Lee Lowenfish

Three recent feel-good stories have come out of Baltimore since we last met, dear readers, with the first one being a lovely surprise.  Veteran sportswriter Jim Henneman, 88, a life-long Baltimorean, was honored with the naming of the Camden Yards press box after him. 

 

I've known Jim for almost 50 years. He was a guest speaker in one of my classes in Sports in American Culture at UMBC (University of Maryland Baltimore County). As the Orioles went through their World Series drought in the last 40 years, Jim provided wise and realistic counsel as I despaired that the Birds would ever truly contend for a world title.

 

Jim recently dubbed me "The Prince of Paranoia" as I often expressed doubt that the current regime even with a 101-win 2023 regular season under their belt could pull the trigger on a trade to get us over the hump towards another World Series.  I admit to being paranoid not just about baseball but about politics and society in general. 

 

I was honored that at least he dubbed me a prince and not a false pretender, a knave, or worse.And lo and behold, in the second recent big news from Charm City, the regime of Mike Elias just made a trade that will bring onetime Cy Young award-winning righthander Corbin Burnes, 29, from Milwaukee.  Burnes hails from Bakersfield, CA and was signed in 4th round of 2016 draft out of St. Mary's College in Moraga in northern California.

 

Burnes can be a free agent after the 2024 season and his agent Scott Boras likes to get top dollar for his clients.  But the addition of Burnes certainly is a

major addition to the rotation.  And loving name play, I sure hope we get a Corbin-Corbin matchup in a game against the Washington Nats:  Corbin

Burnes versus LHP Patrick Corbin. 

 

Going to the Brewers will be LHP DL Hall, a 2017 #1 draft pick under the previous Dan Duquette regime.  At the age of 25, Hall is on the cusp of becoming an outstanding pitcher. He supposedly wants to be a starter, but I think Hall could be the kind of solid closer that can make Brewers fans forget Josh Hader, a former Orioles draft pick who recently signed a multi-year deal with the Houston Astros.   

 

Hall was signed after high school in Valdosta, Georgia, the home town of the late great scout Ellis Clary. The colorful Clary once told me that the area was so football crazy that "they wouldn't know a baseball player from a crate of pineapples."

 

It says here that Dayton Lane (DL) Hall has a chance to put Valdosta on the baseball map and I wish him the best in his new home.  He is only 25 and after recovering from injuries early in his minor league career, he contributed stellar work in the latter part of the 2023 season. He also was very effective in the Birds' disappointing sweep by the Rangers in the first round of the playoffs. 

 

In addition to a first round compensation pick in the 2024 draft, the Brewers will receive Joey Ortiz, 25, a brilliant defensive shortstop who can play several infield positions and whose bat has picked up lately.  From Garden Grove CA, Ortiz was a 2019 fourth-round draft choice from New Mexico State U., the same school as Orioles pitcher Kyle Bradish who likely slots to number 2 in the 2024 starting rotation behind Burnes.

 

The third major news from Orioleland is the proposed sale of the team to David Rubenstein, 74, a key member of the private equity firm the Carlyle Group. He is a lifelong Baltimorean who has always yearned to own his local team. He also had been rumored to be interested in buying the nearby Washington Nationals which are still for sale. 

 

To my knowledge, no owner has ever had more cultural credentials than Rubenstein who has been chairman of the board at the Kennedy Center in DC and has a David Rubenstein Atrium named for him near Lincoln Center in NYC.  It regularly hosts forums and concerts.   He also is the host of interview shows for PBS and Bloomberg News.

 

Members of his ownership group include another financial equity financier Michael Arougheti from Ares Capital; Michael Bloomberg, former Mayor of New York City; Kurt Schmoke, former Mayor of Baltimore and Rubenstein's City College high school classmate; and Oriole legend Hall of Famer Cal Ripken Jr. MLB owners will be meeting this week - the first full week of February - but it is doubtful that immediate approval will come. It is likely sometime later this season.

