Monthly Archives: October 2009
And in this case, that actually means what it sounds like.
In a column for the Daily News today, Joanna Molloy details Alex Rodriguez’s new habit of dropping in on Little League games and stickball games around Washington Heights and the Bronx.
Molloy wonders if that has something to do with A-Rod’s playoff efforts. I seriously doubt it, and would much prefer to chalk his success up to randomness and the fact that he’s one of the best players in baseball.
But that doesn’t make it any less cool that he’s jumping in on area stickball games.
I love stickball. My friends and I played it all the time in high school, so much so that it made me something of a Luis Castillo-style wrist hitter, since it’s useless to take monstrous cuts with a stickball bat.
Part of what’s cool about stickball is that every single group of stickball players has their own set of rules, usually customized for wherever there are open spaces to play.
I know some people play with a Spaldeen and hit lobbed pitches off a bounce, but we played the variety that features a spray-painted strike zone against a wall, and where different distances are assigned different values.
One of my best friends was a stud pitcher in high school who could throw in the high 80s. Batting against him in stickball can be downright terrifying.
That’s all I’ve got. I just wanted to point out that stickball is really fun. I’ve got some meetings today so there won’t be much here for the next few hours.
Enjoy thoughts of Pedro tonight.
That Cliff Lee guy is good, huh? It feels like Lee is now pretty good all the time, but for whatever reason has the capacity for ridiculous runs of dominance like the one in this postseason and his first seven starts of last season, when he went 6-0 with a 0.67 ERA.
Lost in the Yankees playing poorly last night was the Knicks playing poorly last night. Danilo Gallinari shot the crap out of the ball in the second half, though, so that’s a positive. I’m not convinced he’ll suck just because Knicks draft picks usually suck.
Stephen Colbert weighed in on the Higgs Boson and many the same things I discussed here.
| The Colbert Report | Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Big Bang Theory | ||||
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Colbert gets a lot of respect, but probably not enough. What a stud.
Alex Nelson continues his amazing rundown of the Mets’ 2009 draftees.
Allow me to briefly indulge a high-school football memory:
It was the fourth quarter of the homecoming game my senior year, and we held a comfortable lead over the cupcake West Hempstead team we scheduled for homecoming every season. Nevermind that it was due to be our first win of the season and only the fourth in the three years I had been playing varsity football; I was having the time of my life.
Our coach swapped in a new defensive end, a pothead who didn’t play much. He was supposed to bring the defensive playcall with him, but that was apparently too much for his memory to bear.
While the huddle gathered, I jogged to greet him.
“What’s the play?” I asked.
“Oh, s@#$,” he said, looking bewildered. “But yo, Wurst is having a party.”
I chuckled and approached the huddle.
“Forty-two, outside, Cover 2, red dog,” I said, improvising. “And guys — there’s a party at Wurst’s house tonight.”
What a leader I was that day! And what a fun-loving gang of hooligans we were! Just laughing and partying and keeping it loose. That was a team with chemistry.
Of course, the next week, while losing by double-digits, I got into a fistfight with our starting runningback on the sidelines. And after the game, instead of partying with my teammates, I went to the movies with my parents. I was ashamed to be seen in public after the stomping we took.
In the coming days, lots and lots of people are going to talk about A.J. Burnett and his whipped-cream pies and how the Yankees succeeded because they were able to stay loose in the clubhouse.
But that’s not really it.
When teams play well, the players have fun. Almost always. Baseball players become professional baseball players in part because they really, really enjoy playing baseball (even Carlos Beltran!). And to win consistently at the Major League level must be an unimaginable thrill.
So of course the Yankees nailed each other in the face with pies after games. And of course they appeared to be enjoying it. They were enjoying it, and they deserved to. They were that good.
But they were enjoying it because they were good, they were not good because they were enjoying it. Does that make sense?
The Yankees had a team full of All-Stars that were lucky enough to stay healthy. They replaced Jason Giambi with Mark Teixeira and revamped their rotation. That’s why they won, and so that’s why they had so much fun.
