Lee Lowenfish

The first pictures from the spring training camps in Florida and Arizona are always tonic for the soul of this baseball nut. Nice to realize that every team will remain 0-0 until early April when the records start to count.

I find it ridiculous to rank teams before games really matter, but the 24/7/365 world of punditry requires endless copy. The Orioles were recently ranked by many “experts” in the bottom third echelon of the 30 MLB teams.

The rating might have inched a little higher with the Birds’ recent signing of former Milwaukee Brewers and Texas Rangers right hander Yovani Gallardo. Then again it might drop because suddenly on Feb 25 former Rockies/Astros/Cubs center fielder Dexter Fowler changed his mind on signing a three-year deal with Baltimore. He decided to return to the Cubs on a one-year contract for reportedly $8 million with a mutual option for 2017.

Fowler's sudden reversal cost him millions of dollars because late last year he turned down a $15.8 million one-year "qualifying offer" from the Cubs. (The number was based on the yearly average of free agent contracts signed in the last few years). Fowler’s rejection meant that any team signing him had to give a high draft pick to Chicago. That obviously decreased the market for his services.

Fowler now returns to the Cubs for barely half that money and a mutual option for 2017. The Orioles keep the draft pick and presumably will hope that the Cuban defector Dariel Alvarez, oft-injured Nolan Reimold, and maybe at times newcomer Mark Trumbo and versatile slugger Chris Davis can patrol right field successfully.

The “qualifying offer” system will be one thorny issue to work out this year between players and clubs as they negotiate a new Basic Agreement that expires before the end of the year. At least there has been over 20 years of labor peace in baseball and fortunately there does not seem to be any strike or lockout issue looming.

The “qualifying offer” system may need some tweaking but I don't think it should be scrapped. For the first time players actually accepted the offer. Orioles catcher Matt Wieters, recovering from Tommy John surgery, doubled his salary by agreeing to a one-year contract. Veteran Astros outfielder Colby Rasmus also decided to stay in Houston.

What is fascinating about contracts in all businesses not just sports is how unexpected consequences can arise after the ink is dry. Most famously in the 1976 Basic Agreement that brought free agency to baseball, the owners wanted a non-collusion clause. They
were fearful that agents could collude to bring multiple players to one team.

As it evolved, it was the owners who colluded in the mid-1980s about offering anything to free agents. And the Players Association won two grievance in front of two arbitrators that led to over $300 million in penalties levied on the owners.

Now, happily let me return to stories of the beautiful game and not the often ugly business.
The Orioles look like they will go with an all right handed starting rotation in 2016. They will need bounce-back years from the probable Opening Day starter Chris Tillman and Miguel Gonzalez near the back end. Ubaldo Jimenez could be slotted second or third with newcomer Gallardo in the other position.

The recently married Jimenez has loads of talent but has found it very hard to repeat his delivery. Oriole mound mavens Dave Wallace and Dom Chiti (son of onetime Mets catcher Harry Chiti who was the player to be named in a trade for himself) have helped streamline the mechanics for Ubaldo – one of the great first names ever in baseball.

The key for the mound staff may well be Kevin Gausman, who at last will not be shuttled back and forth to Norfolk’s Triple-A farm club. He will be expected to pull his weight in the rotation. Another important piece may be Dylan Bundy who is out of options and hopefully at last healthy. Both Gausman and Bundy throw very hard as do closer Zach Britton and converted shortstop Mychal Givens.

I love my team and always try to find a glass at least half-full. But I just KNEW that Bundy was ultimately headed for the DL when I read that this number one draft pick participated in an intense workout program as a high school phenom in Oklahoma.

Sure enough he has been injured regularly since he turned pro. So has his brother Bobby another Oriole pitcher lacking the high ceiling of Dylan. Dylan is out of options so he must make the team or be put on the waiver wire. Bundy’s saga will be one of the stories to follow in spring training.

