Lee Lowenfish

George Washington's 315th birthday - Sat February 22 2025 - will long live in the memory of this fan of Wisconsin men's and Columbia women's basketball.  The agony occurred in midday when on FOX national TV, the Badgers, ahead by 12 at the half and 15 midway through the second half, allowed Oregon's Ducks to go on a 13-2 run in the last six minutes of regulation and win in overtime, 77-73.  Oregon coach Dana Altman's suffocating defense forced the Badgers into a season-high 17 turnovers, many of them late in the game. Center Nate Bittle, back from two seaons of injury, led Oregon's offense with help from the Villanova transfer guard TJ Bamba (who was born in the Bronx but went to HS in Denver) and sophomore forward Kwame Evans, a fearless lefty who was born in Baltimore. 

 

Only positive thing about this loss is that it came in February not in March.  Having followed Wisconsin basketball intently for over a half-century, it seems we never play well when our national rankings increase.  We still have scoring machine John Tonge, the 6th-year transfer portal surprise, but only one real point guard, the undersized 6 0" senior Kamari McGee who doesn't even start but is one of the team leaders.  When we had the big lead on Saturday, I thought about how much McGee has meant off the bench and how his shot-making has improved.  Same story for senior reserve forward Carter Gilmore who even saved the Iowa game on the road with career-high offense. I can always root for sophomore big man Nolan Winter - great name for a Wisconsin player! - who hit a big 3 in OT to give us a brief lead against Oregon.  

 

Fans will blame inconsistent longtime center Steven Crowl for his six turnovers on Sat. and sophomore guard John Blackwell for his crucial late game booboos. And the haters of coach Greg Gard, silent during our winning streaks this season, always emerge after any loss. Yet the schedule ahead is not too bad for Badgers if they learn the lesson that Yogi Berra's line applies to basketball, too - it ain't over until it's over and you must play hard all game.

 

Up next is Washington at home on Tues Feb 25 9P EST on extra-priced Peacock. Then a biggie at Big 10 leader Michigan State on CBS next Sun Mar 2 at 130P. Followed by Wed Mar 5 arch-rival Minnesota at home on Big Ten Network at 830P and Penn State at home Sa Mar 8 1P BTN (all times EST).  The following week is the annual Big Ten tournament in Indianapolis.  This year the three teams with the worst record in the expanded Big 18 are sent home early so Washington, Penn State, and Minnesota cannot be overlooked because they are opponents with hopes alive for squeezing into the tournament.    

 

My ecstasy came later in the day when I got a ride to Princeton to see Columbia rally in the 4th quarter to beat the perennial-Ivy League champion Tigers, 64-60.  The Lions' victory moves Columbia into first place with a 10-1 record with a one game lead over both Princeton and Harvard with three

games to play before the conference tourney this year at Brown in Providence on FSa Mar 14-15.  

 

Down 6 points entering the 4th quarter on Sat., guard Maria Arrendola hit a 3-point shot that started a 13-0 run that gave Columbia the lead for good.  Sophomore Riley Weiss, who grew up in nearby Hewlett, NY, scored a career-high 34 points, 16 in the last period. Senior co-captain Kitty Henderson hit the dagger late in the 4th quarter that gave the Lions the cushion they needed. 

 

I was part of almost 200 ardent Lions fans seated behind the Columbia bench. Although we were outnumbered 10-1 by Princeton faithful, our chants of "DE-FENSE!" and "LET'S GO LIONS!" could be heard.  It was Princeton's first home loss in over 30 games and the first time we've beaten them twice in one season in almost 10 years.  Seated in the row behind me and rooting hard for her alma mater was Abbey Hsu, Columbia women's basketball all-time scoring leader who will be going to the Connecticut Sun's training camp in April. (Teammate Kaitlyn Davis, who played a graduate year at USC, will be going to the Liberty camp.)

I told Abbey she was almost as good a fan as she was a player. 

