Lee Lowenfish

Orioles just won a Fenway Park classic 9-7, spoiling the Red Sox April 11 home opener.
Chris Davis's mammoth two-out three-run homer to dead center off Red Sox expensive new closer Craig Kimbrel provided winning margin in top of 9th.

Mookie Betts homered to lead off bottom of 9th off O's closer Zack Britton and Bosox got the tying runs on with none out. But a great 4-6-3 DP started by Jonathan Schoop and strikeout of Hanley Ramirez cemented the O's sixth win in a row to start season.
The pundits who saw the O's as a sub-.500 team must be at their computers now coming up with explanations for this aberration.

One doesn't win a pennant in April but you can dig yourself a big hole by losing in April. The Minnesota Twins are facing that climb. Amazing how streaks can start and end suddenly. Orioles lost 7 in a row to Minnesota last year who essentially knocked them out of pennant race in mid-August. This year the Birds swept them to begin the season.

American League East looks like another dogfight all season so nice to start building up a little lead. If Orioles starting pitching goes deeper into games (Yankees have the same need), they could have a lot of fun in 2016.

And let's hear it for backup catcher Caleb Joseph who started both big rallies today for Birds - the five-run third against another Red Sox big ticket acquisition David Price punctuated by a Mark Trumbo 3-run homer, and the ninth inning rally that ended with Davis's mammoth shot. Earl Weaver is smiling somewhere tonight in Baseball Heaven or more likely in a very liquid passionate Baseball Hades.

Caleb Joseph is what Oriole baseball is all about. He toiled in the minor leagues for almost 10 seasons, living in the clubhouse in double-A at times. Hard not to root for a guy like that.

FINAL NOTE: I hope you can see Part I of the Ken Burns Jackie Robinson documentary. It airs on PBS tonight Mon Apr 11 with Part II on Tues Apr 12. There are three cuts of me in Part I talking about Branch Rickey's role in Robinson's emergence.

Thanks for your time this time until next time, this is Lee Low' (aka Teny Ymota) reminding you to Take It Easy But Take It.

PS Teny Ymota stands for The Earl of NY Your Man On The Aisle.
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There is nothing like having one's team in contention for a title. Much was expected of the Columbia basketball team this season. Its four seniors brought a lot to the table and two were coming back from year-long injuries: forward Alex Rosenberg and guard Grant Mullins.

Combined with perennial All-Ivy shooting marvel Maado Lo and the versatile Isaac Cohen - who can impact a game positively without take a shot - an end to the Ivy League championship drought since 1967-68 seemed within reach. Unfortunately for fans of the Light Blue and White Lions, Yale and Princeton were just a little bit better this season.

Yet Columbia under six=year head coach Kyle Smith has done very well in the post-season College Insiders Tournament (a tourney so "inside" that very few people know about it). Blessed with two home games, Columbia trounced Norfolk State and came from behind to nip Ball State 69-67.

On Easter Sunday March 27 at 6p they will face NJIT (New Jersey Institute of Technology) for the right to meet in the championship game on Tuesday March 29. Both games will be televised on the CBS Sports Network cable channel. NJIT's coach is a former Columbia assistant Jim Engles, something that adds a little flavor to the matchup. The Lions beat NJIT by 9 points in December.

Meanwhile out in Big Ten land my graduate alma mater University of Wisconsin Badgers has surprised all the pundits by making the Sweet Sixteen. Not once all season did they crack the Top 25 in the weekly polls. (Among superfluous ridiculous aspects in today's sports, those basketball-football polls rank very high IMHO).

Lots of heart-warming stories with this year's Badger team. High among them is coach Greg Gard earning the full-time job for his great work after taking over in mid-December after Bo Ryan's retirement.

Unlike Ryan who rarely used his bench, Gard has developed youngsters Jordan Hill and Ethan Iverson and Charlie Thomas into players who can provide key minutes while the impressive starters need a rest.

A third straight Final Four appearance seemed the unlikeliest of dreams a few weeks ago. It is still a long shot but how lovely it is to dream of it. Even to the point of writing about it just a few hours before the Badgers take on Notre Dame for the right to play either North Carolina or Indiana on Sunday.

All this basketball love has enabled me not to worry too much (yet) about how the Orioles will fare in 2016. If I were a pundit predicting the season, I would be hard-pressed not to pick them 5th in the 5=team AL East. Their starting pitching looks mediocre at best.

But fortunately no games count until Monday April 4 when they begin the season against the Minnesota Twins who swept them out of the pennant race last year with seven straight victories. Certainly the Birds are due for a win. So I will say with a wan smile channeling the late pitcher-pundit Joaquin Andujar, "Youneverknow, youneverknow."

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