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!

.

The enforced isolation of sheltering in space has allowed me to taste many dishes these days from the worlds of baseball and music and movies. Here's a rundown of some highlights and recommendations for the next week or so.

 

On Fri aft Apr 24, MLBTV replayed the Mets' thrilling 3-2 victory over the Braves on Sep 21, 2001, the first game in NYC after the 9/11 bombings.  I attended the game and thrilled to the Seventh Inning Stretch rendition of "New York, New York" with Liza Minnelli singing and leading a kick line with various members of the police and fire departments and other uniformed personnel. 

 
I was way up in right field that night so could see the show much better on TV today. Liza was really hyped up to put on a great show despite problems with the PA system.

 

She always reminded people that the song was written for her, not Frank Sinatra though his version is almost always played.  In fact, for many years the Yankees only played Liza's version of "New York, New York" when the team lost.  They have stopped that indignity but now don't ever play her rendition.

 

When you watch the "All Time Games" on MLBTV, you realize how every game has turning points and chances for redemption. Earlier in the game, Mike Piazza had been unable to catch a throw at home plate from right field, allowing hustling Chipper Jones to score the first run of the game from first base.  

 

In mid-game Piazza also stranded a runner at third with two out by grounding out to third.  But he rose to the occasion in the bottom of the 8th with a game-changing two-run home run off New York-born Steve Karsay.

 

There was no over-the-top celebration of the homer by either Piazza or his teammates.  They were happy, of course, but I sensed a feeling that it was a statement of affirmation after such a jarring blow to the city delivered by the suicide bombers.

 

Hearing "New York, New York" again and watching the happy ending, I was yet swept by the bittersweet feeling that it will be a long time before we can experience the joy of watching in capacity crowds.  Not forever - we can't think that way - but it will be a long time. And wisely so until the scientists and sensible public health officials get a better grip on the problem.

So let's take some solace in watching some old baseball movies. Mark down this Tuesday April 28 at 1p when TCM shows the original "Angels in the Outfield" from 1951. It is directed crisply by Clarence Brown (1890-1987), who holds the unenviable record of the most Oscar nominations without a win at six.  

 
"Angels" stars Paul Douglas as the crusty beleaguered manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates.  Janet Leigh plays a newspaper reporter specializing in society stories who tries to civilize him.  Keenan Wynn, 13 years before his memorable turn as Bat Guano in "Dr. Strangelove," plays a cynical sportswriter. 

  

The title comes from a little girl who roots so hard for the Pirates that she imagines angels in the outfield helping them. And whatdya know? They are real. The ever-cheery and bubbling Spring Byington plays a nun who helps facilitate the miracle. 

 
I can envision many hard-boiled sophisticated baseball fans running away from the TV before the film is even shown.  I say give it a try.  In my first seeing, I found it not as sentimental as it sounds.  

 

Even if not buying into the movie, fans can enjoy the baseball sequences filmed at Pittsburgh's Forbes Field. Look for cameo appearances by Ty Cobb, Joe DiMaggio, Ralph Kiner wearing #4, and Bing Crosby, who owned a share of the Pirates at the time.  

Sam Narron plays a rival Philadelphia coach - Narron was one of eight Narrons from a baseball family in North Carolina that played professional baseball. 

 

Paul Douglas is one of my favorite actors.  He delivers athletic portrayals naturally because he briefly played pro football in the pre-NFL days and was a sports announcer for many years.  He had also been convincing as Ray Milland's catcher in the charming "It Happens Every Spring" released in 1949 ( that film was written by Valentine Davies who the year before had created "Miracle on 34th Street" with Edmund Gwenn as Santa Claus and young Natalie Wood). 

 

On the musical front, if you tune into wqxr.org on line or 105.9 FM, this Sunday night Apr 26 at 10p, the piano music of Gabriel Faure (1845-1921) will be highlighted in David Dubal's absorbing "Reflections from the Piano" series. It is a repeat of the Wed at 10p show.

 

Faure's melodies always are inviting and many of his harmonies are haunting. Oddly, some of his gently dissonant notes somehow reminded me of the much later jazz great Thelonious Monk (1917-1982).  There will be a second Faure show on W Apr 29 at 10p, repeated on Su.

 

Remember, too, that during the daytime Th Apr 30 will be Eve Arden Day on TCM. Unfortunately, they are not showing "Anatomy of A Murder" in which she plays James Stewart's secretary.  It would have been timely since on April 29 Duke Ellington, who wrote the music for the film, would be 121.

 

They are showing films I've never seen - "Unfaithful" at 10a, "Comrade X" from the critical period of 1939-40 at 2p, and the classic "Mildred Pierce" at 345p. The last one at 6p is the so-so filming of her classic radio-TV "Our Miss Brooks". It does have the novelty feature of

direction by "Grandpa" Al Lewis of Munster fame. 

 

Sorry to end on a somber note but it was an eerie coincidence that actress Shirley Knight passed away last week on April 21nd on the same night that TCM was showing "The Group," based on Mary McCarthy's incisive novel about Vassar's Class of 1933 and their first years in the real world.

 

Knight gave an outstanding performance as she always did.  I had forgotten that she had created the role on both Broadway and Hollywood of Reenie in William Inge's achingly beautiful play, "The Dark At The Top of the Stairs."  

 

She always provided a seemingly placid but deeply emotional coloration to all her roles. In some ways she  reminded me of Sissy Spacek before Sissy Spacek came on the scene.  Shirley Knight was 83 and she died at the home of her daughter Caitlin Hopkins who chairs the theatre program at Texas State U in San Marcos.  

 

That's all for now.  Always remember:  Take it easy but take it (even if you have to wear a mask a lot of the time.) 

 ,