Lee Lowenfish

Despite the over-commercialization of all sports, not least baseball, "pitchers and catchers have reported to spring training" remains one of the greatest

sentences in the English language.  l didn't make my first baseball trip to Florida until 1979 when I was starting my first book about the labor history of baseball, THE IMPERFECT DIAMOND. (Arizona would come a few years later). 

 

I will never forget that on the same day in early March, I met two Hall of Famers, Al Lopez (inducted in 1976) and Robin Roberts (inducted in 1977).  Nicknamed the Senor because he was born in Spain, Lopez greeted me in mid-morning at his home on a canal in Tampa's Ybor City. He had been a highly regarded catcher during his long playing career and became the only manager to break Casey Stengel's amazing streak of Yankee pennants, leading Cleveland in 1954 and the White Sox in 1959 to the World Series. 

 

Lopez professed that he had no memories of being part of the 1946 Pittsburgh Pirates that briefly voted to strike during the season over Pittsburgh management's failure to recognize the short-lived American Players Guild.  Lopez did share humorous stories about playing at Ebbets Field for the Daffy Dodgers in the 1920s.

 

He remembered one fan in particular who constantly razzed the Dodgers and manager Wilbert Robinson from the upper deck at Ebbets Field.  One day before a game, the harassed skipper summoned the fan to the dugout with an offer.   "Here's a box seat for the rest of the season," Robinson said, "if you promise to shut up."  In a thick Yiddish accent, Lopez recalled the fan's reply: "Uncle Robbie, you got a deal."   Of course, the truce didn't last for more than a game or two. When the fan renewed his bellowing, the ticket was taken away and without missing a beat the fan took his leather lungs back to his old perch in the upper stands. 

 

Later that day I met Robin Roberts, who was coaching baseball at the University of South Florida in Tampa. I'll never forget Roberts' first words to me: "Fire away!" meaning that I could ask him any questions I might have about his instrumental role in hiring Marvin Miller from the United Steelworkers of America to modernize the moribund Players Association. It is a part of baseball labor history that is not widely known that the players during Miller's first visit to Arizona spring training camps in 1966 rejected his candidacy. It took primarily the efforts of Roberts and pitchers Jim Bunning and Bob Friend, all training in Florida, to  rally the players in Miller's behalf.   

 

Roberts was easy to converse with on many topics. One of his sons was going to Michigan State where Robin had starred before signing a bonus contract with the Phillies. "Wait until you see Magic Johnson, Dad!" Robin recalled his son's awe.  Robin's career coaching USF would not last much longer. One of the issues

was he resisted the pressure  to call pitches from the dugout.  He wanted them to call their own games.  At the end of his playing career, Roberts had been the first roommate of Orioles rookie Jim Palmer, another future Hall of Famer.  His only advice to Palmer was "throw the hell out of the ball!"   

 

Another indelible memory from my visit with Roberts was his expressing surprise that southpaw Tommy John had recently left the Dodgers as a free agent to sign with the Yankees. Having played in the age of the reserve system that was perpetual but at times genuinely paternalistic, Roberts thought it almost shocking that John left the Dodgers after the team paid for the career-saving elbow operation performed by Dr. Frank Jobe.  Roberts sensed in 1979 that a new world was coming and he was glad that players were getting paid better but he also loved the traditions of the game.  He was almost wistful discussing the trip northward at the end of spring training when the Phillies (and most other teams) played games in smaller cities on the way North and each team let the varsity play five innings so the fans in the small towns could watch them.  

 

Roberts was one of the kindest and most thoughtful baseball people I've ever interviewed.  He expressed more of these thoughts in "We Would Have Played For Nothing," one of the oral histories that late commissioner of baseball Fay Vincent wrote after he retired.  Roberts mentioned to Vincent, who died on Feb 1 at the age of 86, that he still treasured the keepsake gift Phillies owner Bob Carpenter sent him when he was called up from the minors to make his major league debut.  The story brings back to mind a radio interview that I made 40 years ago with Mrs. Ron Hunt, the wife of second baseman Ron Hunt, the Mets' first All-Star.  She still treasured the silver spoon that Mets owner Joan Whitney Payson gave her when she had a child.

 

That's all for this post.  I'm heading to see Columbia women's basketball, riding a 9-game winning streak atop the Ivy League by itself for the first time.

Dartmouth is not a contender but youneverknow in any sport.  The matchup with Harvard on Sun at noon EST on ESPNU should be barnburner.

We'll see how my other team Wisconsin men do at Purdue at 1p tomorrow Sa Feb 15 on CBS.  And then Illinois on Peacock (alas) on Tu Feb 18.

