Lee Lowenfish

They tell me that there was a college football game on the night of January 20th.  It was quite a day that happened to coincide with this year's Martin Luther King Jr Birthday and the cruelly ironic inauguration of Donald Trump to a second non-consecutive presidential term.  I hear that Ohio State beat Notre Dame for the first title under the new 12-game college football playoff system.  Bully for them for recovering from an embarrassing home loss to arch-rival Michigan and running the table with four convincing playoff wins. 

 

For me, however, the place to be on the frigid night of M Jan 20 was up at my alma mater's Levien Gym on Broadway/120th Street. Along with over 2200 other passionate fans, we saw the Columbia women's basketball team roar back from a 10-point halftime deficit to beat longtime nemesis Princeton, the co-2024 Ivy League champion with the Lions, 58-50.  Columbia played airtight defense the whole game forcing 24 turnovers and finally capitalizing on them in the second half when they held the Tigers to 6 points in the third period and 20 overall in the half.  

 

Junior forward Susie Rafiu had a career game with 13 points on 6-10 shooting, 3 rebounds, 4 steals, 1 assist, and no turnovers. Reliable veteran senior tri-captain Cece Collins led the scoring with 18 points, her 3 assists and 2 steals overcoming her 4 turnovers. After a scoring drought that lasted until early in second half, sophomore Riley Weiss, the team's leading scorer, hit two big threes to keep the Lions ahead once they gained the lead late in the third quarter.  

 

It was Princeton's first league loss and they will undoubtedly be heard from before the season is over.  Senior center Parker Hill, trying to fill the shoes of the departed all-world Ellie Mitchell, chipped in 12 points and sophomore guard Ashley Chea, trying to fill the equally formidable shoes of departed Kaitlyn Chen (now a graduate player at UConn), had 16 points but commited 6 of the turnovers.

 

The rematch at Princeton will be on Sa Feb 22 at 530P.  You can be assured that the Tigers under coach Carla Berube, who played at perennial power UConn and has rarely lost coaching Princeton, will insist on improvement.  In the meantime, Columbia hosts Penn this Sa Jan 25 at 2P, a rematch of a hard-fought 15-point win earlier this month. 

 

The two games with Harvard, the other likely contender for top Ivy honors, will be Fri Jan 31 at Columbia at 7P and Su Feb 16 at Harvard at noon.

The top four teams will meet in the league post-season tourney at Brown in Providence RI on the weekend of March 14-15. 

 

(In a sad symbol of Columbia basketball teams going in different directions, earlier on Jan 20 the Columbia men blew a 33-15 halftime lead at Princeton and fell in the last seconds, 71-67.  The men under coach Jim Engles, a onetime Columbia assistant who was hired at the same time as women's caoch Megan Griffith, have just not come through in close Ivy League games.  They are now 0-3 in league play after an 11-1 start that is somewhat misleading because it is padded by expected routs over the Merchant Marine Academy and Sarah Lawrence, yes Sarah Lawrence. In prior years in mystifying pre-season scheduling, Bard and SUNY-Delhi have been sacrificial lambs to the Lions.)  

 

The other big women's basketball story in NYC concerns NYU's Division III Violets rolling along at 14-0 as they seek a second straight undefeated season and national championship.  They have been rarely tested so far this season, but there should be better competition on upcoming back-to-back weekends against longtime UAA (University Athletic Association) rivals, the University of Chicago and Washington U of St. Louis.  The games begin on the road in Chicago,

F Jan 31 730P and in St. Louis Su Feb 2 12 Noon.  The teams then return to the Paulson Center west of Broadway just north of Houston Streeet on Mercer Street on F Feb 7 at 730 with U Chicago coming in and Su Feb 9 at 12N the Violets host WUSL.  

