Lee Lowenfish

Three recent feel-good stories have come out of Baltimore since we last met, dear readers, with the first one being a lovely surprise.  Veteran sportswriter Jim Henneman, 88, a life-long Baltimorean, was honored with the naming of the Camden Yards press box after him. 

 

I've known Jim for almost 50 years. He was a guest speaker in one of my classes in Sports in American Culture at UMBC (University of Maryland Baltimore County). As the Orioles went through their World Series drought in the last 40 years, Jim provided wise and realistic counsel as I despaired that the Birds would ever truly contend for a world title.

 

Jim recently dubbed me "The Prince of Paranoia" as I often expressed doubt that the current regime even with a 101-win 2023 regular season under their belt could pull the trigger on a trade to get us over the hump towards another World Series.  I admit to being paranoid not just about baseball but about politics and society in general. 

 

I was honored that at least he dubbed me a prince and not a false pretender, a knave, or worse.And lo and behold, in the second recent big news from Charm City, the regime of Mike Elias just made a trade that will bring onetime Cy Young award-winning righthander Corbin Burnes, 29, from Milwaukee.  Burnes hails from Bakersfield, CA and was signed in 4th round of 2016 draft out of St. Mary's College in Moraga in northern California.

 

Burnes can be a free agent after the 2024 season and his agent Scott Boras likes to get top dollar for his clients.  But the addition of Burnes certainly is a

major addition to the rotation.  And loving name play, I sure hope we get a Corbin-Corbin matchup in a game against the Washington Nats:  Corbin

Burnes versus LHP Patrick Corbin. 

 

Going to the Brewers will be LHP DL Hall, a 2017 #1 draft pick under the previous Dan Duquette regime.  At the age of 25, Hall is on the cusp of becoming an outstanding pitcher. He supposedly wants to be a starter, but I think Hall could be the kind of solid closer that can make Brewers fans forget Josh Hader, a former Orioles draft pick who recently signed a multi-year deal with the Houston Astros.   

 

Hall was signed after high school in Valdosta, Georgia, the home town of the late great scout Ellis Clary. The colorful Clary once told me that the area was so football crazy that "they wouldn't know a baseball player from a crate of pineapples."

 

It says here that Dayton Lane (DL) Hall has a chance to put Valdosta on the baseball map and I wish him the best in his new home.  He is only 25 and after recovering from injuries early in his minor league career, he contributed stellar work in the latter part of the 2023 season. He also was very effective in the Birds' disappointing sweep by the Rangers in the first round of the playoffs. 

 

In addition to a first round compensation pick in the 2024 draft, the Brewers will receive Joey Ortiz, 25, a brilliant defensive shortstop who can play several infield positions and whose bat has picked up lately.  From Garden Grove CA, Ortiz was a 2019 fourth-round draft choice from New Mexico State U., the same school as Orioles pitcher Kyle Bradish who likely slots to number 2 in the 2024 starting rotation behind Burnes.

 

The third major news from Orioleland is the proposed sale of the team to David Rubenstein, 74, a key member of the private equity firm the Carlyle Group. He is a lifelong Baltimorean who has always yearned to own his local team. He also had been rumored to be interested in buying the nearby Washington Nationals which are still for sale. 

 

To my knowledge, no owner has ever had more cultural credentials than Rubenstein who has been chairman of the board at the Kennedy Center in DC and has a David Rubenstein Atrium named for him near Lincoln Center in NYC.  It regularly hosts forums and concerts.   He also is the host of interview shows for PBS and Bloomberg News.

 

Members of his ownership group include another financial equity financier Michael Arougheti from Ares Capital; Michael Bloomberg, former Mayor of New York City; Kurt Schmoke, former Mayor of Baltimore and Rubenstein's City College high school classmate; and Oriole legend Hall of Famer Cal Ripken Jr. MLB owners will be meeting this week - the first full week of February - but it is doubtful that immediate approval will come. It is likely sometime later this season.

 

The general mood in Baltimore for the imminent departure of the Peter Angelos family from majority ownership is relief, to put it mildly.  My only hesitation is to remember when the Angeloses bought the team in 1993 from prior owner Eli Jacobs, a New York financier who had gone bankrupt, local feeling was euphoric.

 

That mood changed sour in a hurry when patriarch Peter Angelos hired Davey Johnson as manager and Pat Gillick as general manager. Both had deep roots in the Orioles glory years from 1960 through 1983 but Angelos ran them off when they didn't bring immediate championships. 

 

He also ran off popular broadcaster Jon Miller after the 1996 Jeffrey Maier playoff when Angelos claimed that Miller wasn't sufficiently indignant on air when the 12-year-old Yankee fan seated in Yankee Stadium's right field stands interfered with Orioles right fielder Tony Tarasco's attempt catch of Derek Jeter's fly ball that was ruled a home run by right field ump Rich Garcia who was too close in the play IMO.

