Lee Lowenfish

On the Saturday after Thanksgiving Wisconsin's football season ended with a thud on a snow-covered field in Minneapolis. There was a brief hope in the third quarter that the Badgers might actually take the lead or at least tie this fierce rivalry game against Minnesota for possession of Paul Bunyan's axe, the oldest college rivalry game in the country. But in field goal range, reserve quarterback Hunter Simmons threw an interception that snatched away the last chance for victory as the Gophers won 17-7 in a game that wasn't really that close. Wisconsin has an improving defense but a woeful offense even on a dry field. The Badgers finished 4-8 and missed a bowl game, however minor, for 2nd straight year.

 

To be brutally honest, every one of the quarterbacks on the Wisconsin roster were "reserve QBs" and virtually all of them got injured this season.   I wouldn't dismiss the possible growth of the healthy true freshman Carter Smith from Fort Myers Florida who I doubt ever played in the snow before.  (I love the term "true freshman" as opposed to false freshman or lying, cheating freshman). Smith is a promising runner, but is a work in progress as a passer.  Yet how many times can Badger fans put up with bringing in via the transfer portal a supposed savior who is secretly injured? 

 

On a long-term very expensive contract, coach Luke Fickell will have at least another year or two to figure this out.   Ohio State people swear by the talent and character of the former Buckeye player and coach. Although I'm not a Buckeye fan, I have to tip my cap to Ryan Day's undefeated team that finally exorcised the 4 recent osses to Michigan with a convincing 27-9 win in Ann Arbor.  Coach Day said all the right things after the game, stressing humility and the importance of his team's love for brotherhood more than its hatred of an enemy.  

 

Wisconsin men's basketball is not looking too good right now either. They have only lost two games but they were bad losses in which they reminded me a little too much of the football team.  Just not ready for prime time.  Except unlike football, basketball defense is suspect and the team has not really been competitive in its two losses to Brigham Young, who ousted them from the Big Dance last year, and TCU.  The Horned Frogs under coach Jamie Dixon - who went to Texas Christian U - beat Florida, last year's national champion, in a Thanksgiving tourney, and then throttled Wisconsin handily. It's obvious that the Badgers cannot rely only on guards Nick Boyd, the San Diego St. transfer, and John Blackwell to be the chief scorers. I'm not throwing in the towel after 7 games but my level of concern is rising.  

 

I am happy to report that loyal Wisconsin fans have both men's and women's hockey teams to cheer on to good seasons this year.  And also that the top-notch women's volleyball team is getting hot at the right time as the national playoffs near. The Wisconsin women's basketball team is showing some promise too under a new coach.  The boo hounds undoubtedly will pick up their chorus for the ouster of men's coach Greg Gard. I say that after blowing up the football program by hiring the former Buckeye Luke Fickell, I would be careful about doing the same thing to basketball.  Especially if the deservedly embattled athletic director Chris McIntosh is making the decisions.  

 

Locally, there is better news about my other alma mater Columbia whose women's basketball team just completed its tough early schedule with a 4-4 record.   Coach Megan Griffith in her 10th year at her alma mater has a player of the year candidate in junior Riley Weiss who found her shooting touch in a Thanksgiving tournament at the Cancun resort in Mexico.  She tied a school record with a 19 point.4th quarter in a win over S. Dakota State.  She added 31 in a loss to nationally ranked UNC-Chapel Hill, a game that was close until the veteran Tarheels broke it open in final period.  What I love about Griffith's teams is their aggressive running style and commitment to defense. There is no better spokesperson for defense than co-captain Perri Page. Check out some of the interviews at gocolumbialions.com 

 

The women's team has 4 games in December in this area, two at home at the Levien Gym, just east of Broadway at 120th Street:  '

Sat Dec 6 at 2P against Wagner from Staten Island

Sat Dec 20 University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) 1p. 

And on the road at Manhattan Riverdale NY, Wed Dec 3 7P 

Seton Hall, South Orange NJ - Tu Dec 9 6P 

Ivy League season begins on Sat Jan 3 2P against Cornell

 

Having lost only one game, the Columbia men's team is having a very exciting season under new head coach Kevin Hovde.  They have 4 remaining home games in December:

W Dec 3 Hofstra 7P

Sa Dec 6 U Albany 530P (part of a double admission doubleheader after women's game against Wagner)2P

Tu Dec 9 at Stony Brook 7P

W Dec 31 Penn State at Abington 

Ivy League home season begins Sa Jan 10 against Harvard 2P 

 

I''ll have more to say next post about MLB trades and free agent signings when there are facts and not rumors and hallucinations. I don't consider the Blue Jays' extravagant 7-year contract to former Padres RH starting pitcher Dylan Cease big news except to note that rich owners like Toronto's James Rogers love to spend money to bring home the proverbial moose on the wall for their living room and also satisfy hungry fans that think money alone brings championships.  Perhaps the Orioles are improved by trading for Taylor Ward, 31, and giving up on RHP Grayson Rodriguez who was always injured.  Perhaps Ryan Helsley will be a free agent signing that will help Bird bullpen.  I'm still waiting for the core of young players that all regressed last season to take steps forward.  I will try to be patient.

