Lee Lowenfish

George Washington's 315th birthday - Sat February 22 2025 - will long live in the memory of this fan of Wisconsin men's and Columbia women's basketball.  The agony occurred in midday when on FOX national TV, the Badgers, ahead by 12 at the half and 15 midway through the second half, allowed Oregon's Ducks to go on a 13-2 run in the last six minutes of regulation and win in overtime, 77-73.  Oregon coach Dana Altman's suffocating defense forced the Badgers into a season-high 17 turnovers, many of them late in the game. Center Nate Bittle, back from two seaons of injury, led Oregon's offense with help from the Villanova transfer guard TJ Bamba (who was born in the Bronx but went to HS in Denver) and sophomore forward Kwame Evans, a fearless lefty who was born in Baltimore. 

Only positive thing about this loss is that it came in February not in March.  Having followed Wisconsin basketball intently for over a half-century, it seems we never play well when our national rankings increase.  We still have scoring machine John Tonge, the 6th-year transfer portal surprise, but only one real point guard, the undersized 6 0" senior Kamari McGee who doesn't even start but is one of the team leaders.  When we had the big lead on Saturday, I thought about how much McGee has meant off the bench and how his shot-making has improved.  Same story for senior reserve forward Carter Gilmore who even saved the Iowa game on the road with career-high offense. I can always root for sophomore big man Nolan Winter - great name for a Wisconsin player! - who hit a big 3 in OT to give us a brief lead against Oregon.  

Fans will blame inconsistent longtime center Steven Crowl for his six turnovers on Sat. and sophomore guard John Blackwell for his crucial late game booboos. And the haters of coach Greg Gard, silent during our winning streaks this season, always emerge after any loss. Yet the schedule ahead is not too bad for Badgers if they learn the lesson that Yogi Berra's line applies to basketball, too - it ain't over until it's over and you must play hard all game.

Up next is Washington at home on Tues Feb 25 9P EST on extra-priced Peacock. Then a biggie at Big 10 leader Michigan State on CBS next Sun Mar 2 at 130P. Followed by Wed Mar 5 arch-rival Minnesota at home on Big Ten Network at 830P and Penn State at home Sa Mar 8 1P BTN (all times EST).  The following week is the annual Big Ten tournament in Indianapolis.  This year the three teams with the worst record in the expanded Big 18 are sent home early so Washington, Penn State, and Minnesota cannot be overlooked because they are opponents with hopes alive for squeezing into the tournament.    

My ecstasy came later in the day when I got a ride to Princeton to see Columbia rally in the 4th quarter to beat the perennial-Ivy League champion Tigers, 64-60.  The Lions' victory moves Columbia into first place with a 10-1 record with a one game lead over both Princeton and Harvard with three

games to play before the conference tourney this year at Brown in Providence on FSa Mar 14-15.  

Down 6 points entering the 4th quarter on Sat., guard Maria Arrendola hit a 3-point shot that started a 13-0 run that gave Columbia the lead for good.  Sophomore Riley Weiss, who grew up in nearby Hewlett, NY, scored a career-high 34 points, 16 in the last period. Senior co-captain Kitty Henderson hit the dagger late in the 4th quarter that gave the Lions the cushion they needed. 

I was part of almost 200 ardent Lions fans seated behind the Columbia bench. Although we were outnumbered 10-1 by Princeton faithful, our chants of "DE-FENSE!" and "LET'S GO LIONS!" could be heard.  It was Princeton's first home loss in over 30 games and the first time we've beaten them twice in one season in almost 10 years.  Seated in the row behind me and rooting hard for her alma mater was Abbey Hsu, Columbia women's basketball all-time scoring leader who will be going to the Connecticut Sun's training camp in April. (Teammate Kaitlyn Davis, who played a graduate year at USC, will be going to the Liberty camp.)

I told Abbey she was almost as good a fan as she was a player. 

In addition to loving acronyms - Columbia coach Megan Griffith has coined a good one for her program:  EDGE:  Energy/Determination/Grit/Excellence - 

I'm somewhat of a sucker for inspirational slogans.  I saw a fan in the Princeton  crowd wearing a T-shirt that read:  LIFT/LAUGH/LOVE.  Pretty good one for the aspiring athlete in your family.  I've also loved the T-shirt I saw years ago worn by a Tampa Bay Rays baseball trainer:  CHAMPIONS ARE MADE WHEN NO ONE IS WATCHING.  And here's an original one to remember the Five Towns of Long Island's Nassau County close to the NYC borough of Queens:   

WILCH - Woodmere, Inwood, Lawrence, Cedarhurst, Hewlett (home town as noted earlier of Columbia's budding star Riley Weiss).

