten though 19-12 overall.

Tu Apr 9 they head to Seton Hall at Shepard Stadium/Carroll Field at 4p in South Orange NJ in a non-league game.

Weekend of Apr 12-14 Nebraska comes in to Bainton Field in Piscataway at 6P, 3P, 1P

Tu Apr 16 3P Monmouth (from Long Branch NJ) comes to Bainton Field.

Tu Apr 23 6P St John's visits. 

Seton Hall is 1-2 in Big East and 17-14 overall but pitcher Ryan Reich nearly threw a no-hitter at Georgetown on Sa Apr 6.   

Division III NYU (3-5 in Univ. Ath. Assn., 16-8 overall) returns to the Staten Island Hospital Stadium near the ferry on the weekend of Apr 19-21 to play a top rated Case Western Reserve team from Cleveland (7-1, 21-6).  Fri at 4p, Sa doubleheader 12N & approx. 3p, Su 11A.   

And before I wrap up this first April post, here is word of a special Noir Alley ahead on Sat midnight/repeated on Sun 10A April 14:

"The Breaking Point" (1950) John Garfield's last commercial film for Warner Brothers. His testimony before the Red-baiting Hollywood committee

led Warners to cease promoting this film which is a classic and extremely worth seeing. 

Directed by Michael "Casablanca" Curtiz, based on the Ernest Hemingway story "To Have and To Have Not".

Screenplay by Ranald McDougall who wrote "Mildred Pierce" and later Harry Belafonte's fascinating exploration of race in a nuclear-destroyed NYC,

"The World, Flesh, and the Devil" (1959). 

Co-starring Patricia Neal as a femme fatale to end femme fatales.

With other fine actors Wallace Ford, Juano Hernandez, Phyllis Thaxter.

The intro and outro will feature commentary by Noir Alley creator Eddie Muller and the late Robert Osborne.

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

I've never been a master of the sound bite. I did come up with "It's a big book about a big man" to describe my 600-page Branch Rickey biography. 

i surprised myself at the beginning of June when, as the trailer for the 1951 comedy-fantasy "Angels in the Outfield" was being loaded into a DVD player for my talk about that movie at the annual Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture, I blurted the above advice to those drunk on analytics, Sober Up! 

I went on to mention that when Branch Rickey was once asked how much of baseball he really knew, he replied, "No more than 55%." Yet baseball now is overwhelmed with Ivy League and elite business school grads who think their new-fangled statistics will provide answers for baseball's eternal imponderables. 

Too often these young guns dismiss the opinions of eyes and ears scouts with a lot more experience. 

I've often wondered how Branch Rickey - who died almost poetically in December 1965 not long after giving a speech on "Courage--Physical and Spiritual" - would have responded to the wave of high-powered technicians who have taken over virtually every franchise. 

He would have loved new information I am sure of that, but he also would have warned about relying too much on data and forgetting that the letter killeth but the spirit giveth life.

One of the things I learned in researching "Angels in the Outfield" was Rickey's role during his first year as Pirates president and general manager in bringing some of the filming to Forbes Field early in the 1951

season.  It was the honeymoon period for Rickey in Pittsburgh after losing the power struggle to Walter

O'Malley for control of the Brooklyn Dodgers after the 1950 season. 

With the encouragement of Rickey and talented producer-director Clarence Brown, Pittsburgh minority owner Bing Crosby was one of four people who made cameo appearances in "Angels," speculating on if angels could possibly help a team.  The other three were Ty Cobb, Joe DiMaggio, and songwriter Harry Ruby.

With partner Bert Kalmar, Ruby wrote such immortal tunes as "Who's Sorry Now?", "A Kiss To Build A Dream On," and "Three Little Words," which was the title of the 1950 bio-pic starring Red Skelton as Ruby and Fred Astaire as Kalmar.  Ruby also wrote "Hooray for Captain Spaulding" for his good friend Groucho Marx, a song that appeared in the movie "Animal Crackers" and later was a theme song on Groucho's quiz show "You Bet Your Life".  