 

And now here's the cornicopia of TCM listings:

I don't know how much of a baseball fan Richard Pryor really was, but he does appear in a Cubs uniform early in this film. You can see for yourself:

M Dec 1 10P as Pryor stars in TCM's showing of "Brewster's Millions" (1985). He plays a onetime minor league pitcher who will inherit a rich relative's bequest of $300 million if he spends $30 million in 30 days.  John Candy plays a catcher and the cast includes Lonette McKee (who I saw as Rachel Robinson in the ill-fated Broadway musical a few years earlier in "The First" with David Alan Grier as Jackie Robinson and David Huddleston as Branch Rickey (younger readers will remember the actor for playing the richer Lebowski iopposite the "Dude" Jeff Bridges in the Coen Brothers' "The Big Lebowski").  Others in "Brewster" cast include Tovah Feldshuh and Pat Hingle.   

TCM's Pryor festival begins at 8P with "Silver Streak" (1976) co-starring Gene Wilder and continues at 1145P with Pryor "Live from Sunset Strip" (1982) and goes on until dawn.

 

Tu Dec 2 230P "Requiem for a Heavyweight" (1962) Not as good as the TV version 3 years earlier but this one about a boxer down on its luck turning to wrestling has an interesting cast:  Mickey Rooney, Jackie Gleason, Anthony Quinn. With cameos by boxers Jack Dempsey, Willie Pep, and wrestler Haystacks Calhoun.  Reportedly Rod Serling was a script writer.

  

Th Dec 4 6A "The Bob Mathias Story" (1954) the Olympic decathalon champion in both 1948 and 1952 playing himself

730A "Crazylegs" (1953) Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch" great Wisconsin player (and later Badger athletic director) creditably plays himself

 - directed by Harmon Jones who the year before directed Dan Dailey as Dizzy Dean in "The Pride of St Louis" (1952)

9A "The Babe Ruth Story" (1948) William Bendix miscast as Babe Ruth, veteran Charles Bickford who doesn't age as Brother Matthias in first and last scenes and Claire Trevor

not exactly memorable but always watchable as Ruth's missus.  It's not every film that you get to see onetime prominent newscaster H.V. Kaltenborn

11A "Jackie Robinson Story" (1950) in which JR plays himself, Ruby Dee as Rachel, and character actor Minor Watson (who played Katherine Hepburn's father in "Woman of the Year") as Branch Rickey

1230P "Knute Rockne, All American" (1940) Pat O'Brien in title role and a member of Warner Brothers acting stable named Ronald Reagan as George Gipp

215P "Jim Thorpe, All American" (1951) Burt Lancaster in title role/Reagan returns as George Gipp, Michael "Casablanca" Curtiz director

415P "Somebody Up There Likes Me" (1956) life story of boxer Rocky Graziano played by Paul Newman.  Rowland Barber adapts his biography for screen. A few years later Barber was co-author of HARPO SPEAKS the indispensable biography of the sweetest and most engaging Marx Brother.  Harpo was a huge New York Giant baseball fan watching his team for free from Coogan's Bluff high above the Polo Grounds' left field.  Harpo said his favorirte Giant was left fielder Sam Tertes the only Giant who he could see from his perch.

615P "When We Were Kings" (1997) Leon Gast's documentary of Muhammad Ali's "rumble in the jungle" against George Foreman in Zaire with plenty of good rock and soul music

745P "How To Watch Football" (1938) Robert Benchley ends this marathon with one of his priceless comedy shorts

NB at 945P "Here Comes Mr. Jordan" (1941) Robert Montgomery plays a boxer who comes back to life with the help of a divine emissary Claude Rains/also with Evelyn Keyes

 

F Dec 5 doesn't have sports-themed movies but quite an impressive lineup: 

1245P "Johnny Belinda" (1948) Jane Wyman's Oscar as deaf young woman raised by Charles Bickford. Lew Ayres as her caring doctor and Stephen McNally playing a horrendous town bully, a character in today's America who would probably become a Trumpian Hollywood ambassador. 

