Lee Lowenfish

I am a rooter at heart. I can watch sports events dispassionately but life always seems more vibrant and hopeful when my teams are doing well. So let me begin with good news on my favorite basketball teams, Columbia women and Wisconsin men.   

On Fri night Jan 31 in a game televised nationally on ESPNU, the Ivy League-leading Columbia's women's basketball team virtually ran Harvard's contenders out of their own gym in an 80-71 triumph. If Jalen Hurts and Pat Mahomes throw long passes as accurately as Lions guards Cece Collins and Kitty Henderson did on the last day of January, it will be a helluva Super Bowl. 

The Lions' BST (Big Scoring Three) of sophomore standout guard Riley Weiss and senior captains Collins and Henderson accounted for 65 of the team's points, but the bigger story was the defense that forced Harvard senior star Harmoni Turner and her teammates into several early turnovers that set the tone early on.

Columbia junior forward Susie Rafiu has become a steady presence on the court on both sides of the ball.  

The next afternoon at Dartmouth (and kudos to the Ivy League for scheduling earlier weekend games these days), the Lions experienced a not surprising letdown after the intensity of the Harvard game.  They fell behind 17-10 after one period but quickly got control in the second quarter. Led by Weiss's 26 points they won 71-48. Many reserves played good minutes in the second half as the Lions coasted to the victory and didn't need help from the other members of the BST.  

It's hard to believe that the regular season is half over. After a 2P matinee at Brown on Sa Feb 8, Columbia returns to face Dartmouth again on Valentine's Night at 7P and the Harvard rematch will be Su Feb 16 at noon, again televised on ESPNU. The rematch with Princeton will be at Jadwin Gym Sa Feb 22 at 530P again with national TV coverage. The Lions end the regular season with 3 games at home: Brown Fri Feb 28 at 4P, Yale Sa Mar 1 at 2P and Cornell Sa March 8 at 2P.  The top 4 teams in the league play in the tournament on FSa Mar 14 & 15 at the Pizzitola Sports Center on the Brown campus this year. The men compete on SaSu Mar 15 & 16 with all games, men and women, broadcast on ESPN channels.

Meanwhile down in Greenwich Village, the undefeated NYU Division III Violets go for 50 in a row on Fri night Feb 7 at 730P against the University of Chicago

five who they beat in the Windy City last Friday.  Another reprise happens on Sun at noon when Washington U of St. Louis comes into the Paulson Center on Mercer Street.  The Violets host Carnegie Mellon and Case Western on Feb 21 730P and Feb 23 12N.  The first and second rounds of the Division III

tournament will be Mar 7 & Mar 8 (probably at NYU), Sweet 16 & Elite 8 Mar 14 & Mar 15 and the Final Four this year will be in Salem, VA, Mar 20 & Mar 22.  

An interesting trial balloon was sent up last week by NBA commissioner Adam Silver when he suggested that maybe the league should consider switching to 10 minute quarters like the WNBA and all international play.  It probably won't happen - the old guard seems happy with the 12-minute periods - but it is a testimony to how exciting the women's game has become.   It is such a fast-paced game - as is the men's game - that rests after ten minutes of playing time could allow for more recovery time and also give the players something to shoot for - like winning each quarter.  

Meanwhile my Wisconsin Badgers, picked for 15th in the geographically expanded 18-team Big Ten, are 7-4 in the league and 17-5 overall as they prepare to face Indiana at home on Tu Feb 4 at 9P (on Peacock).     The Wisconsin comeback victory against Northwestern on Sat aft Feb 1, aired on FS1, was very heart-warming because senior forward Carter Gilmore, a walk-on who only this season has earned a full athletic scholarship, set a career high with 15 points and added 7 rebounds.  Gilmore is a product of small town Wisconsin whose father Brian Gilmore played for retired Hall of Fame coach Bo Ryan when UW-Platteville won the Division III title in 1991.  Carter's mother is in the UW-Platteville Hall of Fame after her outstanding basketball career.  

The schedule ahead for the Badgers is not easy.  After Indiana, they go on the road to Iowa on Sa Feb 8 at 1P on NBC, the following Sa Feb 15 they meet powerhouse Purdue in their raucous building.  On Tu Feb 18 at home 830P on FS1, they face Illinois, another title contender that has beaten Greg Gard's team NINE times in a row.  How they compete with these big boys will give us an indication of how far this team can go in March Madness. But to even have modest hopes in early February is a plus after all the dire forecasts and the wails and whines of the doom-and-gloom fair weather fans. 

