Lee Lowenfish

It's been a while since I posted a blog.  I'm in the home stretch of my book on baseball scouting that if all goes well will be out next spring and entitled BASEBALL'S ENDANGERED SPECIES: INSIDE THE CRAFT OF SCOUTING BY THOSE WHO LIVED IT. 

 

I have the deepest respect for scouts who are tasked with not only finding and signing talent but also using their experience and intuition to project what the youngster in front of them will become. In a sport as difficult as baseball, the challenges of the job are immense.

 

During my 10-day celebration of my June 27th 80th birthday - and my special friend Maria Patterson's 65th on July 1st -  I was able to see three games of Oriole farm teams. 

 

The first one was in Salisbury Maryland where the Delmarva Shorebirds in the Low A Carolina League are not having a good season, but perhaps there are possible prospects, especially from Latin America.  

 

The longtime GM of the Shorebirds is Chris Bitters and the assistant GM is Jim Sweet. Can there be a better tandem for the world of baseball in which someone must lose every day?

 

The Shorebirds had a chance to win the June 26th game against the Lynchburg Hillcats, but down two runs with one out and two runners in scoring position in the bottom of the ninth, the next two batters forgot about situational hitting.  They swung for the fences instead of shortening their swings and going up the middle or into the gaps.

 

I was impressed with Shorebirds starting pitcher Ryan Long, a 6' 5" righthander from Seattle who played college ball for Division III Pomona-Pitzer in southern California.  A 17th round draft choice, he worked quickly, evidently aware of the time limits between pitches. It is an innovation that may make the major leagues as early as 2023 and I have no problem with it.

 

I only wish that Long had been allowed to pitch out of a third-inning jam.  Was glad to see he recently worked into the sixth inning in a recent game.  

 

We got to see right fielder Heston Kjerstad, the top draft pick from two years ago whose career has been delayed because of a serious heart condition. He looked confident at the plate but shaky in the field.  He has since moved up to Aberdeen, Maryland, the Orioles High A team.

 

Later in my trip, we were able to see the Norfolk Tides twice against the Braves' Triple-A Gwinnett (Ga.) Stripers. We traveled both times by ferry from our base at the Renaissance Hotel across the river in Portsmouth.

 

Harbor Park is an underappreciated ballpark.  Built in 1993, you walk up a ramp to the main concourse, a journey that brought back memories of the New York stadia of my youth.  Most of the seats are below the wide concourse, but the infield upper decks brought back memories of Ebbets and Wrigley Fields and blessed Baltimore Memorial Stadium. 

 

The Tides were no match for Gwinnett in the June 30th day game, but on Fireworks Fourth of July Eve, the Tides rallied from an early 3-run deficit and brought their bats out.

 

Outfielder Kyle Stowers already has had a taste of the majors. He's been playing center and not too impressively from my brief views, but it looks like he can hit. He responded to the crowd cheering his name during a late AB by belting a home run.

 

There may be a good future too for infield prospects Jordan Westburg from Mississippi State and the 21-year-old Gunnar Henderson who does seem to have a great feel for the game and the talent to go with the makeup. Possibly second baseman Terrin Vavra, obtained from Colorado in a trade for Mychal Givens (now with the Cubs), will be part of the new wave, too.

 

I'm happy that the Orioles ran off a ten-game winning streak to bring them to .500.  I hope I don't have to use the term Woerioles again, but the AL East remains a very tough division to move up in.

 

I hope that staying above .500 remains an achievable goal for the rest of 2022.  I can still hear Earl Weaver moaning, "Whadya mean play .500 ball? You think we're gonna lose half our games?!"  Maybe it's fortunate that Earl did not live to see these recent years of bad baseball.

 

As someone who tends to root for underdogs, I just hope that there are successful challenges to both the Yankees and the Dodgers before the 2022 season is etched into the history books.

 

And speaking of history, did I learn some fascinating things on my trip.  Although Portsmouth, Virginia, was occupied by the Union early in the Civil War, it was never burned down.  

 

The town had a significant role in the American Revolution.  We even ate at a "coffee shoppe" housed in a buildlng that once served as Benedict Arnold's headquarters.  But, no, it wasn't called Traitor Ben's.  

 

We ate a couple of times at Roger Brown's Sports Bar & Restaurant. The food was truly delicious and the family of the late NFL defensive lineman still runs the place. It has a gallery of memorabilia in the back of the spacious enterprise.

 

The restored Commodore Theatre also in downtown Portsmouth was showing "Elvis" with Tom Hanks as Colonel Tom Parker.  The line of the older citizens of Portsmouth was stretching around the block.  

 

We took a day trip to Kitty Hawk NC where the Wright Brothers museum is well worth visiting.  I learned that the Wright brothers once published a literary magazine in Dayton, Ohio, called the Tattler.  

 

One of their colleagues was future poet Paul Laurence Dunbar (1892-1906) before he moved to Baltimore.  They gifted him with one of the bicycles they built. I'm proud to share June 27th with Dunbar.  

 

On our way back to Virginia, we drove over the Catfish Hunter Memorial Bridge near his home town of Hereford, NC.  There is a small museum in his honor, but it was too late in the day to visit.

 

So wraps up this installment of my first travels as an octogenarian.  Next time, I will be reporting on my upcoming week teaching "Reel Baseball and Real Baseball: Myth and Reality" to the wonderful students at Chautauqua in southwestern NY State near Jamestown NY and not far from Erie PA.

 

In the meantime, always remember to take it easy but take it, and more than ever, stay positive and 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!