No one gets pied after losses.
Look: I’m not dismissing the element of team chemistry altogether. I’ve worked in groups, and obviously I recognize that it’s a much more pleasant experience while everyone’s getting along.
But is there a way to construct a group to ensure that everyone gets along? I doubt it. In fact, I’d bet the best way to secure the best possible clubhouse would be to put together the best possible team.
That’s what the Mets need to do this offseason. They must put together the best possible team for 2010 that does not prevent them from winning in 2011 and beyond.
And that’s all. There’s no need to go out and acquire good clubhouse guys or team leaders or pie-throwers. If the team wins games, there’ll always be someone to throw pies.
The heroic bastions of good will at Taco Bell have announced that this year, instead of the popular “Steal a Base, Steal a Taco” promotion from years past, Taco Bell will provide a free Black Jack Taco to every Taco Bell guest on Saturday between 6 p.m. and midnight, while supplies last.
Amazing.
Debate rages over whether Taco Bell is providing free tacos to celebrate Halloween or to celebrate the World Series, or if Taco Bell is just providing free tacos because the restaurant chain is dedicated to ending world hunger, one taco at a time.
The Black Jack Taco, if you were unaware, is like a regular taco, but blacker. It also comes with delicious pepper-jack sauce, familiar to lovers of the now-defunct (but still usually available if you just ask) Cheesy Gordita Crunch.
If you live in the vicinity of multiple Taco Bells, you can probably figure out a way to get several free tacos out of this. In fact, you can probably figure out a way to get several free tacos just by returning to the same Taco Bell in half-hour intervals on Saturday.
But please, don’t take advantage of Taco Bell’s generosity. Taco Bell did this for you. And think of all that Taco Bell has done for you in the past. Repay Taco Bell by purchasing other menu items while you’re there.
In one of my earliest non-sports posts here, I weighed in on Justin Bieber, a young pop star I had never heard of before he showed up to play for throngs of 10-year-old girls at the Today Show studio near my office.
Anyway, I trashed him a bit, assuming he was just some run-of-the-mill record-company lackey selected for stardom for his looks and charm.
I have since learned from a source with inside knowledge that Justin Bieber is actually something of a savant in both music and weirdness. Apparently the reason Bieber’s Today Show performance was underwhelming is that he had never even rehearsed the song with his live band, but decided on a whim to play it instead of the song he had prepared. While dancing. With no backing track.
I’m also told that he is, as I suspected, closely handled by managers and mother, but mostly because he’s prone to saying particularly bizarre and downright inappropriate things. And apparently in a recent trip to MTV’s studios, he was given a Rubik’s Cube with which to entertain himself, and promptly finished it and launched it at his manager’s junk.
So maybe Justin Bieber is pretty rock and roll after all. Good luck with that, Justin Bieber. Your next challenge is to actually make worthwhile music.
Bury your head deep in the sand.
Anonymity is a virtue in this day and age.
A Philadelphia woman was arrested for offering sex in exchange for World Series tickets. Sometimes you don’t need a punchline.
Even though Doug Glanville roots for the Phillies, I generally enjoy reading his op-ed pieces in the Times. He comes off like a true, hardcore, nerdy baseball fan like myself, and one that just so happened to be good enough to make the Major Leagues. It’s only when he actually starts breaking the game down and advocating Marlon Anderson that he gets a bit bothersome.
The Mets will won’t will won’t pursue John Lackey. This is going to be an especially frustrating year of hot-stove nonsense, I think.
Today is the day every paper in the country runs its position-by-position World Series breakdown and picks which player at each position gives his team the edge. I still don’t get it. The shortstop doesn’t ever face the other shortstop, right?
Because so many people obviously felt so passionately about cheesesteaks, I figured the next logical step would be to name five sandwiches that are better than a cheesesteak.
I consider myself something of an expert in the subject. Recently, there was a Jeopardy! category on sandwiches, and not only did I know all the answers, but I had eaten all the answers.
