Lee Lowenfish

I must admit I didn't know what a "libero" was until I got wrapped up in the University of Wisconsin's stirring rise to their first women's volleyball championship last weekend.  I now know that a libero is the rearmost roaming defensive player in both volleyball & soccer. 

 

Undefeated Louisville and perennial contender Nebraska provided stiff competition for my Badgers in the Final Four. But behind a 6' 8" and 6' 9" front line of senior Dana Rettke and first-year Anna Smrek (daughter of a 1980s-backup-LA Laker champion), Wisconsin won the title in a five-set thriller.

 

"We try to practice gratitude," head coach Kelly Sheffield said during the week leading up to the tourney. "And it's really tough when you're in a grind." But he stressed the importance of appreciating the advantages players have -  competing in a sport they love with teammates who may be friends forever for a truly supportive Madison community.

 

Wisconsin has been blessed with a lot of inspirational leaders and well-chosen psychologists. "If consistency were an island, it would be lightly populated," current basketball coach Greg Gard cited one such thinker last year.

 

Nearly ten years ago, Gard's predecessor Bo Ryan explained how the Badgers overcame a late game deficit to win in Columbus:  "You measure people by what it takes to discourage them."

 

BTW So far this season, the Badgers are a pleasant surprise with a 9-2 overall record and 1-1 in the Big Ten.  How Covid affects the rest of the season is still an unknown but I'm looking forward to more great play from sophomore sensation Johnny Davis.  He has to shine for the team to have a chance at contention in the maelstrom/moshpit known as  B1G basketball.

 

A shoutout is also in order for Badger backup center Chris Vogt from Mayfield, Kentucky.

He not only contributed to two recent wins including the erasure of a 22-point deficit

against Indiana.  But more importantly he has spearheaded relief work in his home town that was devastated by the recent tornados.  His GoFundMe page reportedly raised nearly

$200,000. 

 

Today's last word on Badger exploits goes to National Women's Volleyball Player of Year Dana Rettke who explained the team's success this way:  They have learned to live "in the precious present . . . taking one point at a time and being where our feet are."  Reminds me of the old baseball scout who said that 87% of baseball was played beneath the waist. 

 

IN REMEMBRANCE:

ROLAND HEMOND, 92, who passed away in Arizona on Dec 12. From the age of 10 he was steadily employed in baseball and ultimately won three executive of the year awards. Yet Roland never forgot his roots as a hot dog and soda vendor.

 

His first front office job was as a typist for the Boston Braves.  "I always call him Henry Louis Aaron because that is the name I typed on his form," he once quipped.

 

In this age of impersonal uber-analytics, his kind will never be replicated.  But he must be remembered for his kindness and understanding that the human touch is vital in a sport where someone must lose every day.

 

KENNETH MOFFETT, 90, in Alexandria, Virginia, on Nov 19.  He was the federal mediator in baseball's 1981 strike. After that season, he briefly replaced retiring MLB players union leader Marvin Miller but he was considered too accommodating to owners' interests. 

 

In his less than a year of heading the MLBPA, Moffett and Lee MacPhail, his labor relations counterpart on the management side, hoped to work out a joint drug abuse program. It was not to be.   

 

Moffett moved on to work for the NABET union (of broadcast employees and technicians) and stayed with them when they merged with CWA, the Communication Workers of America.)  I'm glad he was remembered well in Wash Post and NY Times obits.

 

He loved the game of baseball and once coached in youth ball former Oriole Baby Bird southpaw Steve Barber.  He was an avid runner. 

 

   

Maybe early in the new year, there will be a breakthrough to end baseball's latest exercise in labor relations brinksmanship.  All the field managerial positions have been filled now that  Buck Showalter, 65, is taking over the Mets, and former MLB outfielder Mark Kotsay, 46, will lead the Oakland Athletics.

 

Being media savvy is essential for high positions in today's sports so I am sure both men will impress in their introduction to the public. 

 

Whether they can lead the players to the playoffs is another question.  The A's might be headed to Las Vegas in the relatively near future and they could be on the verge of a fire

sale.  

 

As the Yankees manager pre-Joe Torre, Showalter, of course, is a known commodity to the New York market. He has been a TV commentator so he will obviously be more fluent than the previous Mets rookie managers Mickey Callaway and Luis Rojas.  (Carlos Beltran never got to manage even one game because of his role as a player in the Houston sign-stealing scandal).

 

It will be very interesting to see who Buck names as his coaches.  He inherits the former Mets journeyman pitcher Jeremy Hefner as his pitching coach.  

 

Sure hope Jeremy and Buck are on the same page. The trend in baseball, however, is for pitching coaches to be hired by front offices not the manager.  

 

And people wonder why games are so long? "See the ball, hit the ball" has been replaced by pumping the latest analytics into pitchers while batters are gearing up for the proper hand position for maximum launch angle and exit velocity.   

 

More Mets questions:  Can the two horses at the top of the rotation, $43 million a year man Max Scherzer and oft-injured Jacob DeGrom, deliver full-seasons? What kind of year will erratic closer Edwin Diaz provide?  Which Francisco Lindor will show up - the Cleveland star or last year's washout?

 

Very interesting questions all and many more. As a fan of the Woerioles, who just before the lockout lavished $7 million a year on Jordan Lyles, one of the most ineffective pitchers in recent history who is penciled in as a number 2 starter, I guess I'd like to have the Mets' problems.

 

That's all for now!  There is reason to believe that if we don't panic, the latest Covid variant, amicron, might not be life-threatening and maybe even short-lived. So again stay positive, test negative, and take it easy but take it! l 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here we go again in baseball.  Labor-management relations at a standstill.  

Everything old is new again.  