(It's an ongoing pet peeve of mine those extra umps in post-season games - if we must have them, they should be positioned as in Japan, under the foul poles to judge fair or foul home runs.)

 

Peter Angelos' sons, John and Louis, grew to have more power and less success. The most recent embarrassment was with Peter incapicated for over 10 years, a suit was brought by younger son Louis against both John and his mother Georgia claiming that he had been illegally cut out of decisions by the ownership group.  It was finally settled out of court and now new ownership blood is heading to Charm City. 

 

My only caveat - being of course the Prince of Paranoia - is the old saying, "An owner comes into baseball and says he knows nothing about the business of baseball.  In six months he announces he knows everything."  I do have the cautious hope that David Rubenstein will act with more discretion and calmness than Steve Cohen, a fellow private equity mogul who has turned the Mets into another soap opera in their long history of dysfunction. 

 

And now here are some TCM tips for the next couple of weeks: 

Wed Feb 7 8p  EST "Antonia: A Portrait of The Woman" (1974)   It is a re-release of a 58 minute documentary that I saw when it first opened.  The film was the brainstorm of Judy Collins who took piano lessons from Antonia Brico in her home town of Denver.  She discovered the remarkable story of a woman conductor who trained in Holland and Germany and had a regrettably brief but remarkable career as a rare woman conductor in the all-male

sanctuary of classical music. 

 

I was blessed to see "Antonia" again this past Sat night Feb 3 at Museum of Modern Art with both Judy Collins and director Jill Godmilow in attendance.

Also on the bill was the equally poignant 28 minute new documentary "The Only Woman in the Orchestra" - the story of Erin O'Brien, the double bassist in the New York Philharmonic who retired recently after joining the NY Phil in 1966. 

 

The film was the idea of Molly O'Brien, Orin's niece and a documentary film producer.  She knew that the story of an self-effacing only child of early Hollywood screen stars Marguerite Churchill and George O'Brien was worth telling.  Orin spoke briefly before the showing, making a heartfelt plea for those of us who love classical music to keep it alive. 

 

 

Here are just a few TCM highlights with sports themes: 

Tu Feb 6 11:30A  "The Jackie Robinson Story" (1950) with Jack playing himself and Ruby Dee as Rachel

 

Tu Feb 13 11:15A "Woman of the Year" (1942) the first Tracy-Hepburn film with Spencer as sportswriter and Kate as social justice activist

 

F Feb 16 for the night owls 

130A "The Stratton Story" (1949) Jimmy Stewart as the injured pitcher trying to make a comeback and June Allyson as his wife

 

Later on Feb 16 for early risers:

745A "Crazylegs" (1953) with U of Wisconsin football star Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch playing himself & Lloyd Nolan as his coach

 

10:15p "Pride of the Yankees" (1942) the Gehrig classic with Gary Cooper and Teresa Wright 

 

Happy to report that Columbia women's basketball keeps rolling in Ivy League play since losing their only league game

at perennial power Princeton last month.  The rematch is Sa Feb 24 at 2p at Columbia but they know they cannot look too far ahead.

 

Wisconsin blew a big lead at Nebraska for second year in a row last Thursday and Sunday Feb 4 lost a home game to Purdue despite great

effort by the lively home crowd.  Purdue looks like a possible Final Four team but Badgers have a chance to rebound this week at subpar

Michigan on Wed and Sat noon at Rutgers. 

 

I plan to attend the game at Rutgers despite being 0-5 in seeing the Badgers live in recent years.  More about that experience in next blog.

 

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

 

   

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

I hope the New Year brings you, dear readers, good health and some serenity in a very turbulent time

of history. Personally, I'm looking forward to the April publication of my book BASEBALL'S ENDANGERED SPECIES: INSIDE THE CRAFT OF SCOUTING BY THOSE WHO LIVED IT (U of Nebraska Press that published my Branch Rickey bio and the third edition of my labor history THE IMPERFECT DIAMOND.) 

 

I remain convinced that no organization can win without a good supply of eyes-and-ears scouting augmented but not enslaved to the endless modern technology and its search for certainty in a sport that defies it. I'm glad I'm giving props in my book to the people who deserve to be remembered for their largely selfless contributions of bringing good players and good people into the game.

 

The year 2022 ended with sadness for me with the loss of three dear friends, one of them being White Sox scout John Tumminia. He died at the age of 70 on December 4, 2022, after a long battle with auto-immune encephalitis, a form of brain cancer.

 

I met John not long after he started his scouting career in 1987. We were huddling from the rain in a shed back of home plate that disrupted batting practice before what may have been a minor league game of the Albany-Colonie Yankees. So began a friendship based on a love of the game in all its charms and mysteries.