 

In addition to loving acronyms - Columbia coach Megan Griffith has coined a good one for her program:  EDGE:  Energy/Determination/Grit/Excellence - 

I'm somewhat of a sucker for inspirational slogans.  I saw a fan in the Princeton  crowd wearing a T-shirt that read:  LIFT/LAUGH/LOVE.  Pretty good one for the aspiring athlete in your family.  I've also loved the T-shirt I saw years ago worn by a Tampa Bay Rays baseball trainer:  CHAMPIONS ARE MADE WHEN NO ONE IS WATCHING.  And here's an original one to remember the Five Towns of Long Island's Nassau County close to the NYC borough of Queens:   

WILCH - Woodmere, Inwood, Lawrence, Cedarhurst, Hewlett (home town as noted earlier of Columbia's budding star Riley Weiss).

 

One last note on women's basketball in the NYC area:  The NYU women are now at 55 wins in a row and counting.  They will host the first two rounds

of the Division III playoffs on FSa Mar 7-8 at their home court Paulson Center on Mercer Street in Greenwich Village.  So likely will the men's team under coach Dave Klatsky, a 2003 graduate of Penn. They sport a 23-1 record as they, too, enter the playoff season.  I find it hard to imagine any school in any division that has gone this far in one basketball season with only one loss between them.    

 

NOW IT'S TIME FOR BASEBALL!

The annual New York Pro Scouts Hot Stove League dinner in late January offered some memorable speeches and tributes.  Anthony Iapoce, a 33rd-round 1994 draft choice of the Milwaukee Brewers, received the Jim Quigley "Service to Baseball Award" (which I was honored to receive 15 years ago). Service to baseball is no exaggeration for Iapoce whose career in baseball included over 10 years as a minor league outfielder (reaching Triple A at the highest), scout for several organizations, minor league manager in 2023 for the Tiger's Triple AAA Toledo franchise, and now entering his second year as Detroit first base coach.

 

Iapoca offered his general praise for the scouts who have "mastered simplicity" by becoming "detailed observers" and "active listeners".   He then specifically praised Jim Fleming the scouting director who hired him for the Marlins and insisted that every scout go to high school games with him and give appraisals not mere judgments. Anthony also tipped his cap to Tony LaCava, who when he hired him for the Blue Jays, stressed: "I want you to give your opinions." 

 

Another speaker at the late January dinner at Leonard's Palazzo in Great Neck Long Island was Bruce Shatel, High School Coach of the Year from Delbarton Prep in Morristown, New Jersey (alma mater of Yankee shortstop Anthony Volpe and Rangers RHP Jack Leiter).  "Why do you coach?" Shatel said he is often asked. Because he gets the thrill of a double into the gap hit by one of his players, he answered.  He added that he loved the thrill of seeing a well-executed 3-2 pitch that leads to an out. 

 

One sad note that I just learned while preparing this post.  Bobby Malkmus, born on the Fourth of July in 1931 in Newark NJ, passed away on Feb 23.

He had major experience as a Milwaukee Braves second baseman in the 1950s before the trade of Hall of Famer Red Schoendienst in 1957.  Malkmus was a long time Cleveland scout and a minister.  His presence at scout gatherings will be greatly missed.  

 

As for news of baseball on the MLB level, I am glad that most of the ballyhooed free agent signing season is over.  I have never begrudged players making a lot of money in a career that usually is quite short. But let the buyer owner beware of handing out multi-year contracts.  I don't like seeing super-agent Scott Boras's mug day in and day out on the TV and computer screens, sharing the space with his clients. I also think that the MLB season is ridiculously long and the number of teams in the playoffs are far too many.  But there is too much grouching in this world.  I'm happy for the return of baseball and upcoming warmer weather and for now I'll leave it at that.

 

The upcoming TCM baseball movie tip not to miss is Th Feb 27 at 7A (EST): "Speedy" (1928) - Harold Lloyd's great silent movie about the misfortunes but optimistic resilience of a baseball-loving young man. The scene where awed taxicab driver Lloyd transports his hero Babe Ruth to a game at Yankee Stadium is must-viewing.