 

The general mood in Baltimore for the imminent departure of the Peter Angelos family from majority ownership is relief, to put it mildly.  My only hesitation is to remember when the Angeloses bought the team in 1993 from prior owner Eli Jacobs, a New York financier who had gone bankrupt, local feeling was euphoric.

 

That mood changed sour in a hurry when patriarch Peter Angelos hired Davey Johnson as manager and Pat Gillick as general manager. Both had deep roots in the Orioles glory years from 1960 through 1983 but Angelos ran them off when they didn't bring immediate championships. 

 

He also ran off popular broadcaster Jon Miller after the 1996 Jeffrey Maier playoff when Angelos claimed that Miller wasn't sufficiently indignant on air when the 12-year-old Yankee fan seated in Yankee Stadium's right field stands interfered with Orioles right fielder Tony Tarasco's attempt catch of Derek Jeter's fly ball that was ruled a home run by right field ump Rich Garcia who was too close in the play IMO.

(It's an ongoing pet peeve of mine those extra umps in post-season games - if we must have them, they should be positioned as in Japan, under the foul poles to judge fair or foul home runs.)

 

Peter Angelos' sons, John and Louis, grew to have more power and less success. The most recent embarrassment was with Peter incapicated for over 10 years, a suit was brought by younger son Louis against both John and his mother Georgia claiming that he had been illegally cut out of decisions by the ownership group.  It was finally settled out of court and now new ownership blood is heading to Charm City. 

 

My only caveat - being of course the Prince of Paranoia - is the old saying, "An owner comes into baseball and says he knows nothing about the business of baseball.  In six months he announces he knows everything."  I do have the cautious hope that David Rubenstein will act with more discretion and calmness than Steve Cohen, a fellow private equity mogul who has turned the Mets into another soap opera in their long history of dysfunction. 

 

And now here are some TCM tips for the next couple of weeks: 

Wed Feb 7 8p  EST "Antonia: A Portrait of The Woman" (1974)   It is a re-release of a 58 minute documentary that I saw when it first opened.  The film was the brainstorm of Judy Collins who took piano lessons from Antonia Brico in her home town of Denver.  She discovered the remarkable story of a woman conductor who trained in Holland and Germany and had a regrettably brief but remarkable career as a rare woman conductor in the all-male

sanctuary of classical music. 

 

I was blessed to see "Antonia" again this past Sat night Feb 3 at Museum of Modern Art with both Judy Collins and director Jill Godmilow in attendance.

Also on the bill was the equally poignant 28 minute new documentary "The Only Woman in the Orchestra" - the story of Erin O'Brien, the double bassist in the New York Philharmonic who retired recently after joining the NY Phil in 1966. 

 

The film was the idea of Molly O'Brien, Orin's niece and a documentary film producer.  She knew that the story of an self-effacing only child of early Hollywood screen stars Marguerite Churchill and George O'Brien was worth telling.  Orin spoke briefly before the showing, making a heartfelt plea for those of us who love classical music to keep it alive. 

 

 

Here are just a few TCM highlights with sports themes: 

Tu Feb 6 11:30A  "The Jackie Robinson Story" (1950) with Jack playing himself and Ruby Dee as Rachel

 

Tu Feb 13 11:15A "Woman of the Year" (1942) the first Tracy-Hepburn film with Spencer as sportswriter and Kate as social justice activist

 

F Feb 16 for the night owls 

130A "The Stratton Story" (1949) Jimmy Stewart as the injured pitcher trying to make a comeback and June Allyson as his wife

 

Later on Feb 16 for early risers:

745A "Crazylegs" (1953) with U of Wisconsin football star Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch playing himself & Lloyd Nolan as his coach

 

10:15p "Pride of the Yankees" (1942) the Gehrig classic with Gary Cooper and Teresa Wright 

 

Happy to report that Columbia women's basketball keeps rolling in Ivy League play since losing their only league game

at perennial power Princeton last month.  The rematch is Sa Feb 24 at 2p at Columbia but they know they cannot look too far ahead.