4P "Citizen Kane" (1941)

8P "Cover Girl" (1944) a musical with Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth and songs by Jerome Kern/Ira Gershwin including "Long Ago and Far Away" 

10P "New York, New York" (1977) Scorsese's uncut version of a jazz band on road with DeNiro/Liza Minnelli/Lionel Stander

 

Su Dec 7 Noir Alley 12M, repeated at 10A. "Cry of the City" (1948) another intense and watchable Robert Siodmak film with Richard Conte, Victor Mature, Fred Clark. I became aware of things in the early 1950s when Fred Clark was one of the neighbors of George Burns and Gracie Allen.  Only recentily did I realize the range of his acting that included trying to save Montgomery Clift's life in "A Place in the Sun" and being a business associate of Fred Astaire in "Daddy Longlegs".)   

 

That's all for now.  My mantra remains: Stay positive, test negative, and Take it easy but take it! 

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

My August started with another memorable week teaching Baseball and American Culture in the Special Studies program at Chautauqua, the adult education mecca located in southwestern New York State just past Jamestown. Our theme this year was baseball and comedy. Co-teaching with veteran literature teacher Mark Altschuler, we started with Abbott and Costello's evergreen "Who's On First?" Next up was the hilarious baseball scene in Buster Keaton's 1927 film "College" followed by Ring Lardner's "Alibi Ike" - originally written in 1914 and soon to become a phrase in the American language. We delved into both the short story and Joe E Brown's movie interpretation.

 

I had never taught "Damn Yankees" before and whatta revelation. That was Walter Mitty Me! in the opening scene of the movie when Joe Boyd, the frustrated middle-aged Washington Senators fan, is screaming at his black-and-white TV: "Don't try to murder the ball - just hit it up the middle!" Soon Boyd is transformed into slugging hero Joe Hardy played in the movie by Tab Hunter.  Ray Walston and Gwen Verdon recreated their Broadway roles in the film as the Devil and his assistant Lola. Costumed hilariously, Jean Stapleton, later to become immortal as Edith Bunker, has a memorable turn as one of the neighbors of Joe Boyd's wife. 

 

Douglass Wallop's novel "The Year The Yankees Lost The Pennant" fortuitously came out in 1954, the year the Yankees DID lose the pennant. The Broadway musical opened in 1955, the only year the Brooklyn Dodgers beat the Yankees in the World Series. The show ran into 1957 including a London run as "What Lola Wants". '57 was also the year the Yanks lost in October to the Milwaukee Braves but the play has lasting power not because of its Yankee-bashing, but because of its warm and convincing take on the  life crisis of a middle-aged male.  It continues to be performed in high schools, and with a diverse cast, opens in the Washington DC area this fall. It is hard to match "You Gotta Have Heart" for a peppy optimistic number and "Whatever Lola Wants (Lola Gets)" for good clean seduction.  The lament of Lola and Joe Hardy, "Two Lost Souls" with Verdon also dancing with choregrapher Bob Fosse (and future husband), touched me.   

 

Whatta great name for a writer about baseball, Wallop. Douglass Wallop (1920-1985) was actually a onetime news service reporter who transcribed General Eisenhower's 1948 memoir "Crusade in Europe". He wrote several novels and a baseball history, but if remembered at all, it is for his whimsical novel which was reissued in 2004 in a new edition introduced by the first famous baseball analyst Bill James.  BTW, Mel Allen, the Yankee broadcaster who used to call home runs White Owl Wallops (and Ballantine Blasts), appears as himself in the film.

 

Other highllights of the class included the showing of the mirthful short subject "Gandhi at the Bat" based on Chet Williamson's "New Yorker" story and Harpo Marx playing "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" on what was reportedly the most widely watched "I Love Lucy" show.  The claas ended with a showing of George Carlin's immortal "Baseball vs. Football" monologue that he performed on the first "Saturday Night Live" in 1975. Our surprise guest afterwards was Kelly Carlin, also a teacher at Chautauqua, a writer based in LA, and George Carlin's only child.  She has donated her father's archive to the National Comedy Center in nearby Jamestown, which is on its way to becoming a Comedy Cooperstown.      

 

Mark and I are talking about a Baseball Comedy Part II during Chautauqua's Week 5 at the end of July 2026. I'm lobbying for excerpts from Richard Greenberg's play "Take Me Out" in which the player agent who falls in love with baseball (and one of the stars) delivers this elegy:

"Baseball is better than democracy - or at least that democracy as it's practiced in this country - because, unlike democracy, baseball acknowledges loss.   While conservatives tell you, 'Leave things alone, and no one will lose,' and liberals tell you, 'Interfere a lot and no one will lose,' baseball says, 'Someone will lose.' Not only says it, insists upon it." (p34)  

Not exactly something that super-agent in the real world Scott Boras might say, but I believe this elegy is worthy of our.attention.  

   

And now for the sad tale of the return of the Woerioles.  In a year where there is no clear favorite for the World Series and a lot of surprise teams from the Heartland I think have a genuine shot - eg.  Milwaukee, Detroit, and Toronto - the O's never threatened.  I wish I am wrong but it seems like another "rebuild" is coming to Camden Yards as well as already-announced higher ticket prices and changes to the stadium that may spoil the acclaimed creation in the early 1990s that sparked the new wave of old-style baseball parks. 

