Lee Lowenfish

I spent the week of March 13 in and near Sarasota, Florida. I saw my Orioles win a couple of games but I'm don't get carried away by victories in exhibition games because no manager makes moves to win those games.  Usually late inning pitchers are prospects (or suspects) just getting some exposure. 

 

I am looking forward to the first full season of switch-hitting catcher Adley Rutschman, the top prospect from Oregon State U. who in his mid-twenties may be emerging as a team leader.  After a slow start this spring due to a minor wrist injury, young Gunnar Henderson, another top prospect signed after high school in Alabama, looked like he was finding his batting stroke.  He seems ticketed for third base but can also play a good shortstop.

 

I'm rooting for RHP Dean Kremer, the last player in the organization from the Manny Machado trade a few seasons ago.  Kremer is the first dual Israeli-American in MLB history.  He pitched well for Israel in the World Baseball Classic and is proud of his long hair that occasionally becomes a man-bun. 

 

I am prouder of his desire to pitch deep into games. At least into the sixth or seventh inning to not only save the bullpen from over-usage, but also to defy the analytic shibboleth that pitchers cannot deal with a lineup a third time through. Puhleeze, let's get more pitchers wanting to extend themselves, learning to pitch while a little tired. 

 

Kremer becomes more important - as does another RHP Kyle Bradish who came over from the Angels some years ago in a trade for faded prospect Dylan Bunday - became word just came that DL Hall and Grayson Rodriguez, two projected top starters, will need more seasoning at Triple A Norfolk. 

 

Sarasota and nearby Bradenton have wonderful spring training baseball history.  Sarasota also has some great museums. If you have a chance, the Tiffany exhibit at the Selby Gardens near downtown Sarasota runs through Su Jun 25.  Charles Tiffany loved exploring nature as well as working with glass and Selby's mainly outdoor exhibit does great honor to his memory. 

 

A less well-known Sarasota attraction is the Marietta (Lee) Museum of Art and Whimsy open only three afternoons a week, Th thru Sat from 1-4p.  Located less than two miles south of the famous Ringling Museum, it features an astonishing array of offbeat paintings and sculptures that extend into the bathrooms. 

 

There is also a piano that anyone can sit down and play.  Somehow my romantic realist self managed to render an at-least melodically correct version of the Jimmy Van Heusen-Johnny Burke 1940s classic "Polka Dots and Moonbeams." 

 

I didn't see the Yankees and Mets play, but kudos to the Yankees for giving young Anthony Volpe, a Jersey guy, the shortstop job, at least in the early going.  Nothing like young blood to push and invigorate the veterans. 

 

On the other hand, the Mets have sent back to the minors their top prospects, third baseman Brett Baty  and catcher Francisco Alvarez.  One of manager Buck Showalter's fortes has always been developing youngsters.

 

He made Bernie Williams feel comfortable as a young Yankee center fielder and did the same in Baltimore for infielders Manny Machado and Jonathan Schoop. One wonders if these decisions were

truly approved by him. 

 

The baseball season is so loooooong! I wish it were shorter but nobody listens to me on the macro

issues.  So let me conclude this post with paeans to how well the Columbia women cagers and surprisingly the Wisconsin men are playing.  

 

Columbia's women under 7th-year coach Megan Griffith narrowly missed the NCAA tournament.

Selfishly, I was glad because I could see the games at increasingly rocking Levien Gym, now

easily accessible at Broadway and 120th Street.  (No longer does one have to negotiate a lot of

steps on the campus.) 

 

"Creating a winning culture" is one of the great cliches of today's sports, but it is ever hard to achieve. 

Coach Griffith, an especially youthful 37, played for so-so Columbia teams under 4 different coaches. She became a 1000-point scorer in her career. 

 

After pro ball in Finland, she started a coaching career in the USA, spending several years at Princeton where she learned a lot about winning.  She is never afraid to talk about the W word.

 

So much of any winning philosophy comes from realizing that there are no such things as "small things".  Big things don't happen unless the small things are executed.  

 

Two examples from Columbia's recent NIT run have stood out.  First, when senior Duke transfer Jaida

Patrick fouled out of a stirring comeback 88-82 win over Syracuse - a rare occurrence by the

way because Columbia players know how to play in foul trouble - I noticed Jaida taking a clipboard on the bench and helping out with stats. 

 

My second observation came just before the second half of Sunday Mar 26's quarter-final win over Harvard, the 3rd Columbia W over a big Ivy rival in 4 games this season.  I noticed junior sharpshooter Abby Hsu and senior forward Kaitlin Davis quietly talking to each other as they slowly headed to the bench.  

 

Normally consistent scorers, they were out of sync in the first half, maybe not surprising because when you play a team four times, there are no secrets.  I had the sense though that they knew what to do in the second half.  Sure enough, Columbia opened up a 20-point lead and then held on to beat the Crimson 77-71. 