 

W Feb 26 at 8P "Going My Way" (1944) Bing Crosby as a priest and St. Louis Browns fan with Barry Fitzgerald & Frank McHugh, dir. Leo McCarey. There's more baseball references in this film that I recalled on first viewing.  Not just Bing wearing a Browns sweatshirt.  After 1944 was the year of the only all St. Louis

World Series, won by the Cardinals in six games.  And Bing made a cameo in the 1951 underappreciated baseball film "Angels in the Outfield" (1951).

  

M Mar 3 8P "Pride of the Yankees" (1942) returns again and it is always worth seeing for the great cast of Gary Cooper/Teresa Wright/Dan Duryea/

Walter Brennan and Babe Ruth and Bill Dickey appearing as themselves. 

 

Non-baseball movies worthy of seeing include:

M Feb 24 5P "When We Were Kings" (1996) Leon Gast's movie about the hoopla surrounding the Sept 1974 "Rumble in the Jungle" between Muhammad Ali & Geoirge Foreman.  It is as much about the big music concert as it is about the fight. 

Later that night at 8P Hitchock's early classic "Suspicion" (1941) with Cary Grant

 

Tu Mar 4 highlights John Garfield movies from dawn to dusk. Most of them are from his heyday from the late 30s through the late 40s but his last film for Warners (and produced by his own company) "The Breaking Point" (1950) must be seen at 615P.  His blacklist started shortly thereafter and in 1952 he died of a heart attack at the age of 39.  (He suffered from a heart condition that kept him out of World War II service.) 

Cast includes Phyllis Thaxter as his wife, Patricia Neal as a femme fatale to end femme fatales, Wallace Ford, and Juano Hernandez.  By far the best film version of "To Have and Have Not" by Ernest Hemingway. 

 

That's all for now - stay positive test negative (for as long as the new Health czar RFK Jr. allows for tests) and take it easy but take it.  

 

     

On Wednesday night January 15, 2014 I attended the 10th annual Portsmouth Murals Banquet in Portsmouth, the Scioto County seat in southern Ohio, the home area of Branch Rickey. The man I called the Ferocious Gentleman in my biography may have left this earth nearly 50 years ago, but the memory of his achievements is fresh in Scioto County. I was tremendously pleased when there was an overflow line of people wanting to buy my biography.

Rickey is featured on a few of the murals on the Flood Wall that adjoins the Ohio River in downtown Portsmouth. They are a remarkable series numbering nearly a hundred that celebrate the history and notable people who came out of the region. All were painted by the talented artist Robert Dafford from Lafayette, Louisiana, hometown of the great Yankee southpaw Ron Guidry. Always looking for connections, I once asked Dafford if he knew Guidry and he said, “I ran track with him in high school . . . far behind him.”

Program Note: On Sunday night Feb 16 on PBS stations in Ohio, John Lorentz's documentary about the murals, "Beyond These Walls," will air. Later this year most national PBS stations will broadcast this outstanding piece of work.

Branch Barrett Rickey, president of the Pacific Coast League and grandson of the immortal executive, was the featured speaker this year and I had the pleasure of introducing him. Many in the audience of nearly 400 remarked later that if they closed their eyes, they thought it was grandfather Rickey himself speaking.

Young Branch told many good stories about his life as a baseball scout before he became a top minor league executive. One of them concerned an early assignment for the Pittsburgh Pirates (where his grandfather was general manager in the 1950s and his father Branch Rickey Jr. served as farm director.)

Young Branch was given the unenviable task in spring training of breaking the bad news to minor leaguers that they had been released. Fortunately, the first player accepted the bad news philosophically. “I need to start on my career after baseball,” said the player, an infielder that planned to go to law school. He got his degree but returned to baseball and made his mark as a manager. His name? Tony LaRussa elected into the Hall of Fame earlier this month.

It is remarkable that a small and not very prosperous county like Scioto (pronounced Si-OH-ta) has produced so many great baseball people. “It must be because of the water,” Al Oliver likes to say. A former outstanding outfielder/first baseman with the Pirates and Texas Rangers, Oliver is now a pastor in Portsmouth and always delivers the opening banquet prayer.

He is featured on one mural along with Twins and Brewers outfielder Larry Hisle and three time-World Series-winning catcher/first baseman Gene Tenace. All three played on the same American Legion team in 1964. A high school classmate of theirs was Kathleen Battle, the renowned opera singer.