 

All of the so-called young core of the team have had down years.  Some have mysteriously fallen into a baseball abyss like the switch-hitting catcher Adley Rutschman the number one pick in the country in the 2019 draft (Bobby Witt Jr now a Kansas City star shortstop was the number two).  Hard to pinpoint what happened to a former "can't-miss" prospect.  Probably the "high point" was his performance in the Home Run Derby at Seattle in 2023 when his father, along with his father scholastic coaching royalty in Oregon, pitched to him and Adley blastied home runs from both sides of the plate. It was just an exhibition and Dad was lobbing balls - and not real MLB baseballs - from 40 feet away.  

 

Adley is now on the IL with his second oblique injury of the year, supposedly not as bad as the first one on the other side of his body.  What I had long feared has come to fruition - the buildup for Samuel Basallo the heir apparent to Rutschman has begun.  After only FOUR GAMES IN HIS MLB CAREER, the Orioles with great fanfare held a press conference to announce that the 21-year-old from the Dominican Republic had been signed to a 8-year contract, meaning that his salary arbitration years had been bought out plus two more of his free agency.

 

Not surprisingly, Basallo has gotten off to a slow start with the bat while catching a little and playing some first base and DH-ing.  None of the other vaunted core with more MLN experience has provided much offensive help with the slight exception of shortstop Gunnar Henderson who has seemingly lost his power bat and who good pitching tends to stifle.  Sadly, fellow infielder and grittier Jordan Westburg must now be burdened with one of the worst adjectives in baseball parlance, "injury-prone". Jackson Holliday, the 2023 top pick in the country, has not shown much improvement and he might even miss playing shortstop.  Not sure he has the arm for that and he is still showing signs of feeling overmatched at the major league level.  

Recently, fired manager Brandon Hyde made his first comments since his ouster, expressing regret on how Holliday was rushed to the majors.  Sure hope that Basallo doesn't meet the same

fate.  

 

The only truly bright spot in 2025 has the outstanding pitching of southpaw Trevor Rogers whose performance has taken away some of the sting from the trade of power-hitting outfielder Kyle Stowers to the Marlins (along with power-hitting infielder Connor Norby). Though not yet a contender and with ownership (like Baltimore's) not seemingly committed to spending money wisely, the Marlins are developing a scrappy, dangerous young team - ask the Mets who just lost three out of four at home to Miami.   

  

I feel for the Baltimore fans who will not accept another rebuild and last week allowed the Red Sox winnite fans to take over the ballpark. Just like doing the dark years before Buck Showalter led the turn around in 2012.   Undoubtedly Yankee fans will do the same when they visit Camden Yards September 19-21. In another item of bad news, the 2026 schedule was just announced and like this year the Orioles will wind up the regular season at Yankee Stadium.  At least they don't play in 2026 7 of their last 10 games against their rivals as they do late this month.  

 

I don't want to end on such a sour note so here are some kudos to some baseball people who are flying under the radar.

** The defensive quickness of rival third basemen caught my eye when I attended the last regular season home game of the Brooklyn Cyclones against the Hudson Valley Yankees on the Sunday before Labor Day.  Juan Matheus (pronounced Matthews) for the victorious Yankees and Diego Mosquera for the Cyclones are both Venezuelans, Matheus from Lara and Mosquera from Valencia. Interestingly, they both have the same slender build, 5' 10 and 155 pounds -  it possibly projects them more to the middle infield.  

 

I love going to minor league games.  Pat O'Conner, the last president of the National Association of minor leagues before Rob Manfred took over and even more their offices to NYC, used to guarantee that at every minor league game you will see a future major leaguer.  I like to believe he was right.  The Cyclones, the Mets' top High Single-A farm club, are coasting to the playoffs in which they are likely to host Game 2 on Th Sep 11 and if necessary Game 3  F Sep 12.   For further info, check out brooklyncyclones.com     

 

**Third baseman Caleb Durbin, who come to Milwaukee from the Yankees in the Devin Williams trade, went to Washington U of St Louis, hardly a baseball factory. After doing a little digging, I realized that catcher and later baseball exectutive Muddy Ruel went to WUSL before World War I. After World War II so did Dal Maxvill who won World Series rings for the St. Louis Cardinals as both a shortstop and a GM.

 

**On Sept 4, YouTube will start showing a documentary about the late Jeff Torborg, the former Rutgers star and catcher of three of Sandy Koufax's no-hitters and later a highly respected manager and coach. 

 

That's all for now but as always Stay Positive, Test Negative, and Take It Easy But Take It!