 

Wisconsin blew a big lead at Nebraska for second year in a row last Thursday and Sunday Feb 4 lost a home game to Purdue despite great

effort by the lively home crowd.  Purdue looks like a possible Final Four team but Badgers have a chance to rebound this week at subpar

Michigan on Wed and Sat noon at Rutgers. 

 

I plan to attend the game at Rutgers despite being 0-5 in seeing the Badgers live in recent years.  More about that experience in next blog.

 

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

 

   

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

It is hard to believe that it is over 13 years since the passing of Bill Shannon, 69, a bulwark on the NYC sportswriting/official scoring scene. At this time of year, I really miss the sound of Shannon's basso profoundo voice booming out "Greetings of the Season!" 

 

I met Bill Shannon when we were both Columbia College undergraduates in the early 1960s.  My sports involvement was limited to three years as a Columbia men's basketball manager.  I think my love for oranges came from slicing them up for the team at halftime.

 

Bill Shannon was already on his way to his wonderfully diverse sports career. We reconnected in the early 1980s when I started doing sports radio in the unlikely hyper-left-political hotbed at WBAI-Pacifica in NYC. No one wil ever forget Bill's post-game recitations of the line scores for pitchers - they were works of vocal art and then repeated in double time. 

 

Bill was also an author of a book on baseball stadiums and advocate for a New York Sports Museum. It never quite came to fruition but at least a lot of the Museum's capsule summaries of notable athletic personages are stored at the New York Historical Society on Central Park West at 76th Street.     

 

Another good memory about another Bill, who happily is still with us, has come back to me at this reflective time of year. Early in December Bill White missed by two votes election to the Hall of Fame. The 16-man Contemporary Baseball Era committee did elect manager Jim Leyland but Lou Piniella fell short by one vote. 

 

As far as I am concerned, Bill White remains a true champion. He enjoyed a 15-year career as a fine NL first baseman, coming up in 1956 to offer a little hope to my New York Giants.  He played well for the SF Giants until Orlando Cepeda and Willie McCovey's arrival led to his trade to the Cardinals where he became a four-time All-Star and winner of the 1964 World Series.

 

He finished his career with solid numbers: 1706 hits, .286 BA, .353 OBP (on-base percentage), .456 SA (slugging percentage), but numbers can't ever truly explain genuine leadership. He became a broadcaster for Cardinals-Phillies-Yankees, then National League president, and in his retirement author of a memoir "Uppity".  The no-nonsense title of the book reflects the bracing hard-hitting experience the reader can expect.    

 

I hold close a memory of my first encounter with White in the Yankee clubhouse. He was demonstrating a football running back's "straight arm," chortling, "They don't do that much any more, do they?" When I decided by the late 1980s that I had enough of WBAI's hyper-left-political hotbed, Bill gave me the names of more commercial radio people to contact. I decided that teaching and writing better fitted my talents and temperament but I will never forget his thoughtfulness.  

 

When Bill took over the NL Presidency after Bart Giamatti became commissioner, I interviewed him for the City Sun, a Brooklyn-based black weekly. 

I wrote a piece, "White on Black Progress," and sent him a copy. He actually called me up to thank me for its accuracy.

 

Like many of the black athletes in the post-Jackie Robinson generation, White didn't ask that jobs should be given because of race, but he insisted that qualified black candidates be brought into and kept in the pipeline.  William DeKova White turns 90 on January 28, 2024.  Here's a warm happy birthday wish to him.

 

Leaving memory lane for a while, what can I say about the baseball off-season so far?  The "big ticket" free agents have found a home. 

What shouldn't have been a surprise to anybody, Shohei Ohtani left the LA Angels of Anaheim and moved north to the LA Dodgers signing a massive long-term deal with the perennial NL West champions who perennially flame out in the playoffs. 

