I am flying solo this week. My trusted editor has abandoned her retirement pursuit for the life of leisure, for at least one week, at her near-beachfront manor in a southern state. I hope she comes back well-rested for the final basketball push and the NCAA’s. As well as what mistake the Jets might make mortgaging the future should they sign Aaron Rodgers or make an equally dumb move inking Derek Carr, formerly of the Las Vegas Raiders. Moreover, the NBA picks up again for its stretch drive after the All-Star Weekend in Salt Lake City. And hockey is pushing towards its playoffs, with its trade deadline fast approaching and the Devils and Rangers perhaps heading to a first round playoff series. For the record, Spring training games begin on Friday.
So I forge ahead blindly in my prose, subject to run on sentences and bad grammar. Syntax is everything, I hear. I digress, with my sincere apologies.
Rutgers men’s basketball team came alive—just enough to beat a subpar Wisconsin squad at the Kohl Center in Madison. Defensive POY Caleb Mc Connell was a last minute scratch due to back spams, leaving the Scarlet Knights very vulnerable, already shorthanded with the lost of Mawot Mag.
Up stepped two players. Cam Spencer, the Loyola (MD) transfer, who burst onto the scene with his three point shooting, which included the dagger three pointer at then #! Purdue, broke out of a prolonged shooting slump to lead the Knights in the first half. One knew it was his day when Spencer sank the first three pointers he took, overcoming a 7-2 start by the Badgers to a give RU a 11-7 lead.
The game was a ragged affair. Late in the second half, Rutgers lost a five point lead and trailed 57-54. Andre Hyatt, another transfer, rose to the occasion. So did Omoruryi, Rutgers’ fine young center—he blocked a last ditch Wisconsin shot to save the 57-56 victory.
This win was key to any chance Rutgers has to make the NCAA Tournament. It stopped a three game losing streak. Next is Michigan, which dispatched Michigan State at home on Saturday night in an emotional affair—it was the Spartans first game after the tragic shooting on the MSU campus. Rutgers has only beaten the Wolverines once in 11 times in Big Ten play. It will be the annul Blackout game—the crowd will be dark and loud.
Rutgers has two road games after the Michigan game. First is Penn State, a team the Knights routed in January. The Nittany Lions are a possible NCAA pick, which will make this contest much more difficult than the first meeting, a rout in favor of Rutgers.
Then there is last place Minnesota. Talk about a must win. Lose that and the team’s resume is much more bleak. As would be their chances to get into the Big Dance.
The final game is a home contest with Northwestern. Maybe the hottest team in the Big
Ten right now. The Wildcats are 20-7 and ranked for the first time, holding the number 22 spot. Having to win that or a Big Ten tournament game or two to secure an NCAA bid might be too much. Which is why RU needs to take care of business, starting on Thursday night.
The AP Top 25 poll has Houston once more at no. 1, after now no. 2 Alabama suffered a loss to no. 11 Tennessee. The Cougars are 25-2 and are a legit national title contender. I cannot really discount any of the top eight teams—Houston, Alabama, Kansas, UCLA, Purdue, Virginia or Arizona—to make the Final Four. And it would not surprise me if a Big 12 school besides Kansas gets hot in March. With no clear cut favorite, March Madness is going to be that.
Division III basketball is playing conference tournaments this week. The NESCAC played its opening round games this past weekend and while top seeds Williams and Hamilton both won, #6 Colby defeated #3 Wesleyan in OT and #5 Tufts had to go two overtimes to down #4 Middlebury. The Ephs hosts the White Mules and the Jumbos and Continentals meet for the right to win the NESCAC crown. Gotta love those nicknames.
F&M, almost counted out for any chance to make the top six in the Centennial Conference Men’s playoffs, downed Dickinson and Mc Daniel on the road to land in the #3-#6 game at Gettysburg on Tuesday. Maybe the Diplomats can stun the Bullets. Ursinus and Muhlenberg clash in the other opening round matchup. Top-seed Johns Hopkins awaits the winner of the #3-#6 battle, since the Swarthmore Garnet lost to Gettysburg on Saturday, gift-wrapping the regular season hoops title for the Blue Jays, who will host the semi-finals.