One last note on women's basketball in the NYC area:  The NYU women are now at 55 wins in a row and counting.  They will host the first two rounds

of the Division III playoffs on FSa Mar 7-8 at their home court Paulson Center on Mercer Street in Greenwich Village.  So likely will the men's team under coach Dave Klatsky, a 2003 graduate of Penn. They sport a 23-1 record as they, too, enter the playoff season.  I find it hard to imagine any school in any division that has gone this far in one basketball season with only one loss between them.    

NOW IT'S TIME FOR BASEBALL!

The annual New York Pro Scouts Hot Stove League dinner in late January offered some memorable speeches and tributes.  Anthony Iapoce, a 33rd-round 1994 draft choice of the Milwaukee Brewers, received the Jim Quigley "Service to Baseball Award" (which I was honored to receive 15 years ago). Service to baseball is no exaggeration for Iapoce whose career in baseball included over 10 years as a minor league outfielder (reaching Triple A at the highest), scout for several organizations, minor league manager in 2023 for the Tiger's Triple AAA Toledo franchise, and now entering his second year as Detroit first base coach.

Iapoca offered his general praise for the scouts who have "mastered simplicity" by becoming "detailed observers" and "active listeners".   He then specifically praised Jim Fleming the scouting director who hired him for the Marlins and insisted that every scout go to high school games with him and give appraisals not mere judgments. Anthony also tipped his cap to Tony LaCava, who when he hired him for the Blue Jays, stressed: "I want you to give your opinions." 

Another speaker at the late January dinner at Leonard's Palazzo in Great Neck Long Island was Bruce Shatel, High School Coach of the Year from Delbarton Prep in Morristown, New Jersey (alma mater of Yankee shortstop Anthony Volpe and Rangers RHP Jack Leiter).  "Why do you coach?" Shatel said he is often asked. Because he gets the thrill of a double into the gap hit by one of his players, he answered.  He added that he loved the thrill of seeing a well-executed 3-2 pitch that leads to an out. 

One sad note that I just learned while preparing this post.  Bobby Malkmus, born on the Fourth of July in 1931 in Newark NJ, passed away on Feb 23.

He had major experience as a Milwaukee Braves second baseman in the 1950s before the trade of Hall of Famer Red Schoendienst in 1957.  Malkmus was a long time Cleveland scout and a minister.  His presence at scout gatherings will be greatly missed.  

As for news of baseball on the MLB level, I am glad that most of the ballyhooed free agent signing season is over.  I have never begrudged players making a lot of money in a career that usually is quite short. But let the buyer owner beware of handing out multi-year contracts.  I don't like seeing super-agent Scott Boras's mug day in and day out on the TV and computer screens, sharing the space with his clients. I also think that the MLB season is ridiculously long and the number of teams in the playoffs are far too many.  But there is too much grouching in this world.  I'm happy for the return of baseball and upcoming warmer weather and for now I'll leave it at that.

The upcoming TCM baseball movie tip not to miss is Th Feb 27 at 7A (EST): "Speedy" (1928) - Harold Lloyd's great silent movie about the misfortunes but optimistic resilience of a baseball-loving young man. The scene where awed taxicab driver Lloyd transports his hero Babe Ruth to a game at Yankee Stadium is must-viewing.

W Feb 26 at 8P "Going My Way" (1944) Bing Crosby as a priest and St. Louis Browns fan with Barry Fitzgerald & Frank McHugh, dir. Leo McCarey. There's more baseball references in this film that I recalled on first viewing.  Not just Bing wearing a Browns sweatshirt.  After 1944 was the year of the only all St. Louis

World Series, won by the Cardinals in six games.  And Bing made a cameo in the 1951 underappreciated baseball film "Angels in the Outfield" (1951).

M Mar 3 8P "Pride of the Yankees" (1942) returns again and it is always worth seeing for the great cast of Gary Cooper/Teresa Wright/Dan Duryea/

Walter Brennan and Babe Ruth and Bill Dickey appearing as themselves. 

Non-baseball movies worthy of seeing include:

M Feb 24 5P "When We Were Kings" (1996) Leon Gast's movie about the hoopla surrounding the Sept 1974 "Rumble in the Jungle" between Muhammad Ali & Geoirge Foreman.  It is as much about the big music concert as it is about the fight. 