Here's the rest of the schedule:  On Sa Feb 22 Badgers host Oregon at noon on the main Fox channel, Tu Feb 25 they host at 9P U of Washington on Peacock, Su Mar 2 at 130P CBS, host perennial power Michigan State, W Mar 5 visit Minnesota 830P on Big Ten Network, and end regular season vs. Penn State at home, Sa Mar 8 1P - all times in all the listings above EST  

AND NOW IN MEMORIAM FOR BASEBALL LIFERS WHO RECENTLY LEFT US:

BOB UECKER, 90, passed away on Jan 16 at the age of 90 after a long battle with leukemia.  I never met Uecker but from all accounts he was a memorable personage deeply devoted to his home area of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  He parlayed a career as a rarely-used backup catcher into a successful broadcasting and acting career. The latter was aided by his self-effacing appearances on Johnny Carson's NBC Tonight Show, the host dubbing Uecker "Mr. Baseball".

Uecker was hilarious as the play-by-play man in "Major League" and its two sequels and he also starred in TV's "Mr. Belvedere" series (and as a regular in the Miller LIte Beer TV ads), but in reality he was an excellent and underrated baseball broadcaster.  His call of Mets first baseman Pete Alonso's home run off the Brewers reliever Devin Williams (now a Yankee) that knocked Milwaukee out of the playoffs last October will be remembered forever. But I think that the measure of Uecker as a man is the story told that on the last days of their lives, Hall of Famers Hank Aaron and Bob Gibson phoned Uecker so they could get one more laugh from him.      

JEFF TORBORG, 83, died on Jan 19 after a multi-year battle with Parkinson's disease. I knew Torborg in the 1980s when he was a coach for 9 years with the Yankees and I was doing my WBAI "Seventh Inning Stretch" radio program.  Jeff was almost universally admired for his even temperament and deep knowledge of the game. He loved to talk baseball and when I quoted Muddy Ruel's lament that the catching gear were "the tools of ignorance," Torborg demurred with a laugh: "No, they are the instruments of the intelligentsia."

Signed for $100,000 out of Rutgers University by LA Dodgers scout Rudy Rufer (who later inked another NYC area product Bobby Valentine from Stamford CT),

Torborg never developed as a hitter but had an ten-year career as an outstanding defensive catcher. He caught three no-hitters - Sandy Koufax's 1965 perfect game, Bill Singer's 1970 gem, and Nolan Ryan's first no-hitter in 1973 when Jeff was catching for the Angels.

His greatest success as a manager came with the White Sox when he was voted 1990 AL Manager of the Year leading the Pale Hose to 94 wins.  He broke in as rookies the future Hall of Famer Frank Thomas and third baseman Robin Ventura who remembered him fondly when told the sad news. "I smile as I think of him in the dugout wearing his soccer cleats as he managed his team," Ventura wrote on legacy.com.  Thomas told the LA Times that he "gave me a chance to shine right away." Torborg's time as skipper of the 1992-93 Mets, immortalized as "the worst team that money can buy," was not happy and he didn't have great success later with the Expos and Marlins but his intelligence and good spirits will be his enduring legacy.        

In closing, there are not too many TCM sports movie tips in this post as the network plays Oscar films all month.  Noir Alley doesn't return until Mar 8.

But here are a few movies worth noting in the next two weeks:

W Feb 5 2P "The Stratton Story" (1949) the film that cemented Jimmy Stewart's place as a star.  He spent many weeks learning how to act and play ball with a brace on his leg to make believable the story of the onetime major league star pitcher Monty Stratton who got injured in a hunting accident.

Th Feb 6 915A "Strangers On A Train" (1951) vintage Hitchcock with some memorable scenes shot at Forest Hills Tennis Club as Farley Granger plays but

       tries to avoid demonic Robert Walker

               4P "Million Dollar Mermaid" (1952) an Esther Williams swimming flick with Walter Pidgeon, Victor Mature

W Feb 12 a boxing night starting with 8P "The Champ" (1931) with Wallace Beery and young Jackie Cooper

               945P "The Fighter" (2010) with Christian Bale

               12M "Raging Bull" (1980) Scorsese directs Robert DeNiro in the Jake LaMotta story

and the next three have nothing to do with sports but are true classics: 

Th Feb 13 8A "Naked City" (1948) Howard Duff, Barry Fitzgerald & others in the Mark Hellinger classic that he never lived to see in theaters but

    at least he saw in previews

              10A "Picture of Dorian Gray" (1945) with Hurd Hatfield, George Sanders, briefly Donna Reed - based on Oscar Wilde classic story

F Feb 14   10P "Marty" (1955) the surprise hit of the year with Ernest Borgnine but sadly the last film that Betsy Blair made in America - as I learned in the

      wonderful volume of interviews about the Hollywood blacklist TENDER COMRADES (1997) ed. by Patrick McGilligan and Paul Buhle, Blair never got another          Hollywood offer after this film despite its success - she made London her permanent home and married director Karel Reisz.  The greatness of

      TENDER COMRADES are the nuances brought out in the interviews.  She remained friendly with her ex-husband Gene Kelly whom she married when

      she was a teenager. 