 

My other favorite basketball team, the University of Wisconsin-Madison Badgers, has been surprising a lot of people this year.  How I love it when my teams are expected to do nothing because of transfer portal departures and supposedly uninspired coaching and wind up making the best of the situation.  Although the Badgers took a tough 86-84 loss at UCLA on Tu night Jan 21, they are 15-4 overall and 5-3, tied for 5th place (with recent nemesis Illinois that has beat them 9 times in a row), in the now 18-member Big Ten conference.  (The Badgers cannot overlook any game in the moshpit of Big Ten competition but I have Tu Feb 18 marked down when Illinois comes into Madison - 830P EDT nationally televised on Fox Sports !). 

 

Graduate transfer John Tonge (pronounced TAHN-jay, I think I've finally got the pronunciation down) was scoreless in last Sat's convincing win over USC but hit for 24 in the UCLA loss.  Sophomore John Blackwell pitched in with 23 although his second half technical foul was costly in the two-point loss.  But as long as he learns to control his temper and the team still has his back, Wisconsin could make the rest of the year into March Madness interesting. It's always very nice to see a team that seems to like to pass and run and not just shoot and dunk and play indifferent defense (BTW like too many NBA teams!).  

 

LATE JANUARY THOUGHTS ON BASEBALL PAST AND PRESENT:

The 2025 Baseball Hall of Fame class is now complete.  To no one's surprise, Ichiro Suzuki won a virtually unaminous selection. One still unidentified voter was evidently trying to draw attention to himself and didn't vote for the Japanese star.  His numbers are astounding: He amassed 4367 hits, 3,089 coming in the USA most of them with Seattle but some of them with the Yankees. In the USA he hit .311 (compared to .355 in Japan) and slugged .402 and was a sterling defensive player and base runner.

 

The stature of Ichiro is such that he needs only one name for ID.  He also exudes humility and an obvious love for the game.  But don't ignore his fierce competitiveness.  When Korea beat Japan in one international tournament and a rubber match ensued, Ichiro defiantly proclaimed that Japan would beat Korea so soundly they wouldn't dream of another rubber match for a half-century. Japan did win that game. 

 

I can accept the other Hall of Fame awardees although in the case of Billy Wagner I sense he got in mainly because San Diego's star reliever Trevor Hoffman is already enshrined.  Both did not do well in the post-season and for me that could be a reason for non-admittance. Remember that enshrinement should be for the great, not merely the very good. 

 

I think what probably turned the voters in favor of CC Sabathia, who was elected in his first year of eligibility, was his 250 career wins, a nice round number/ He also collected 3093 strikeouts, only the 3rd of 16 pitchers to reach the 3000 level. But I must say that since  the modern game has eliminated the stigma on striking out, I am less impressed with raw strikeout numbers because batters these days rarely cut down on their swings on two strikes. But CC did pitch capably in post-seasons with Milwaukee and the Yankees. He, Ichiro, and Billy W will join veterans committee picks Dick Allen and Dave Parker in the Hall of Fame induction ceremonies at Cooperstown on Sunday July 27.  

 

As for the news from the current free agent "re-entry" market, most Oriole fans expected Anthony Santander to leave for greener (as in $$$$) pastures. In his case, it will be for Toronto for five years in the neighborhood of $90 million.  The Blue Jays need a lot more than Santander to become a true contender again but no real fan begrudges the very likable Santander his new fortune.  I just hope he doesn't feel added pressure to produce because first baseman/DH Vladimir Guerrero Jr. might be headed to free agency after 2025 and the rest of the Toronto lineup doesn't look too imposing. Oriole fans have to hope that Tyler O'Neill, former Cardinal and Red Sox outfielder and son of a renowned Canadian body builder, can fill the void left by the switch-hitting 44 HR 102 RBI man in 2024. 

And maybe lefthanded hitting Hestor Kjerstad, a few years removed from a very serious heart condition, can become a productive hitter.