Later that night at 8P Hitchock's early classic "Suspicion" (1941) with Cary Grant

Tu Mar 4 highlights John Garfield movies from dawn to dusk. Most of them are from his heyday from the late 30s through the late 40s but his last film for Warners (and produced by his own company) "The Breaking Point" (1950) must be seen at 615P.  His blacklist started shortly thereafter and in 1952 he died of a heart attack at the age of 39.  (He suffered from a heart condition that kept him out of World War II service.) 

Cast includes Phyllis Thaxter as his wife, Patricia Neal as a femme fatale to end femme fatales, Wallace Ford, and Juano Hernandez.  By far the best film version of "To Have and Have Not" by Ernest Hemingway. 

That's all for now - stay positive test negative (for as long as the new Health czar RFK Jr. allows for tests) and take it easy but take it.  

I've always felt that baseball fans are reborn with the slowly increasing daylight in January that makes the wintry weather bearable - this too will pass, nature is telling us. And soon the rousing sounds of gloves catching balls and bats thwacking those spheroids will be heard on the diamonds all over our land and increasingly all over the world. 

Before I bring the good news of TCM's festival of huge baseball fan George Raft movies starting every Tuesday in January, let me admit that an Oriole fan cannot be too hopeful about what this offeseason has wrought so far.  We knew that Corbin Burnes was likely a one-year rental and not likely to return.  Reportedly we did offer more money to the gifted pitcher but the Arizona Diamondbacks worked successfully on Burnes' desire to be playing half his games near the home for his young family in Scottsdale.  Six years with an opt-out after two years is not as outrageous as the eight years the Yankees gave the equally gifted but more fragile southpaw Max Fried. 

I won't even mention the money because it staggers the imagination these days. (I understand the argument that all franchises now have money and team valuations are going through the roof, but I don't have to like this constant discussion of millions here for that player and millions there for that player.) 

To try to replace Burnes, the Orioles are bringing over from Japan Tomoyuki Sugano, 35, and just plucked 41-year-old Charlie Morton from the Braves.  So far in his career Morton has been healthier than his recent teammate Fried and has also pitched far more regularly than the young wunderkinds the Braves have developed - Ian Anderson, Spencer Strider, among them - who have been wracked with injury. I repeat though - Morton is 41 and all the analytical geniuses in the world cannot come up with a new algorithm to deny that fact. 

Oriole fans have been braced for a while with the realization that Anthony Santander will not return to Birdland. He only turned 30 in October and we have watched the raw Venezuelan Rule 5 pick from the Cleveland organization develop into a power switch-hitter and decent defender.  Maybe right-handed-hitting free agents Tyler O'Neill and catcher-DH Gary Sanchez can deepen the offensive lineup that went into deep funks in the second half of 2024. Maybe the return from injury of closer Felix "The Mountain" Bautista and defensive and base-running wizard infielder Jorge Mateo can help restore true contention to Baltimore.  A return to productivity by catcher Adley Rutschman is a must but a top catching prospect Samuel Basallo is waiting in the wings. 

Enough of these early January speculations.  Yours truly The Prince of Paranoia is trying to pick his spots this year.  Too early, my friends, to wring my hands.     

Now . . . here's the shout-out to TCM's (Turner Classic Movies cable channel) salute to George Raft as Star of the Month every Tuesday in January.

He was born George Ranft in 1901 just south and west of Times Square in the tough Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of NYC.  Both George's father and grandfather had experience in operating carnival and other entertainment venues, and by the age of 12, George quit school and began earning a living in many trades in entertainment and sports.  He probably wasn't - as rumors claimed - a batboy for the NY Highlanders and I have my doubts that he even played minor league ball, but he was a lifelong baseball nut. 

He first genuine claim to fame came in the early 1920s as an expert dancer, ballroom, tango, whatever the situation called for.  He appeared at some of the same NYC venues where Rudolph Valentino made his name. Raft was considered the best Charleston dancer in NYC. I like to think that after he moved to Hollywood in 1927, he probably had a lot to share with Ginger Rogers because she won a Texas Charleston contest before she moved to tinsel town.

Raft would make southern California his home until his death in 1980.  He never lost his love of baseball and he had written into his contract a stipulation that he never had to work during the World Series.  Other stars like Joe E Brown and William "Future Fred Mertz" Frawley insisted on similar clauses.