That's all for now.  Always remember:  Take it easy but take it, and still despite everything STAY POSITIVE TEST NEGATIVE & STAY HEALTHY AND STAY SANE.

On Sunday January 26th, the death of retired NBA star Kobe Bryant, 41, and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna in a helicopter crash near Los Angeles shocked not just the sporting world but the world at large.  

 
It was a foggy day in Los Angeles and even the LAPD had refused to fly in such weather.  We all know, sadly, that nothing stops even retired elite athletes when there is a game. In this case, it was Kobe's 13-year-old daughter Gianna's game sponsored by his Mamba Academy that he was hurrying to. 

 
Also perishing in the crash were John Altobelli, 56, the outstanding baseball coach at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, his wife Keri, and their 14-year-old daughter Alyssa who also would have been playing in the game. 

 
To baseball people in the know, the passing of John Altobelli, no relation to former MLB first baseman and manager Joe Altobelli, is a severe blow. 

In addition to winning four California junior college titles and being the American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA) 2019 Coach of the Year, Altobelli had led the Brewster Whitecaps in the Cape Cod Baseball League for three seasons from 2012 to 2014.

He had mentored two of New York's biggest stars, the Yankees' Aaron Judge and the Mets' Jeff McNeil.

 
As I post on Monday February 10, my thoughts are with the friends and family at the Altobelli memorial that is being held at the Big A, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim's stadium. 

The surviving members of the immediate family are J. J. Altobelli, 29, a former University of Oregon shortstop and a 18th-round draft choice of the Cardinals, and his sister Alexis, 16.  

Since 2018 J.J. (John James) has been a Red Sox scout. His uncle Tony, John's young brother, is sports information director at Orange Coast College. The OCC Foundation is accepting donations in the Altobellis' memory.

There has also been established a GoFundMe account at

https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-for-the-altobelli-family 

 
That in his earlier life Kobe Bryant was not exactly a family man prompted CBS's Morning's on-air TV host Gayle King to raise the issue in an interview with retired WNBA star Lisa Leslie. 

There is no doubt that Kobe had become a huge supporter of girls' and women's basketball. Perhaps it was premature with grieving still so raw in the LA area for King to bring up the subject.

But in a gruesome sign of the times, King has reported death threats and has hired security for her home. So has said King's BFF (Best Friend Forever) Oprah Winfrey. 

Such is life in 2020 where far from a world of 20/20 vision, we are living In a 24/7/365 cyberspatial world where people seemingly see things only in black or white, heroes or villains.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

The Super Bowl a week after the helicopter tragedy turned out to be a helluva game.  As you know, I am a big fan of Pat Mahomes and I'm glad he led the big comeback in the fourth quarter.  

49ers coach Kyle Shanahan will have to own or "wear" - as Buck Showalter put it when he didn't use Zach Britton in the 2016 AL Wild Card game against Toronto - his role in two blown Super Bowl leads.  As the offensive coordinator of the Atlanta Falcons, his questionable play-calling allowed the Patriots to win the Super Bowl XL in 2017 after trailing 28-3 in the second half. 

I like to think that the 49'ers got their comeuppance for celebrating too early by striking a team photo pose in the end zone after they got a 10-point lead in midway through the fourth quarter.  There was more football to be played as the Chiefs soon schooled them.

I grew up in the 1950s with the "Father Knows Best" TV series.  I've never forgotten how father Jim Anderson (Robert Young) ordered son Bud (Billy Gray) to report himself to the coach for reading about himself in the newspaper rather than getting his bed rest.  He was docked a game for his impertinence. 

I'd like to think that premature gloating and preening will backfire in the political arena as well.  We are barely in middle innings of political cycle if you catch my drift. 

Next time, hope there is hopeful news from spring training for at least some of you fans and your teams. Commissioner Rob Manfred's newly-disclosed idea for expanding playoffs to 14 teams is not what I had in mind. More on that next time.

That's all for now.  Always remember:  Take it easy but take it!