 

As for the LA Dodgers loading up on the best free agents - pitchers Blake Snell, Tanner Scott, the young Japanese wunderkind Roki Sasaki and re-signing outfielder Teoscar Hernandez - it is hard to see how competitive balance is helped by this spending spree that few franchises outside of the major markets can afford.  But who talks about competitive balance any more?  LAD will be overwhelming favorites in 2025 but they'll still have to do on the field. But I do know that despite LAD management chortling about how the Dodgers will become "Japan's team" now with Shohei Ohtani and pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto already in the fold, even some ardent fans in Japan do feel that enough is enough in bringing in outsiders to a team that used to boast about its farm system from the days in Brooklyn of Branch Rickey and Buzzie Bavasi through their early years in LA.   

 

Here's some good news though for those who need a baseball fix before spring training and the regular season start.

Starting at 450P EST on F Jan 31, MLBTV will be showing the full Caribbean Series with broadcasts in English. For the first time, Japan, the virtually perennial winner of international competition, will be joining the familiar group including the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, and Mexico.  The games will be shown daily through the championship on F Feb 7. 

 

And what would be a LeeLow post without some TCM news.  On Sa Jan 25, TCM will be providing a PopUp program at the 92nd Street Y on Lexington Ave

on New York's Upper East Side.  Eddie Muller will not be there but  other TCMs wil be on the program. Ddoors will open at 1230P and at

1P TCM host Ben Mankiewicz will converse with Martin Scorsese for an hour.  What films or film clips will be shown is not clear and prices begin at $30.

This program is available online as well as in person.  All the other programs are in-person only.

 

330P TCM host Jacqueline Stewart interviews Drew Barrymore, followed by the showing of "Twentieth Century" with her noted forebear John Barrymore and

Carole Lombard one of the most talented and revered actresses of the Golden Age of Hollywood who perished in an airplace accident after completing with

classic Lubitsch film "To Be Or Not To Be".

 

7P Drew B. returns with TCM host Dave Karger and they interview Steven Spielberg and then "E.T." will be shown.

More info at 92stY.org

 

On the TCM channel itself, here are some highlights: 

Sa Jan 25 415P "Jim Thorpe, All-American" with Burt Lancaster in title role and Charles Bickford as coach Pop Warner

    745P an always-whimsical Robert Benchley short, "How To Watch Football"

Sat midnight (repeated Su Jan 26 at 10A)  "Woman on the Run" with Ann Sheridan/Robert Keith/Dennis O'Keefe - some wonderful San Francisco

    photograph and above-average Noir story - the last Noir Alley until March because of the Oscar films shown in Feb prior to Mar 2 Oscar ceremony

 

Sun Jan 26 4:15P "Somebody Up There Likes Me" (1956) boxer Rocky Graziano's life story starring Paul Newman with Sal Mineo/director Robert Wise

  Adapted from the book of same name by author Rowland Barber who a few years later would collaborate on "Harpo Speaks," Harpo Marx's wonderful

  memoir

 

M Jan 27 8P "The Pawnbroker" (1965) with Rod Steiger and the always fascinating Geraldine Fitzgerald

 

Tu Jan 28 the last night of the George Raft "Star of the Month" festival

8P "Johnny Allegro" (1948) with Nina Foch/George Macready

930P "Red Light" (1949) with Virginia Mayo/Gene Lockhart

11P "A Dangerous Profession" (1949) with Ella Raines/Pat O'Brien

 

One last comment:  I have been watching NFL playoffs and the final rounds have been pretty exciting.  I would like to see Buffalo finally win a Super

Bowl.  It is a city of loyal people and real fans and by the way the only city in Branch Rickey's doomed plan for the Continental League in 1959-60 not to get

a MLB franchise.  But there are good reasons for Kansas City to repeat and also for Philadelphia or Washington to wear theSuper Bowl crown.  Just hope the

injuries are few and the games go down to the last minute and even into overtime.  I have no real horse in this race so I can simply enjoy the games.

 

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

 

 

 

 

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!