 

On Wed Mar 29 at 6p EDT, Columbia squares off against the Bowling Green Falcons on their home court in Ohio. The game will be televised on the extra-pay ESPN3 channel. A matchup between 27-5 Lions and 31-6 Palcons should be a doozy. 

 

The winner will face the winner of the Washington at Kansas game. We won't know definitely until after the Wed games where the final will be held but that game will be televised at 530p Sa April 1 on CBSSN which is channel 315 on Spectrum.

 

It has been a great joy to watch Griffith's five over the last few seasons, slowly but surely getting near the pinnacle of a championship.  It had to be a special treat for her to coach two more member of the 1000-point club, senior forwards Kaitlyn Davis and Sienna Durr. 

 

As for the Wisconsin Badgers' surprise run to the NIT Final Four, they are playing N. Texas State in Las Vegas at 7p Tu Mar 28 on ESPN.  The winner will face either Ohio Valley or UAB (U of Alabama Birmingham) at 940p on Th Mar 31 on ESPN.  

 

It took a disappointing year and only the second failure to make the Big Dance since 1998 for the

Badgers to re-awaken.  With Michigan State's loss to Kansas State in the Elite Eight at Madison

Square Garden, Wisconsin is the last Big Ten team standing even if it is "just" the NIT.

 

The emergence of junior transfer Max Klesmit as a clutch scorer as well as a gritty defender has given Wisconsin a huge boost.  So has the occasional offensive eruptions of junior 7-foot center

Steven Crowl.   Enigmatic sophomore point guard Chucky Hepburn doesn't have to be the only

big game shooter now. First year guard Connor Essegian has a shooting touch reminiscent of Columbia's Abby Hsu and maybe the ankle of versatile veteran Tyler Wahl has finally healed. 

 

That's all for now.  Next time more on the short but intense college basseball season in the NYC

area with such solid teams as Columbia, Fordham, Rutgers, and St. John's are in regular action.

Of special interest to me is the rare visit of UConn to Columbia on Tu aft Apr 4 at 330P.

 

Always remember - Take it easy but take it, and these days, stay positive, test negative. 

 

 

 

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I guess the trade this past weekend of the Orioles' most reliable pitcher Andrew Cashner to division rival Red Sox was not surprising. He will be a free agent at the end of the season, and conventional wisdom says that the Orioles couldn't expect much in value for him.

 
Baltimore got two 17-year-old Venezuelans playing in the Dominican summer leagues, outfielder Elio Prado and infielder Noelwarth Romero. Both are undoubtedly years away from making The Show if they ever come close to the majors.   

 

According to Dan Connolly, the diligent Oriole correspondent for "The Athletic" online subscription website, the Orioles are "collecting lottery tickets" as they go through the complete "rebuild" of their largely unproductive organization. 

 
My response to that explanation is:  Who is going to pitch for the rest of this season?

The once-heralded Dylan Bundy went on the injured list after he gave up seven runs in the first inning of his first post-All Star Game start.  His knee was hurting during his warmup, but he didn't tell anybody until after he got shelled. 

 
Rookie southpaw John Means, the Orioles' lone All-Star this season, got rocked by Tampa Bay in his first post-ASG start.  He can't be expected to carry a full load.

 
Couldn't the Orioles have gotten more for Cashner, 32, who is having a career year - 9-3 for a team that has only 28 wins?  I would hate to think that the hasty trade was made because they feared that he - like Bundy - could get injured before the July 31 trade deadline.

 
What pains me about the Cashner trade is that he wanted to stay in Baltimore. He was committed to the rebuild. The Orioles were his fifth major league organization and he was looking for a home, especially now with his wife expecting. 

 

He was a Cubs first round draft pick in 2008, signed out of TCU, the same program that produced former Oriole hurler now with Phllies Jake Arrieta and Cardinals corner infielder Matt Carpenter.  Ultimately Cashner was traded to the Padres in the Anthony Rizzo deal and later spent time with the Marlins and Rangers. 

 
Signed to a two-year contract before the 2018 season, Cashner became a leader of the Orioles, not just the pitchers. I think I'm a pretty good judge watching on TV of who is faking intensity and who isn't.  You could see that the bearded 6' 6" hurler cared about competing and winning. 

 
His passion reminded me a little of Pete Vuckovich, the Brewers right-hander who I vividly remember once competed so hard during a playoff game against the Yankees in the 1981 strike-marred season that he refused to leave the mound despite throwing up, evidently battling some kind of ailment.

 
There was another admirable aspect in Cashner's background.  Understanding his son's passion for baseball, Andrew's father built a diamond in the back yard of the family home in Texas for Andrew to practice on. 

