Lee Lowenfish

There is certainly still a chance (mathematical) that Cleveland and the Mets can make a good series out of their matchups prior to the World Series.  But as of this writing on Thursday afternoon Oct 17, the Mets will have to clean up their game defensively and start their bats producing again. Even if they rediscover their magic sauce, down two games to one, they'll have to win it in LA. 

As for the Yankees-In-Guardians series (I've decided that since most of us folks of a certain age can't help calling them Indians, let's at least reclaim the

first syllable of the old name, OK?), Cleveland's lack of starting pitching has really been exposed.  I hope home-cooking allows at least one win and more chances for us to marvel at Steven Kwan, their great left fielder/leadoff man who has made Oregon State proud (in ways that the Orioles' Adley Rutschman could not duplicate this season). 

Here's the back story on why a Yankee-Dodger World Series is my least favorite of any Fall Classic.  I think my character was definitely shaped (warped?) by growing up a New York Giant fan when the Yankees and Brooklyn Dodgers were seemingly in every World Series - to be exact, 1947, 1949, 1952-53, 1955-1956. As a National League fan, I pulled for the Dodgers in the World Series, but it certainly wasn't like rooting for your team. 

1955 was the only World Series the Brooklyn Dodgers ever won. The outrageously entitled Yankee fans still insist that blip happened only because Mickey Mantle was injured.  In a wound in the heart that still exists in most of the Flatbush Faithful older generation, almost exactly two years after Johnny Podres shut out the Yankees in Game 7, the Dodgers were on their way to Los Angeles. 

The Giants accompanied the Dodgers to the West Coast settling in San Francisco. To give you an idea of how much of a blow the departure of the historic NL franchises meant to NYC fans, the Yankees with the NYC market all to themselves drew fewer fans in 1958 than they did in 1957.  It didn't stop the Bronx Bombers from avenging their 7-game 1957 World Series loss to the Milwaukee Braves by overcoming a 3-1 games deficit in 1958 to beat the Braves. 

Fortunately with expansion, a Yankee-LA Dodger WS matchup hasn't happened that often and the LAD in 1963 and 1981 actually won two World Series

over the NYY.  But the Yankees did beat the Dodgers in back-to-back 1977-1978 World Series.  I

I remember 1977 painfully because the Orioles won 97 games in the first year of free agency.  They lost Reggie Jackson to the Yankees and Bobby Grich and Don Baylor to the Angels, but they stayed in the pennant race until the last weekend of regular season. 

On Friday night as I watching the Tigers' lefty John Hiller beat the Yankees at the second incarnation of Yankee Stadium, the Red Sox eliminated the Birds at Fenway in a slugfest.  I was watching the score throughout the game whenever the scoreboard deigned to show it. Shortly after the Tigers won, I looked at the scoreboard and it read "Bost 12 Balt 8 - F".

It turned out it was fake news. As I was coming home in the subway, a fan told me that final score was 12-11 and Al Bumbry had made the last out with tying run on second. How much disappointment can a fan take?!  The next afternoon, the Orioles eliminated the Red Sox.  Elliott Maddox, only briefly with the Orioles, insouciantly caught the last out, a routine fly ball to center. 

I was so bummed out that I vowed not to watch the World Series at all.  During Game 1, I went to see Win Wenders' neo-noir movie "The American Friend".  But when every time I glimpsed the mustache of actor Bruno Ganz I thought of Thurman Munson, I decided, "If the Yankees are still on my mind at the movies, I might as well watch the games." I did but with little passion. Reggie Jackson hit 3 home runs in the final game.  Ho-hum. 

47 years after that 1977 World Series, I think I've attained A LITTLE philosophical distance from my earlier self.  I don't really hate any of the players on NYY/LAA. And I find it amusing that the boobirds at Yankee Stadium will have to cheer at the success of their targets in recent years who are really producing now, Gian-Carlo Stanton, Gleyber Torres, and Alex Verdugo (a former Dodger who will have extra incentive against LAA).

You never know in baseball so I hope that the remaining LCS games have some memorable moments.  Like the last two games of the Cleveland-Detroit division series. When David Fry's pinch-hit home run silenced Detroit's Comerica Park in Game 4 forcing a return to Cleveland's Progressive Field for Game 5.

And Lane Thomas, former Cardinals farmhand and Nats outfielder, hit a grand slam off the brilliant southpaw Tarik Skubal, this year's likely AL Cy Young winner. 

Two pitches in succession turned around Skubal's season. First, a bases loaded HBP to Jose Ramirez and then Thomas' line drive HR that gave Cleveland the lead they would not relinquish.  It pays to watch the game closely - things can happen in a twinkling. 

I heard a wonderful story from a friend whose mother-in-law lives in an assisted living facility in Cleveland.  She was dutifully going to 4p Saturday Mass when the game was not yet final.  The service was delayed slightly to make sure the team had won and then it opened with a nun on piano playing a rousing version of"Take Me Out To The Ballgame". 

Speaking of rousing performances, how about that WNBA final between the New York Liberty and the Minnesota Lynx!  On their sixth visit to the finals as a WNBA charter member, the Liberty need one more victory either Fri night Oct 18 or back home in Brooklyn on Sun night Oct 20 to earn their first title.

This series has not been for the weak in heart.  The Liberty blew double-digit leads in the first two games at home, salvaging a split. The Lynx led all the

way in Game 3 until they didn't late in 4th quarter.  Only a 28-foot straight away jump shot by Sabrina Ionescu kept Game 3 from going into overtime. 