 

Ohtani underwent his second Tommy John operation late this past season and he won't pitch until 2025.  Pitchers don't usually recover very well from

a second TJ surgery. Ohtani is a very likable personality and very thoughtful about the luxury tax penalty LAD would pay if he took his mammoth salary up front. 

 

So Ohtani is actually accepting only $2 million salary for at least this season.  Since it seems the commissioner of baseball doesn't seem to care about the violation of the luxury tax - nor do the other owners and the players - this will go through.  

 

Although Ohtani's DH bat will certainly lengthen the LA Dodger lineup, the team needs more durable pitching. So they went out and signed Yoshinobu Yamamoto, a Japanese import, to another huge long-term deal.  He will be 26 when the 2024 season starts - Ohtani will be over 30. 

 

Shohei is clearly a winning personality - competitive and yet vulnerable.  We don't know yet about Yamamoto. He has thrown a lot of stressful pitches in his young career.  He is listed at 5' 10" which may be an exaggeration. 

 

The Dodgers may still need bullpen help.  It wouldn't be a surprise if they went after Josh Hader, the best reliever still on the market.  Whether all this

spending is good for baseball is subject to debate.  It is good for the agents, that is for sure.  It is good for the endless coverage by the MLB network.  Whether it is good for the teams that cannot afford these mammoth contracts is far less clear.  I didn't even mention that the Dodgers also traded for the talented oft-injured righthander Tyler Glasnow.

 

Baseball remains a team game and like many people I root for the underdog.  With the Oakland A's seemingly headed to Las Vegas sometime later this decade, here's a good word for the Oakland B's, an indepedent league team that will be play in the Bay area in 2024.  They will be managed by the long time coach and instructor Don Wakamatsu. 

 

I guess if I want to give a left-handed compliment (boy, is that hoary metaphor a dig on my southpaw friends!), at least baseball doesn't have a transfer portal that has created havoc in the NCAA. 

 

At least baseball had nothing to do with Sports Illustrated, a shadow of its distinguished self now thtat is primarily online, naming Deion Sanders as

Sportsman of the Year after coaching the Colorado Buffaloes to a 4-8 record.  

 

Before I go, deep RIP wishes to the superlative scout Paul Snyder, who spent his entire career with the Braves, who passed away on Nov 30 at age of 88.

Frank Howard, aka Hondo and from his years in as a Washington Senator, the Capital Punisher, who passed away earlier on October 30 at age 87.

 

I'm getting upset at inconsistent schedule listings by TCM.  No sports-related movies that I've detected for the remainder of December but for those who maybe wisely stay home on New Years Eve, at 8p Mel Brooks' "Spaceballs" (1987), then no listing until 1130p "This Is Spinal Tap" (1984).

 

And here are a couple of Columbia basketball listings.  The men off to a good start at 8-3 - though schedule has been softened with Div III cupcakes -

play Fordham on Rose Hill in the Bronx Dec 30 1p.  It is the Tom Konchalski Classic in honor of the late basketball scout.  More on that in next post.

 

Speaking of my favorite subject of scouting, the New York Pro Scouts Association has its annual banquet on Fri night Jan 19 at Leonard's of Great Neck on Northern Boulevard.  It's truly the start of the new season. 

 

Tickets are $100 and are available through Jan 12.  No tickets will be sold at the door. Longtime scout Billy Blitzer is the main conduit at 3759 Nautilus Ave, Brooklyn NY 11224 or reachable at. BBSCOUT1@aol.com   

David Cone is the scheduled guest speaker and the Yankees longtime area scout Matt Hyde has been voted by his peers the Scout of the Year. 

 

Sat Jan 6 2p on Morningside Heights Levien Gym, 120th St/Broadway Columbia women, off to 7-4 start against excellent opposition, open defense of Ivy League co-title against Penn.

 

That's all for now - always remember:  take it easy but take it, and stay positive, test negative.  I'm on the mend myself which is very good news.