Other notable Scioto County baseball personages include southpaw Don Gullett whose possible Hall of Fame career was cut short by injury and Pat Borders, Toronto Blue Jays World Series-winning catcher. Two umpires also hail from the Portsmouth area, the active Greg Gibson and the retired Terry Craft, both of whom spoke effectively at the banquet.

Don Gullett also spoke well as did the legendary scout Gene Bennett who signed him and Hall of Famer Barry Larkin. Introduced in the audience were former Reds southpaw Tom Browning ("the only pitcher ever to throw a perfect game on Astroturf," he told me) and shortstop Johnnie Lemaster the only player ever to hit an inside-the-park home run on his first major league at-bat.

Also honored were the two-time HS baseball champs from Wheelersburg, a Scioto County town of barely 2000 people. Gene Bennett suggested that a great Little League program over the last half-century has served as an excellent feeder system for the high school.

It was a memorable night that lasted over four hours and didn't feel half as long. I think a special plaudit must go to the Ribber, a local restaurant that provided superior ribs and chicken for the affair.

MORE BANQUET NEWS:
On Friday night Jan 24 I attended the 49th annual New York Pro Scouts Hot Stove League dinner at Leonard’s restaurant in Great Neck just outside the NYC borough of Queens. The Friday night traffic was more horrendous than usual with slippery conditions to deal with from the recent snow and subsequent cold snap.

It was still well worth making the trek to an event I would never miss, especially since the devoted scouts honored me four years ago with their Jim Quigley Service to Baseball Award. (Quigley was a late scout and coach who never tired of working out and encouraging young players who wanted to follow their dream of playing baseball at the highest level.)

Emcee Ed Randall, the veteran broadcaster and tireless advocate for prostate cancer awareness, delivered as usual some memorable one-liners. Perhaps the best came from a T-shirt he swears he saw on a Cubs fan at the FanFest last July before the All-Star Game at CitiField: On the front it read: “WHAT DID JESUS SAY TO THE CHICAGO CUBS?” On the back came the answer: “DON’T DO ANYTHING UNTIL I COME BACK.”

Red Sox scout Ray Fagnant won the prestigious Turk Karam award as scout of the year.
It was a deserving honor for a longtime Bosox talent hunter who signed such future major leaguers as Lou Merloni and Carl Pavano. After all, the Red Sox (along with the Texas Rangers) have become a state-of-the-art organization in finding and developing talent.

Fagnant also deserves credit along with the Yankees' scout Matt Hyde for hosting every year a summer program for draft-eligible high school players from all over the country. They play games in both the Boston and New York areas with the highlight being a
a game at Yankee Stadium - the thrill of a lifetime for the youngsters.

Gene Michael was this year's featured speaker. He delivered thoughtful remarks in praise of the usually unacknowledged work of the scouts. “They are the life blood of the game,” he said more than once. He praised the work of the grassroots scouts who must project into the future the capabilities of amateur players who may always look good against inferior competition.

"How will they do against better competition?" That is the $64,000 Question. Michael said that a big key was looking for players that concentrated all the time and developed pitch recognition.

Michael himself scouted after his career as a shortstop primarily with the Pirates and Yankees. Then he became a manager and general manager under the volatile reign of George Steinbrenner. He can laugh about those days now because he has a less stressful job serving as a special assistant under the far less volatile Yankee general manager Brian Cashman. The audience laughed along with Michael as he shared some stories of The Boss’s imperial wackiness.

Next year will be the Golden Anniversary of the NY Pro Scouts Hot Stove League dinner. It is usually the next-to-last Friday in January. Mark it down.

These banquets always mark for me the start of the baseball season – a tremendous tonic along with the increasing daylight reminding us that baseball is on the way back.

I do feel a little unease about how the Yankees and the Dodgers are throwing around unfathomable amounts of money at free agents. I still believe that you cannot buy a pennant, but dishing out big dollars certainly can help a team get a leg up at contention.
Let’s hope that a surprise team or two will emerge in 2014 to make for another season of exciting unpredictable pennant races.

And always remember: Take it easy but take it.  Read More