 

John was named White Sox scout of the year in 2001 and was instrumental in giving the heads up

to many of the World Series winning 2005 team. John scouted Cuban baseball in its amateur heyday and at one time gave a positive recommendation to its entire national team.  Former Yankee champions Jose Contreras and "El Duque" Orlando Hernandez were part of the 2005 Chisox pitching staff. 

 

A native of Brooklyn, John was a graduate of the local St. Francis College where he made their baseball Hall of Fame.  How disappointed he was when many years ago his alma mater gave up the sport. 

 

He played pro ball in Italy in 1975 before returning to NY where for a while he taught theology at a high school in West Islip, NY.  From the mid-1980s through 2008, he was recreation director at the Shawangunk maximum security prison in Wallkill, near Newburgh.  

 

It was quite an experience to walk New York City streets or sit in a restaurant with John Tumminia. His ears and eyes were so attuned to the nuances of people's behavior that he picked up words and movements that I was oblivious to.

 

John was a practicing non-evangelical Christian who meditated every day and cared deeply about all of God's human beings. His compassion for the underprivileged led him to form the Baseball Miracles project to which he devoted his last years.  

 

He and his staff of volunteers sponsored baseball clinics and brought equpment to underserved youngsters all over the world, including Honduras, Kenya, South Africa, and Argentina. But he once told me that the worst poverty he ever saw was on a reservation in the Dakotas.  

 

In a touching piece that Scott Merkin wrote for MLB.com in December 2016, he described John as "a

thin version of Santa". He told the writer that "the expression on the kids' faces is like a light bulb."

 

Another loss last year was the passing of the superb writer and memoir teacher, Jean Hastings Ardell, who left us Oct 7 at the age of 79 after a courageous battle against multiple myeloma and long Covid.  

 

Jean and I met early this century at one of the NINE baseball magazine annual conferences in Arizona.  

She had already written an absorbing and informative book about women in our game, BREAKING INTO BASEBALL. The baseball bond and our shared New York City roots quickly led to us becoming fast friends.  

 

Unlike yours truly who returned in 1976 to NYC after some years in Wisconsin and Baltimore, Jean left our "home town" for college at Butler in Indianapolis and never came back except to visit. By 1965 she settled in southern California where she lived a vibrant life that included once playing bridge with John Wayne.  

 

I never found out more details about that experience or about her first job in SoCal as an assistant to the

renowned architect William Pereira.  She returned to college to get her BA at UC-Irvine in 1988 and

later got her master's in non-fiction writing at USC. 

 

Jean's last book was a collaboration with Ila Borders. MAKING MY PITCH, the story of the first

woman to pitch college baseball. Ila was the first speaker at the early December memorial that was attended by almost 300 people at Newport Beach St. Mark's Presbyterian Church.

 

I was among the many that tuned in via Zoom to hear Ila thank Jean for her gentle guidance as she worked towards the difficult process of coming out as a gay person.   

 

A deeply committed liberal, Jean was never dogmatic. Phil Lance, one of the friends of Jean and her husband Dan Ardell, noted that she taught us "how to open spaces where friendships can grow."

 

Annie Quinn, a writer that Jean mentored, summed up best our aching loss when she quoted Eleanor Roosevelt: "Only true friends leave footprints in your heart." 

 

I quote Jean in the title of this post. I will always remember her saying, "Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape."

 

I end in memory of another loss from 2022, Fred Herschowitz who died on August 24 two days before his 80th birthday.  Fred was the WBAI-Pacifica Radio broadcaster that brought me to the airwaves early in 1980 to discuss the first edition of my book, THE IMPERFECT DIAMOND.

 

I became a co-host with him on "Seventh Inning Stretch", the only long-running sports show that highly political leftist station ever scheduled.  I took over the show in late 1982 and remained for most of the decade.

 

Fred was the organizer of the WBAI softball team he aptly dubbed the Turtles.  I will always be

grateful to him for giving me the chance to play third base.  

 

What I lacked in arm and at the plate I tried to make up for with a chest willing to block a smash or two and having "just enough" arm to sling the ball to first base. 

 

Fred's enthusiasm and competitiveness on the softball field at times was overzealous. I'll never forget before a game against WQXR the classical music station, Fred took out a clipping of a violin and burned it.   

 

He was a big Mets fan and I have a feeling that he wouldn't be too thrilled with the team's

seemingly relentless pursuit of free agent shortstop Carlos Correa. Nor am I.

 

Yet Fred was a Queens native and very loyal to the Mets' orange and blue.  He was my neighbor on the Upper West Side and I will always feel the void when I walk up West End Avenue.  

 

That's all for now.  Always remember:  Take it easy but take it, stay positive test negative, and in this time of loss, the words of art and social critic John Ruskin resound more than ever: "There is no wealth but life."