 

More thoughts on today's baseball in later posts.  Glad I could share now some of the stories of baseball's rich past. 

 

Take it easy but take it and stay healthy and sane and test negative (for as long as we are allowed to have government health tests!) 

 

 

I can't remember as wonderful a period of balmy weather in NYC as we have enjoyed since a little before Labor Day.  Nothing like acting like a Californian wearing shorts and short-sleeved shirts for days on end. 

 

The delight won't last, of course, and autumn officially arrived yesterday.  I just looked up the Johnny Mercer lyrics to the classic Woody Herman-Ralph Burns 1947 song, "Early Autumn".  How appropriate they feel for fans of the Baltimore Orioles and other teams struggling to make the post-season like the KC Royals, Minnesota Twins, and even the Atlanta Braves.

 

The song opens:  "When an early autumn walks the land and chills the breeze/And touches with her hand the summer trees/

Perhaps you'll understand what memories I own."   

 

Later on comes the lament: "That spring of ours that started so April-hearted/Seemed made for just a boy and girl/I never dreamed, did you, any fall would come in view."

      

With six games left in regular season, the Orioles are still on paper in a good position, four games ahead of Tigers/Royals for first wild card series and home field advantage throughout that one brief series.   I never expected the Orioles to duplicate their 101 wins of 2023 and certainly hoped - and still hope - that they win at least a game in post-season unlike last year when the Texas Rangers swept the Birds into winter on their way to a World Series title (this year the Rangers likely finish under .500 and will be playing golf in October).

 

As the season started, I also thought that the Yankees' amazing Aaron Judge if healthy would far surpass his "meager" 37 HRs of last season; he has 55 entering the final week of regular season and a partner in Juan Soto who last week hit the 40 HR mark and has 200 for his career and won't turn 26 until October 25.

 

After being 24 games over .500 in mid-June,  I didn't expect that the Orioles would limp to the finish line losing their last five series, including the last two weekends to the resurgent Detroit Tigers who have the best record in baseball since August 11, 27-11. They are young and hungry and with a shortage of starting pitchers - like most teams today, alas - they are using six or more pitchers almost every game. 

 

I sure hope this strategy by clever skipper A. J. Hinch is not the wave of the future. but it is up to the opposition to pick on the most ineffective pitchers.  Orioles didn't do it enough against the Tigers and anyone else recently. 

 

All of a sudden, the Tigers are in the driver's seat, in charge of their own destiny.  They are tied with the Royals for the second wild card and playing the last two series at home.  First, Tampa Bay, experienced in late season baseball and with a fraction of hope to still make it this year, is playing well so that could be a great series. 

 

But the Tigers wind up with White Sox who are destined to break the 1962 Mets' dubious record of 120 losses.  The one caveat in the Detroit picture:  Because of their slow start, Detroit will lose tie-breaker to both Royals and Twins.  

 

So now for Oriole fans, the Yankee series becomes anti-climactic. I will probably watch on TV but haven't been to a night game in the Bronx for some time and won't start now. Either tomorrow or Wed or Th, there will likely be a coronation of a new AL East champion. Never pleasant to see an opponent start a celebration in front of your eyes, but as the saying goes, it's part of the game. 

 

On the eve of this series, I can still dream of September 1976 when the Yankees held a double-digit lead on the Orioles when Baltimore came to town.  And in a show of defiance, Earl Weaver's crew swept a four-game series over Billy Martin's team, postponing the inevitable Bronx Bomber clinching. 

 

The Yankees went on to beat the KC Royals in a thrilling five-game American League Championship Series before getting swept out of the Bronx by the Big Red Machine.

I was at the last two games of the sweep sitting in the upper deck infield nosebleed seats in the first year of the mediocre renovation of Yankee Stadium.  It is both a fond memory of Yankee sense of entitlement denied, but also a bittersweet one because my companion at these games would become my first friend to die in the AIDS epidemic a few years later. 

 

Those were the days when there were only two rounds of playoffs, only four divisions, and no wild cards.  There are now 12 teams with a shot at the World Series, six divisions and three wild cards in each league.  It's too many and the regular season is too long but change isn't gonna happen this decade or probably in my lifetime.

 

I do have to admit that there are some exciting matchups this week before the circus of October-Into-Early-November Baseball begins with the best-of-three wild card series. The top wild card gets home field advantage for all the games (right now San Diego and Baltimore have seemingly comfortable leads but the word "comfortable" is not in Oriole fans' vocabulary right now.)