One of my favorite fun facts about Raft's love of baseball is that Tigers outfielder Leon "Goose" Goslin gifted him with the broken bat that he used for his game-winning hit that won Game 7 of the 1935 World Series over the Cubs. Raft was a good friend of Leo Durocher who also loved the night life and made friends with top gamblers.  They even swapped apartments in New York and Hollywood - and reportedly clothes and girl friends - which became a huge blot on Leo's reputation and influenced baseball commissioner Happy Chandler to suspend Durocher for the entire 1947 season. 

There are no baseball themes in the Raft movies being shown this month but here is a partial list of the films.

M Jan 7 8P leads off with the classic "Scarface" (1932) with Paul Muni and Ann Dvorak, directed by Howard Hawks. Raft's flipping a coin in the air became

a signature gesture in his later films. 

Followed at 945P by "Night After Night" (1932) Hollywood's take on Texas Guinan's nightclub in the Prohibition era of NYC.  In her first movie role, Mae West portrays Texas.  In Jim Bishop's informative 1952 book, THE MARK HELLINGER STORY: A BIOGRAPHY OF BROADWAY AND HOLLYWOOD (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1952), Bishop quotes Guinan's instruction near her death to have her body lie in Campbell's prestigious NYC funeral home: "I want the suckers to get a last look at me without a cover charge." (p208)  Bishop soon became famous as the author of a series of "One Day In The Life of ... " books that included Abe Lincoln and JFK. 

11:15P features the rarely seen "You And Me" (1938) directed by German exile Fritz Lang with Sylvia Sidney trying to keep Raft from returning to his wayward life. Great composer Kurt Weill evidently makes a cameo as a singer.  

M Jan 14 has a powerful double-bill starting with 8P "Each Dawn I Die" (1939) with James Cagney as a fellow prisoner.  Cagney and Raft were buddies in the dance world of NYC before they became friendly rivals in Hollywood, often fighting with management for higher pay than the other. In case you didn't know, dear readers, economic rivalry was not limited to athletes.

945P "They Drive By Night" Raft and Humphrey Bogart (longtime pal of Raft in real life and Mark Hellinger for that matter) play truckdrivers. Film is worth it for just the opening ripostes between amorous Raft and saucy Ann Sheridan fending off his advances.  Also with Ida Lupino. Directed by Raoul Walsh who really knew how to keep the action moving.  TCM highlighted Ann Sheridan as Star of the Month a couple of years ago.  She fought her own battles with management and the outspoken Texan detested the nickname "the Oomph girl".  "Oomph" reminded her of the sound a fat man makes when he sits down.   

1130P "Invisible Stripes" (1939) another prison-influenced film with up-and-coming William Holden and Bogart

1A "Manpower" (1941) another Raoul Walsh direction with Edward G. Robinson and Raft vying for Marlene Dietrich.  Things were not smooth on the set and former boxer Raft and the more cerebral Edward G  engaged in some off-screen fisticuffs.

More details at tcm.com/schedule.  Gotta mention though that "Some Like It Hot" (1959) will air on the last night of the Raft Festival

1230A Jan 28th.   And since I have to admit that I'm an armchair Walter Mitty type, dreaming of athletic glory but realistic enough to be thankful I can rise

from bed every day, on Fri Jan 17 at 9P Danny Kaye stars in "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" (1947) based on James Thurber's classic story  

Here are some quick closing happy notes that my favorite non-baseball teams, Columbia women's basketball and Wisconsin men's basketball, did well in league play this weekend. Columbia knocked off competitive Penn this past Sat aft on the road, 74-59, with a balanced attack led by tri-captains, senior Kitty Henderson and junior Perri Page.  The first Ivy League home game will be against perennial champion Princeton on Sa Jan 20 at 7P (I erroneously reported it at 2P in an earlier blog).  Penn comes in for a rematch on Sa Jan 25, that game at 2P.  Columbia men open Ivy League season hosting Cornell Sat Jan 11 at 2P. 

After losing their first two close Big Ten games to Michigan at home and Illinois on the road, this past Friday Wisconsin hit a record-breaking 21 3-point shots to beat Iowa, 116-85. Graduate senior Steven Crowl and sophomore Nolan Winter are beginning to show some 7-foot muscle up front.  Graduate senior John Tonge has cooled off in scoring but he remains a top-notch foul shooter and hasn't lost confidence.  His name is pronounced Tahn-GAY, another correction I want to make from an earlier blog.  Sophomore swingman John Blackwell is beginning to emerge as a scorer and overall good player. 

So I conclude this blog as I started: On a note of cautious belief that sunnier days are ahead for me athletically if not politically.  And so as always I say: 

Stay positive test negative, Stay healthy stay sane, and Take it easy but take it!