NOTES FROM THE NYC SPORTS SCENE IN THE WINTERTIME
The online Gelf Magazine organized a very stimulating evening in Greenwich Village on Tues Feb 23. First up was prolific Jon Wertheim of Sports Illustrated discussing his latest book (written with Tufts social psychology prof Sam Sommers), "This Is Your Brain On Sports: The Science of Underdogs, The Value of Rivalry, and What We Can Learn from the T-Shirt Cannon."

Among the tidbits that Wertheim shared was being in a Fenway Park crowd with a Red Sox fan wearing a Manny Ramirez uniform. When Alex Rodriguez came to plate, said fan shouted, "A-Roid, A-Roid!" Our guy is always misunderstood, Their guy is a crook.

ESPN producer Justine Gubar has penned another crisp sounding title, "Fanaticus: Mischief and Madness in the Modern Sports Fan." Among the adventures this intrepid reporter engaged in was going to Columbus, Ohio during the scandals that cost head football coach Jim Tressel his job. She was pilloried on-line but bravely met her accusers.

Last and certainly not least at the Gelf evening was the very witty Jason Gay of the Wall Street Journal who talked about his first book "Little Victories: Perfect Rules for Imperfect Living." He confided that his original title was "Remember Your Pants," his one advice to the Little League team he was coaching.

Gay rightly considers "psychotic parents" the biggest scourge in sports - those misguided folks who heap their unfulfilled dreams upon their children and will fight umpires and other parents to meet their warped goals.

A final tip of my cap to my two alma maters' basketball teams - the Columbia Lions at 8-2 in the Ivy League going into the last four games of the season. If we beat Princeton Fri night Feb 26, Penn the next night and Brown and Yale the first weekend in March, the worse Columbia can do is tie for the title. Tall order indeed because Yale is 9-1 and Princeton 8-1 but nice to be in the hunt for first time in decades.

And how about my Wisconsin Badgers who have won 9 of 10 in Big Ten play after losing a lot of early season games and their legendary coach Bo Ryan to retirement. His handpicked successor Greg Gard has brought back Ryan's formidable "Swing" offense with its excellent spacing on the court.

Looks like Wisconsin will have a chance, albeit a long shot, to compete in March Madness and harbor dreams of a third straight entry into the Final Four.

That's all for now - always remember: Take it easy but take it.
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In early August I spent five wonderful days watching playoff action in the Cape Cod Baseball League. Probably the oldest summer league in the country, dating back to 1885, the Cape is also the most prestigious. As many as 1 in 7 of current major leaguers played at least a summer on one of the ten teams in the CCBL.

The Giants’ Buster Posey (Florida State), Astro stalwarts Dallas Keuchel (Arkansas) and George Springer (Connecticut) and the Yankees' Mark Teixeira and the Orioles' Matt Wieters (both Georgia Tech) honed their skills in the CCBL. So did onetime catchers and current MLB managers Joe Girardi of the Yankees (Northwestern) and Mike Matheny of the Cardinals (Michigan).

One of the many charms of the CCBL is the players’ college is always announced as well as their names. There is never an admission charge during the regular season that stretches from early June to late July. Only in Hyannis for the playoffs, where the Harbor Hawks lost the final series to repeat champion Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox, did I see a suggested donation sign of $5.

The secret to CCBL success has been that it is a wholly volunteer operation. Players stay with host families all summer and many are provided with day jobs. All athletes are expected to participate in youth clinics. There are no ground crews so it’s players you see watering and raking the field before and after games.

During games, one of the players – usually a pitcher not slated to hurl that day – joins an team intern and they pass around a basket collecting money for raffle tickets. It adds to the pleasant informal feeling that permeates every ballpark in the CCBL.

I didn’t get to visit every stadium, but I attended games in Orleans, Yarmouth-Dennis, and Hyannis. There are very few stands at Eldredge Park in Orleans, but families come out early and bring lawn and beach chairs to stake out places behind the foul lines.

There is more seating at Yarmouth-Dennis’s Red Wilson Field located behind the regional high school. Here, too, portable chairs line the area behind the foul lines. Y.D’s public address announcer morphs the late Sherm Feller of Fenway Park in his opening greeting: “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls.”