With all this basketball, what did I do on Saturday afternoon? I spent six hours at Kean University in the 42 degree cold and slight wind, watching my Franklin and Marshall Diplomats baseball team meet the Cougars in a doubleheader.
Wearing my newly-acquired F&M team cap, courtesy of Coach Ryan Horning, who promised the hat to me in October when we and two teammates lunched in the shadow of the campus, I was ready to go. Except I wondered how I might have played the game as I watched it unfold.
Kean has a beautiful turf field—that would have been the first one I would have played on, since Astro Turf was a new thing in my collegiate years. Plus they had lights, which went on in the second game around the 5th inning. That would have been another first for my career.
The sun went from behind left field to beyond the stands in right field. That is different from most fields, where the sun is in play. Yet it caused the pitcher to flinch when his F&M teammate tossed the ball lightly after recording an out at first base.
The speed of the pitches looked to be a bit faster than when I played. Also, the Kean pitchers thrived on throwing off speed balls, which threw off the F&M hitters, who struck out 26 times in the two games. I saw players swinging at balls landing way in front of the plate or far outside of the strike zone—if not taking strike three looking.
When the batters made contact, the hits rarely went beyond the infield. In Game 1, there was only two extra-base hits. Fly balls and even long pop ups were an adventure—the Kean right fielder had trouble with a medium fly ball, dropping it for an error. I can relate to that, having done the same against Muhlenberg in 1970 on a towering fly to right field on the then-F&M diamond. It was my lone error in college and it landed me back on the bench.
Kean had played four game prior to meeting F&M, sporting a 3-1 record. It showed versus the F&M hitters, who were facing their first live pitching. Plus the overall defense was spotty at times—the Diplomats made four errors in the Game 1 7-1 loss. And five Kean batters were hit by pitches. While I grimaced, it sort of reminded me of how bad our 1970 team was—- where a 5’5” kid for Highland Park who hadn’t played high school ball (that would have looked good on the roster web page) managed to become a starter and somehow get six singles in 29 at bats while fanning just once. My average was among the better ones.
I also felt the frustration in Game 2, where the Kean pitcher went the distance to shut out the Diplomats 1-0. We were shut out 4-0 in a second game at home against Moravian, after we managed to win the opener 4-3 and I had two hits. In that second game, I was on deck with the bases loaded and none out, only to watch a triple play unfold—the only one I have ever seen live. And I singled in my next at bat.
That doubleheader-the first one I ever played in—was tiring and long. We went seven innings each game and now the teams play two nine innings games. Plus the families collectively bring food for the plates to eat between games—I might have thrown up if I had eaten the nice-smelling sandwiches with Boar’s Head wrappers which sat behind me in the stands.
The umpiring was questionable. The home plate umpire didn’t like the heckling from the F&M partisans, so he had a father tossed from the stands. Coach Horning more than once had loud conversation with the umpire, as he picked on some of the F&M players for things only he perceived they had done.
Despite the twin losses, F&M will get better. Picked in the pre-season to win the conference, they may have met a perfect storm to open the season. Our first DH in 1970 against Scranton was cancelled due to snow. That was in March. Plus the weather at St Joseph’s, where we opened the season, was akin to what the conditions were on Saturday. I collected my first hit, as a pinch hitter, with the ball hitting the netting in left field. Stunned that I hit a pitch against a school which played in the Middle Atlantic University Division, I stood watching and only reached first base. We lost 11-4, en route to a 4-12 record.
Wearing that hat and watching the game from up close in the first row—I actually had a foul ball roll to me as it seeped through the protective netting (you cannot keep the NCAA ball at this level)—I now feel a part of this team. I hope they do better than we did. Or, being superstitious like baseball players are, a losing record will be on me. Because I don’t think I would have done any better than my new “teammates.”
It was a fun day of memories and new adventures. That's baseball in February for you.
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