I worked behind a deli counter for three years, and in that time I made many, many sandwiches. I was so good at it that if I was busy and other deli-men were unoccupied, customers would wait for me like they would a particular barber at the barber shop. One time I held up a roast beef with melted mozzarella on garlic bread to ask the customer if he wanted tomatoes on it, and the whole crowd of customers gasped. That’s how beautiful my sandwiches were.
It is the only job I’ve ever had that I can confidently say I was awesome at. If you’re ever in Rockville Centre, NY, go into DeBono’s Deli on North Village Avenue and ask Jay DeBono who the best employee he ever had was. Helpful hint: It’s your boy.
So trust me on this one. These are, in no particular order, five sandwiches better than a cheesesteak:
Chicken Madness (Wisemiller’s Deli and Grocery, Washington, DC): The Chicken Madness is chicken, bacon, cheese, and hot and sweet peppers diced up fine and served on a soft hero roll. What makes it mad is Wisey’s unique blend of reddish mystery spices and the delicious, disgusting grease from their million-year-old grill. James K will back me up on this, this is one hell of a sandwich. Note that it includes chopped up meat and cheese, just like a cheesesteak. The difference is that it’s far madder, and better. It’s the second best kind of madness after Space Madness. And Wisey’s Burger Madness is really good, too.
The guitarist in my band in college was a religious Jewish guy who kept Kosher. He promised me that I could be there if he ever ate bacon. College is a time for experimenting with new substances, and eventually, the guy broke. We got Chicken Madnesses and took them back to his apartment, and, though I’m not certain he’s ever eaten bacon again, he agreed that bacon was pretty f@#$ing awesome.
Cappy Ham and Cheese (Primanti Bros., Pittsburgh, PA): “Really, Ted? Just a plain old ham and cheese?” No, you fool. Calling this thing ham and cheese is like calling King Kong a monkey. It’s less of a sandwich and more of a ridiculous cavalcade of awesome. I can’t even remember all the things that are on there, but I know that there’s cole slaw, pickles and like a full order of french fries, and you have options to get a bunch of other things on there as well. It’s absolutely baffling that the cheesesteak should be the most identifiable sandwich native to Pennsylvania when the Primantis are serving this thing up in Pittsburgh. Also, Whoopie Pies are a kind of sandwich from Pennsylvania, and they’re really delicious too.
Berg’s Pepper Barge (DeBono’s Delicatessen, Rockville Centre, NY): This was initially called “Ted’s 12-incher,” but that name was deemed inappropriate for a family deli like De Bono’s. Anyway, the Pepper Barge includes pepper turkey, the massively underrated and underused pepper ham, De Bono’s own fresh mozzarella, and some oil and balsamic vinegar on a hero. I’d throw on roasted red peppers upon request, but that’s sort of gilding the lily. This sandwich has not received the type of critical fame that the ones listed above have — in fact, there’s no record of its existence on the Internet — but believe me, it’s awesome. I should know, I invented it.
Ferdi Special (Mother’s Restaurant, New Orleans, LA): If you go to Mother’s at lunchtime, you’ll probably have to wait so long that you begin to wonder if the sandwich is worth it. But don’t fret, it is. It’s ham, roast beef, a bunch of crispy vegetablish things, and debris on french bread. The key here is the debris — that’s little pieces of roast beef that fell into the gravy while roasting. It’s amazing, and bursting with delicious meaty flavor. Be warned, though: breakfast at Mother’s is overrated, and you’ll want to save room for beignets and muffuletta (another sandwich better than cheesesteak, though one left off this list so it wasn’t an overwhelming Italian selection) and so many of the other delicious local foodstuffs.
Mama’s Special (Leo’s Latticini, Queens, NY): Mets fans — and many others — know Leo’s as Mama’s. And if you’re a Mets fan with an interest in sandwiches, you probably know about the sandwich by now. I heartily recommend heading to the source and picking one up there, though — you can customize. Make sure you get sopressata on whatever you order, though. It’s like a spicier, coarser-ground salami. It’s amazing.
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