 

"Defensive lockout," according to commissioner Rob Manfred, is necessary to make an agreement.  And war is peace.  And slavery is freedom.

 

It is a more complicated issue than billionaire owners versus millionaire players so I wish that short-hand description could be scrapped.   But it does come down to money

and plenty of it.  

 

Average salaries in baseball have been dropping in recent years and so have median salaries which is a more important figure.  Other pro sports have passed baseball in

the median quality - the midpoint between the richest and the least hightly-paid player.

 

It will be key for the players that two of their union leaders, the newly-enriched free agents Max Scherzer and Marcus Semien, keep their less financially-endowed brethren informed of developments.  They likely will but the prospects for a deal look far away right now.

 

I have a suspicion that those fans who bellow the loudest about greedy players would probably be the first people to jump in line to get the most money out of misguided owners.

Over time, they have never been able to stop themselves from putting that shiny free agent on the mantelpiece when huckstered by clever player representatives.

 

If you want more historical background on owners' inability to control themselves, check out my first book, THE IMPERFECT DIAMOND which was updated in a second and third edition.

 

In my intro, I noted the late satirist Mort Sahl's comment that Richard Nixon's memoir

"Six Crises" should have come out in a looseleaf edition so you could just add the crises.

So goes it with the baseball labor story except in 2021 total attendance is not up and it may

not return if there is any protracted shutdown.

 

I suggest that there better be some agreement before the Super Bowl - which is late this year, Feb. 13, because of the expanded 17-game NFL schedule.  Otherwise, spring training games and the regular season starting on March 31 will be impacted.

 

I was wondering why the Braves hadn't resigned Freddie Freeman, their leader and first baseman and lifelong Brave.  Then I discovered that his agent is Casey Close, a former

U of Michigan player and briefly a Yankee farmhand who became Derek Jeter's player agent and is now a big mover and shaker in the sports business firmament.  

 

It is not only Scott Boras trying to get top dollar from owners. In fact, in some ways Boras is admirable because as far as I know his Boras Corporation is not yet connected to a huge conglomerate as most agents like Casey Close are.

 

As for me, I will try to ignore the power plays, egos, and greed on both sides.  I applaud versatile Chris Taylor for re-signing just before the lockout with the Dodgers who realized they made a mistake in letting another grinder like Kike Hernandez get away last off-season to the Boston Red Sox.

 

I love grinders, players who know how to win and do the "little things" that don't appear in box scores.  In fact, as one wise person recently said, "There are no little things."

 

My cheering for the rest of the fall and winter will focus on Wisconsin Badgers men's

basketball who improved to 8-1 earlier today (Sat afternoon Dec 4) convincingly beating state rival Marquette 87-73.  Johnny Davis is an exciting player coming into his own and the rest of the team is playing good team basketball.

 

I'm also following closely, and in person when I can, my other alma mater, Columbia's women's basketball which has started 7-2 in the pre-Ivy League season. They are a versatile and speedy team and fun to watch under coach Megan Griffith who played for

non-contending Columbia teams and assisted at great Princeton winning teams.

 

Methinks she and all good coaches imbibe the great Christy Mathewson saying:

"I have learned little from winning. I have learned everything from losing."

 

Picked for 3rd in pre-season polls, the Lions will play their top rivals Princeton and Penn at home, respectively, on F Jan 7 at 7p and Sa Jan 8 at 5p.   They open league season at home Su Jan 2 at 1p against Yale.  Check out gocolumbialions.com for ticket info and other stories.  

 

In closing, I want to rave about the "La Boheme" I attended late last month at the

Metropolitan Opera.  It was my first foray to live opera since before the pandemic.

 

The orchestra and chorus under Korean woman conductor Eun Sun Kim making her NYC debut never sounded better.  The story of the irrepressible bohemians in 19th century France never fails to captivate.  

 

I wasn't familiar with any of the singers but they all performed with elan in the long-running Franco Zefferelli production. 

 

Conductor Eun Kim returns to the Met for four more "Boheme"'s on May 16, May 20,

May 24, and May 29 all at 8p.  There will be four other "Boheme"'s in January.

 

Sunday afternoon Jan 9 at 3p, a welcome innovation for opera.  Why should ballet and concerts have the audiences Sun afternoons to themselves?

 

There will be the national radio broadcast on Sa Jan 22 at 1p, and two weeknight performances at 8p, Jan 13 and Jan 18.

 

For Bohemeatologists, if I can coin a word, the 1926 silent movie "Boheme"

directed by the notable King Vidor, airs on TCM early Mon Dec 6 at 1:15a. 

 

Speaking of TCM, its Star of the Month is Ingrid Bergman, aired mainly on Weds.  

I caught her the other night in "Gaslight" 1944, directed by George Cukor, and her performance opposite convincing bad guy Charles Boyer, was so riveting that I passed up the first half of Wisconsin-Georgia Tech game.

 

"Gaslight" marked the debut of 18-year-old Angela Lansbury as a sassy maid in the

Victorian household.  The next year she had a haunting role in Albert Lewin's "Picture of

Dorian Gray" opposite Hurd Hatfield and with George Sanders. 

 

Her haunting rendition of the little yellow bird song remains constantly with me. "Dorian Gray" might be found on TCM On Demand.

 

Mentioning Lansbury makes me think of the recent death of Stephen Sondheim, 91.

More on him and his impact on so many people, including the New Yorkers who burst out in song when they learned of his death, next time. 

 

As well as reflections on the incomparable David Frishberg, 88, who mastered jazz piano and vocals and lyrics and composition. And through "Van Lingle Mungo" and "Matty" made a lasting contribution to baseball.  

 

That's all for now.  Always remember:  Take it easy but take it.  And now more than

ever, stay positive and test negative.