 

The most dramatic series starting tomorrow is likely to be the Mets at the Braves.  With the best record in baseball since June 3, 62-34, the New Yorkers have a two-game lead on injury-ravaged Atlanta.  But the Braves are tough in their own ballpark and have a history of coming up big at crunch time.  The Mets have a more checkered history in this area, but the great thing about baseball is its unpredictability - how you handle it is the key to success.

 

The Mets wind up the season with three at newly-crowned NL Central champion Milwaukee.  As much of an AL surprise as the emergence of Detroit and Cleveland, the newly-crowned AL Central champ, have been, the Brewers in the NL have been another feel-good story. 

 

They clinched early and were on the verge yesterday of being swept by Arizona, the second wild card leader, when the Brew Crew rallied from a 8-0 hole to beat the Dbacks Su Sep 22, 10-9. [The Giants are playing spoiler, winning 2 of 3 at Baltimore, sweeping Royals at KC, and beat Dbacks M Sep 23 in Arizona.

Dbacks are closer to 3rd wild card leader Mets than top wild card Padres.] 

 

My hope is that what will keep the division winners playing reasonably hard this last week is that the best record in MLB will provide home team advantage through the World Series.  That race is wide open right now.   

 

As mediocre as the Oriole drift has been, it has not been the total collapse of the Twins and Royals.  I find it hard to believe that those teams won't bounce back a little this week but once the contagion of losing hits it can be hard to cure.  The Twins were non-competitive in a Sunday doubleheader loss to the Red Sox yesterday and after challenging Cleveland for the division lead, they are on the outside looking in, one game behind third place Royals-Tigers.

 

The Twins will at least wind up at home, playing the White Sox of the NL, the Miami Marlins. And then wind up with three against the Orioles.  For a long time, I've hoped those games wouldn't be meaningful. It sure looks like they will be. 

 

The Royals' decline has been even more shocking. They have lost 7 in a row, 6 at home, and are 7-16 since Aug 28.  They will have to win on the road, first at the Washington Nats and then in Atlanta. The Nats, and at times even the Rockies and the Marlins, have occasionally shown professional pride by competing hard against contenders.

 

The Washington front office will have to deal with the off-field breaking story about shortstop C. J. Abrams.  Only a few days before the minor league season ended yesterday, he was farmed out to the Nats' top affiliate because it was learned that after one recent night game, Abrams was seen at a gambling casino until 8AM. 

 

Before I close, I should note one other big matchup starting tomorrow:  San Diego visiting the hated big brother LA.  Padres have already won season series over Dodgers, but they'll have to sweep to tie for first. 

   

I am a perennial supporter of the underdog. If the Orioles cannot get a second wind and play deep into October, I'd like to see Cleveland finally win their first World Series since 1948 (and then maybe the flawed but filled-with-ballplayers "The Kid From Cleveland" (1949) can be re-shown!).  

 

IN MEMORIAM:

** Richard Moss, 93, on Sep 21 at an assisted living facility in Santa Monica, CA after a long illness.  A native of Pittsburgh, he grew up a huge Pirates fan. He attended Harvard Law School where one of his contemporaries was Bob Arum, later the boxing kingpin and rival of Don King.  In 1966, Moss entered baseball as chief counsel to newly-appointed executive director Marvin Miller. They both came from the Pittsburgh office of the Steelworkers Union of America to revitalize the Major League Baseball Players Association.

 

Moss was a vital, behind-the-scenes presence communicating to players the importance of sticking together to take on the baronial owners who were not used to facing organized players. He was an essential part of the miniscule Association staff that led to salary and grievance arbitration victories, the most notable being the Messersmith-McNally decision in December 1975 that opened the doors to free agency. When Moss became an agent in the late 1970s, he kiddingly told me that they needed two people to replace him, Donald Fehr, Miller's ultimate successor, and Peter Rose, not the ballplayer and someone who did not stay in the job for long. 

 

**Jazz lost one of its legends on Sept 21 with the death of saxophonist-composer Benny Golson, 95, in Manhattan after a short illness.  Golson was one of the great Philadelphia-bred giants, growing up with John Coltrane, Lee Morgan, the Heath Brothers: Jimmy, Percy, Tootie, and many others who all made their mark in jazz. He excelled as both a composer and saxophone player.  His memorable tunes include "Stablemates," "Blues March," and "I Remember Clifford" which he composed when he learned the tragic news in 1956 that Clifford Brown, the 26-year old trumpeter from nearby Delaware, had been killed in an auto accident. 

 

Golson was truly a musician's musician, loving all kinds of good music. As a youngster, he went to hear the Philadelphia Orchestra play Stravinsky and other modern composer, sitting high up in the rafters of the storied Academy of Music with Coltrane and the Heaths. RIP the peerless Benny Golson.

 

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