Another star from the Northwest like Steven Kwan, Ionesco, the former Oregon Ducks sensation, gave credit to her preparation for her ability to sink 

that shot.  It reminds me of the saying I once saw in the Tampa Bay Rays clubhouse or maybe on one of the their T-shirts:

"Champions Are Made When Nobody Is Looking." 

That's all for now - stay positive, test negative, still my mantra, and take it easy but take it.

Copies of my fifth book, BASEBALL'S ENDANGERED SPECIES: INSIDE THE CRAFT OF SCOUTING BY THOSE WHO LIVED IT (University of Nebraska Press, official pub date April 1), arrived at my doorstep a few days ago. To open that box was an amazing feeling, seeing years of work and doubt turned into a handsome hardback with legendary scout Tom Greenwade on the cover. 

As readers will find out, Greenwade famously signed not only Mickey Mantle but among others Hank Bauer and Bill Virdon for Yankees and Rex Barney and Cal McLish - Calvin Coolidge Julius Caesar Tuskahoma McLish - for Brooklyn Dodgers and gave thumbs up to Jackie Robinson after seeing him play for Negro League Kansas City Monarchs.

The calendar has turned to March and starting on the 13th I'll be in Sarasota to check in on Orioles spring training, listen to some of the music at the Sarasota Jazz Festival, and take in the lush scenery for a few days in and around Florida's most interesting city. 

It's my first visit to Sarasota in twelve years.  I'll never forget chatting in 2011 with three generations of fans while sitting in the left field pavillion at renovated Ed Smith Stadium. It was during an Orioles-Phillies exhibition game. It turned out the father of an avid 10-year old fan was slugger Ted Kluszewski's grand-nephew. 

His father-in-law happened to be a Madison (Wisconsin) West High School graduate as was Wisconsin Badger forward Keaton Nankivil (one of the great names ever in sports). 12 years ago Keaton and his

teammates were a lock to be entrants in March Madness. By 2014 they made the Final Four and in 2015, the Final Two only to lose to Coach K's Duke. 

I will never forget how Kryzewski, mercifully retired now, openly addressed the officials on national TV at halftime urging them to call more fouls on the Badgers. They complied and not long after the title went to the Blue Devils, one of the referees was led into retirement.

This year, the Badgers may miss the tournament for only the second time in an almost a quarter-century.  At least, they may have found a coming star in first-year guard Connor Essegian, who is not only the grandson of Chuck Essegian, who played in the Rose Bowl for Stanford and homered in the 1959 World Series for the Los Angeles Dodgers.  On his mother's side, Connor E. is related to Robin Yount. 

New Wisconsin athletic director Chris McIntosh, a former football lineman under Barry Alvarez, recently told fine Madison sportswriter Jim Polzin, that cager coach Greg Gard's job is safe for at least a couple of years. I hope that's true because Gard deserves the chance to right the ship.  

Getting sophomore point guard Chucky Hepburn's head in the right place is an important task ahead for Gard.  As well as getting his recruiters to find more able front court players and bring them to Madison.

The Big Ten regular season is a fierce mosh pit and no wonder that no team in what is really The Big 14 has won March Madness since Tom Izzo's Michigan State over 20 years ago.  They beat up on each other for 20 games and then play an intense tournament.  It says here that they are probably too battered to make a good national showing. 

On the other hand, my Columbia women's basketball team brings a 22-4 overall log and 11-2 league record into its final regular season game on Sat Mar 4 at 2p.  It will mark the final home game for three senior starters Kaitlyn Davis, Jaida Patrick, and Hannah Pratt, and four reserves Sienna Durr, Madison Hardy, Lillian Kennedy, and Carly Rivera.  

An interesting sidebar to Hannah Pratt's story is that her brother Michael Pratt was the Tulane University

quarterback that led the 2022 Green Wave to its best season in well over a half-century and a thrilling

victory over USC in the Cotton Bowl. 

I haven't even mentioned the emergence of junior sharpshooter Abby Hsu who is on a watch list for national recognition.  She is an improving defender, too, which is essential for playing in coach Megan

Griffith's fast-breaking fierce-defending system. 

Tickets are going fast for the last Sat home game and are available at gocolumbialions.com  For the third straight season, Columbia will then head for the Ivy League tournament the weekend of Mar 10-11, this year at Princeton where the red-hot defending champion Tigers are determined to hold off Columbia and Penn and Harvard. (In 2024 Columbia will host the tourney for the first time.)

That's all for this post.  But one last note.  Virginia Woolf's "Room of Her Own" is closing

on Sun Mar 5 on the first floor of the main branch of the 42nd Street/Fifth Avenue Public Library.

It might surprise you that Woolf was a great admirer of Ring Lardner's baseball writing. She wrote in 1925 that in an America without an established society, Lardner understood that baseball served that function. 

I didn't see any reference to baseball in the NYPL exhibit, but I was moved by her 1927 thoughts on gender:  "All we can do, whether we are men or women, is to admit the influence, look the fact in the face, and so hope to stare it out of countenance."

I'm also happy to report that the opera "The Hours," based on Michael Cunningham's novel inspired by

Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway," will return to the Met next season with the same all-star cast of Joyce DiDonato, Renee Fleming, and Kelli O'Hara. 

The music by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Kevin Puts reminds me of Samuel Barber more than

Philip Glass who composed the score for "The Hours" movie of 20 years ago.  That's a plus in my

book.  In the NYC area on Fri Mar 17, the opera "The Hours," taped at the Met, will be on PBS.

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