Another nice touch at Y-D is before the game the Johnny Carson Show theme is played. Just another a retro charm of Red Wilson Field.

Hyannis’s McKeon Field is the biggest park I visited. It is located behind a Catholic high school not far from Main Street and the JFK Memorial museum. To my delight I discovered a Cape Cod League Museum in the basement of the JFK building.

The room is not yet air-conditioned but it is a considerable collection of memorabilia and an explanatory film about CCBL history. I am sure it will reward more visits in the future.

The sense of intense quietude at the Cape Cod ballparks is remarkable, especially to a New Yorker who goes to a lot of major and minor league games where there is no escape from blaring sound systems.

There is some canned music at CCBL games but in moderation and never during an inning. So there is time to savor the interval between pitches without being bombarded with the puerile “Everybody clap yo’ hands!” and other maddening noise.

As for the games, most memorable was the semi-final series between the favored Orleans Firebirds, possessor of the best regular season record, and the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox.
All games were the kind of tight pitchers' battles I adore.

After losing the opener at Orleans, 4-0, the Y-D Red Sox stayed alive by winning a classic 13-inning 2-1 game that was decided on a two-out bases-loaded wild pitch on an 0-2 count. Orleans had tied the game in the 7th inning on a home run by outfielder Ronnie Dawson (Ohio State).

Adding drama to the Y-D elimination game was the absence of lights at Red Wilson Field.
The game could have been called by darkness and would have been resumed at noon the next day.

Unfortunately for the Firebirds, Dawson and fellow Buckeye, pitcher Taylor Tully, couldn’t stay for the rubber match because they had to fly back to Columbus for the funeral of a teammate who died of leukemia.

In the deciding third game, Y-D held off Orleans, 2-1, behind a great performance by Cory Macolm (Arkansas, Little Rock) and a first inning home run by Gio Brusa (U. of Pacific). The jury is out on whether Brusa has the bat speed to advance high in the pros, but Brusa is certainly a great name for a slugger.

Red Sox shortstop Donnie Walton (Oklahoma State), undersized in this day and age at 5’ 10”, saved the game with a remarkable diving stop up the middle in the bottom of the 8th inning with the tying run on third base. Somehow from his rear end Walton managed to throw the ball to second to force an Orleans runner preserving the 2-1 lead.

Gio Brusa also came up big at the plate in the final best-of-three games against Hyannis. The series proved almost anti-climactic because none of the games were close.

The Red Sox again lost the first game on the road, a one-sided affair that did feature two of the most remarkable diving infield catches I have ever seen: one by Hyannis shortstop Tristan Hildebrandt (Cal State-Fullerton) and the other by Y-D second baseman Jose Vidales (U. of Houston).

The Y-D Red Sox came back to win the final two games convincingly thereby copping their second straight CCBL flag. Kudos to coach Chad Gassman and his remarkable volunteer coach Ron Polk, one of the all-time winningest coaches in college baseball history at Georgia and Mississippi State and now a volunteer coach at U of Alabama-Birmingham.

It was a year of loss in the CCBL. Legendary Red Sox scouts Bill Enos and Buzz Bowers and Bill Kearns, a longtime Mariners talent hunter, all passed away.
A moment of silence was held at Red Wilson Field in memory of Florence Wilson, Red’s widow, who also recently died.

At the end of the playoffs league president Judy Scarafile announced her retirement after 24 years on the job. More than anyone Scarafile epitomizes the volunteer spirit of the CCBL. Though these losses are signficiant, I predict the CCBL will continue to thrive in one of the most picturesque settings imaginable, forty miles out to sea from the Massachusetts mainland.

Next year I am vowing to see more Cape Cod baseball, starting with that special Elizabeth Lowell Park in Cotuit with its renovated wooden grandstand and a convenient ramp that will make access easier for your creaky correspondent.

Next time – commentary on the exciting major league pennant races that should all go down to the wire.
For now - Always remember: Take it easy but take it!
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