Daily Archives: April 15, 2004

The last hot dog I ate was at Shea Stadium during a heat wave last summer. It was the night Dontrelle Willis made his New York debut, and I won’t forget watching Willis pitch any time soon. Unfortunately, I’ll best remember that night for what happened to me after I ate the hot dog. I won’t go into sordid details, but needless to say, it wasn’t pretty. I won’t be able to stay off dogs forever, cause every so often I really get a craving for one. However, I’ll probably enjoy the next one I eat in the comforts of my own home.

Even though baseball season has started, I hadn’t thought about hot dogs until I read R.W. Apple Jr’s long piece about Chicago cuisine yesterday in the Food section of the New York Times. Man, I just love the way they pile on the fixings out in Chi-town. The article covers a lot more than just dogs, but it seems as if food in the windy city is just plain bad for your health, and completely delicious at the same time. Can anyone give me a first-hand report of what eating a hot dog in Chicago is like? How are the dogs at Wrigley? Are they served Chicago-style as well?

I asked my good pal Rich Lederer who he thinks was a better team: The 1986 Mets or the 1998 Yankees. Since Rich is a California native, so I thought he’d have a measured take on the whole issue. Here is an e-mail I received from him this morning:

1. The Yankees won 114 games in 1998, the Mets won 108 games in 1986.

Edge: Yankees.

2. The Yankees won their division by 22 games, the Mets by 21 1/2 games.

Edge: Yankees.

3. The Yankees swept the the Rangers in the ALDS 3-0, beat the Indians in the ALCS 4-2, and swept the Padres in the World Series 4-0. The Mets beat the Astros 4-2 in the NLCS and the Red Sox 4-3 in the NLCS.

Edge: Yankees.

4. The Yankees outscored their opponents during the season by 310 runs, whereas the Mets outscored their opponents by 205 runs. Another way of looking at it is to say that the Yankees scored 1.47 runs for every run allowed. By comparison, the Mets scored 1.35 runs for every run allowed.

Edge: Yankees.

5. The Yankees scored runs at a rate of 1.19x the league average and allowed runs at .81x the league average. The Mets scored runs at a rate of 1.16x the league averages and allowed runs at .86x the league average.

Edge: Yankees.

6. The argument against the Yankees based on such league comparisons is that they benefited from the expansion in the A.L. that year. 1998 was the inaugural year for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, a team that finished in last place with the worse record in the league (63-99). The Yankees beat the Devil Rays, 11 games to one in their season series. Backing out the Yankees’ record against Tampa Bay produces a won-loss record of 103-47 and a winning percentage of .687. By comparison, the Mets had a winning percentage of .667 in 1986.

Edge: Yankees.
As such, no matter how you slice or dice it, the Yankees’ superiority in 1998 exceeded the Mets’ superiority in 1986.

A clean sweep for the Yankees, according to Lederer. Can anyone punch any holes into his findings?

You think the D Rays are getting tired of seeing Kevin Brown? Although he wasn’t especially sharp, walking four batters, Brown was helped out by three double plays, and allowed just one run over seven innings (again). It was the 200th victory of Brown’s career and the third time he’s faced and defeated Tampa so far this season. The Yankees became the first team to have pitchers win their 200th career game in back-to-back contests. Jason Giambi jacked a three-run blast in the first. Later, Gary Sheffield added an RBI double and Jorge Posada hit a solo homer.

Today gives a day off; the Yanks begin a four-game series against the Red Sox in Boston tomorrow night. Gentlemen, start your keyboards…let the hyping begin. Alex Rodriguez will be the center of attention. There are already several pieces on him in the papers today. Here’s what erstwhile Yankee bench coach, Popeye Zimmer thinks:

“A-Rod has probably been booed very few times in his life,” said Zimmer, a veteran of each side in the bitter rivalry. “But I am sure he will be booed in Boston for two reasons. One, he is a Yankee, and the other is he was going to be a Red Sox and didn’t.”

I think Rodriguez knows what it is like to be booed. The 2001 season wasn’t exactly picnic for him, and I’m sure they still don’t love him in Seattle.