 
Oriole manager Brandon Hyde was effusive in his praise of Cashner, wishing him well in Boston except when he pitched against the Orioles.  I enthusiastically second that sentiment as he makes his debut tonight (Tues July 16) at Fenway against the Blue Jays, another "rebuilding" team.

 
Oriole fans are now fearful that first baseman/right fielder Trey Mancini may be the next to go.  He is currently in the worst slump of his career, but he continues to play hard and welcomes the role of young veteran leader on an unproven team. The converted infielder Mychal Givens will probably be dealt to teams looking for bullpen help.

 
We lived through a wave of trades last year at this time: Manny Machado to the Dodgers (now doing fine with the Padres on his $300 million plus contract); Jonathan Schoop to the Brewers (now a regular contributor on the AL Central first-place Twins); Kevin Gausman and Brad Brach to the Braves (where Gausman has been injured and ineffective and Brach, now with the Cubs, is also struggling).   

 
There are glimmers of hope in improved Oriole minor league play at the Double A Bowie level and the lower minors at Delmarva (Low Class A) and Aberdeen (Short Season). But it will be maddening if the Orioles unload Mancini and Givens and other players and get so little in return as what they received for Cashner. 

 
The new regime can't be thinking that Hawaiian shirt and straw hat fedora giveaways will substitute for a real plan for the future, can they?  Don't want to answer that question!

 
At least, for fans of other teams, there is plenty of excitement and weeks of hope, however illusory, ahead.  By its very nature, baseball always surprises.  

 

For example, nothing was more astonishing than former Mets catcher Travis d'Arnaud's three-homer game against the Yankees last night Monday July 15. His third dinger, a 9th inning blast off Aroldis Chapman, led the spunky Tampa Bay Rays to a 5-4 victory. It kept alive the Rays' flickering hopes of catching the Yankees in the AL East divisional race.

 

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING DIFFERENT! 
Before I close this latest post, I want to urge you in the New York City area to see "Toni Stone," playing through Sunday August 11 at the Laura Pels Theatre (115 W 46th Street just west of Fifth Avenue). The comfy Pels is one of the theaters that is part of the Roundabout Theater group.

  

Rarely does a solid piece of historical research, Martha Ackmann's "Curveball: The Remarkable Story of Toni Stone" (Lawrence Hill Books/Chicago Review Press, 2010), get transformed into exciting theatre. Thanks to Lydia R. Diamond's adaptation, "Toni Stone" succeeds in viscerally bringing to life the remarkable story of the first woman to play in the Negro Leagues. 

 
There is a bravura performance by longtime Off-Broadway luminary April Matthis in the title role. She is aided by a supporting cast of eight talented male actors playing a variety of roles. Kudos must also be given to the crisp direction of Pam McKinnon and the brilliant choreography by Camille A. Brown.

 
I was enthralled from the opening of the first act when Toni Stone delivers a monologue in praise of the wonder and drama of baseball. (The writing reminded me of Roger Angell's elegiac essay, "On The Ball," from a 1976 New Yorker magazine, anthologized in "Five Seasons"). 

 
As a black tomboy in segregated America, Toni Stone had a hard time gaining acceptance.  "People weren't ready for me," she told Martha Ackmann when belatedly - she died in 1996 - she was rediscovered in the last years of her life, living for decades as a nurse in the SF Bay area.  "I wasn't classified. I was a menace to society."

 
But what an exciting achieving life she led - good enough to replace Hank Aaron as second baseman on the Indianapolis Clowns in 1952 when he went into the Braves organization. A versatile woman athlete better than the legendary Babe Didrikson.  Good enough to play semi-pro baseball into her 60s in the Bay area. (Many thanks to Minnesota's great baseball historian Stew Thornley for his help in providing some additional details.)

 
It is a credit to Lydia Diamond's script that she has streamlined a lot of the stories in Toni Stone's life. She establishes a good dramatic flow without overburdening us with facts that could overwhelm the non-sports fan. Blessedly, the script rarely gets preachy.

 
My only quibble is in the misleading treatment of Gabby Street, the former major league catcher and World Series-winning manager, who befriended teenaged Toni when she enrolled in 1935 in his St. Paul, Minnesota baseball school.

 
A baseball traditionalist from the Deep South, best known as a member of the Washington Senators who once caught a baseball thrown from the Washington Monument, Street at first wanted nothing to do with Toni's desire for baseball instruction. 

 
She wouldn't accept no for an answer and ultimately Street realized that Toni's passion and talent were genuine.  For her 15th birthday he even gave her a pair of baseball spikes, a gift she always treasured.  So I felt it was a rare cheap shot for Toni in the play to say that Street was a member of the Klan. 

Despite this one jarring note, I still heartily recommend seeing "Toni Stone" at the Laura Pels Theatre through Aug. 11. The play moves to the Arena Theatre in DC in the fall and early next year in San Francisco.

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