Yet Harry Ruby loved baseball more than anything on earth. Ruby was a so-so infielder who once actually gave up a movie gig to play in an exhibition game for the Washington Senators.  Albert von Tilzer, composer of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," was not a baseball fan and he signed his copy of the song "to Harry Ruby who should have written this song."

An autodidact who never finished high school in NYC, Ruby became an avid collector of original classic editions. it was said that his favorite evening would be spent reading the works of Thomas Aquinas and the latest edition of the Sporting News.   

**Among the highlights of the Cooperstown Symposium was a sweet tone-setting keynote speech by Tyler Kepner, New York Times national baseball writer. Like most of us, he fell in love early with the glass-enclosed bulletin board next to the Hall of Fame that always lists the results of the prior day's games. He added that the difficulties of reaching centrally isolated Cooperstown - 70 miles west of Albany - matches the difficulties of the game of baseball itself. 

**Lipscomb University profs from Nashville, Tenn. Willie Steele and Mark McGee, presented fascinating papers on the genuine baseball love of bluegrass legend Bill Monroe and country singer Conway Twitty, respectively.  Born Harold Lloyd Jenkins, Twitty was a star HS baseball player in Helena, Arkansas and had he not been drafted for the Korean War, he might have signed with the Phillies. 

**Judith Hiltner, co-author with Jim Walker of the outstanding Red Barber biography, gave an informative talk on the writings of the memorable broadcaster after he left the radio booth.  As early as 1969 he was calling for baseball to broaden its interest among women and the younger generation. 

**Chris Bell, English professor at U. of N. Georgia, explained how he used the terse and crisp text on the back of baseball cards as a tool for getting students to appreciate clear writing.  In an effort to demystify hallowed texts, he said that he also suggested edits to the awkward language of the Second Amendment!

Next year's Symposium will be held from May 29-31 at the Hall of Fame. For more info, contact either Cassidy Lent at clent@baseballhall.org or Professor Bill Simons at william.simons@oneonta.edu 

And now for news about the high school and college baseball playoffs. Congrats to the PSAL baeeball champions, Hunter winners over Metropolitan, 2-1 in the AA final, and Tottenville conquerors of Luperon, 7-4 in the AAA final. 

Both games were played on M June 12 at Yankee Stadium earlier than schedules because of threatening weather. 

The Final Eight is set for the College World Series starting in Omaha on F June 16. The winners of each

double-elimination bracket will square off in a best-of-three series June 24-26. 

For the first time in recent memory, there are two heavy favorites, #1 seed Wake Forest, seeking to match their only title of 1955, and perennial contender #2 Florida. But the Joaquin Andujar Rule applies to college baseball as well as pro baseball, Youneverknow!   All games to be televised on ESPN/ESPN+ with times listed as EDT.

Fri at 2p Oral Roberts vs. TCU followed at 7p Virginia vs. Florida

Sat at 2p Stanford vs. Wake Forest followed at 7p by Tennessee vs. LSU 

Before I close, here is a tip on an excellent play closing Su June 18 at the Manhattan Theater Club's home in the historic City Center on 55th St between 6-7 Aves in Manhattan.

Rajiv Joseph's absorbing and humorous two-character play "King James" set in Cleveland from 2008 through 2016 during the years of Lebron James' arrival/departure/return. 

Without ovedramatizing the black-white differences in the characters, playwright Joseph and director Kenny Leon drive home salient points but the love of basketball exudes throughout. Excellent performances by Chris Perfetti and Glenn Davis, the latter artistic director of Chicago's Steppenwolf Theater where the play originated. 

Su Jun 18 Father's Day PBS Channel 13 and other areas of the country will get to see Ted Green's documentary, "The Best We've Got: The Carl Erskine Story".  Narrated by Charley Steiner, Long Island native and former Yankee/now Dodger broadcaster, this is must-see fare.

The first half is devoted to Carl's emergence as a Brooklyn Dodger pitcher and proud teammate of Jackie Robinson.  The second half is the story of Carl and Betty Erskine's devotion to their son Jimmy who was born with cognitive challenges.

Thanks to the efforts of the Erskines, both of whom are still with us, Jimmy and others have led full lives, competing in Special Olympics and holding down jobs. Indiana, once a state that lagged miserably in the area of support for the challenged, is now a national leader. 

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