Rest in Peace.

Okay, not only does Nicole Franzen run the dopealicious La Buena Vida food blog, but she also features beautiful photographs are her own site. Today is all about appreciating what Franzen brings to the world. It’s good n plenty on a rainy Friday in New York.

Anyone been to the New Amsterdam Market? I haven’t but just read about it at a cool food blog, La Buena Vida. Looks like it’s worth the trip.

It’s Your Density

I was born in New York. I grew up outside the city. Since I moved back over a decade ago, I’ve lived in four different neighborhoods around Manhattan. So naturally when I think of great bagels, I think of … New Jersey.

This is an opinion I usually keep to myself. But I think most bagels in New York aren’t anything special. Going on reputation alone, you’d think you could get a good bagel, like a good slice, just about anywhere in New York. Ever since the puff-pastry style bagel overwhelmed the marketplace, it’s been difficult to enjoy a dense, crunchy, chewy bagel in the city.

If I had to sacrifce either the thin, crunchy exterior or the dense, chewy center, I’d lose the crunch. Where I grew un in Bergen County New Jersey, you can still get both.

Maybe that’s part of the problem. In New York, the bagel is such a menu-icon, every place has got to offer you a bagel. From diners to delis. So that eats away business from the bagel-specific shops. There’s not one within walking distance of my current apartment.

I thought Tal Bagels on 86th street did an OK job of keeping their bagels de-flated, and I liked that they answered “no” if you asked them to toast it. At least eight years ago they answered that way. Now they probably serve you a bagel that looks like a beach ball and will gladly slide it on a belt toaster for you.

Over at ESPN, Andrew Marchand has a piece on Jesus Montero:

Right now, there is one thing Montero is certainly not: He is not ready to start, let alone star, in the big leagues.

“It is all in becoming a first-rate professional and he is still in the middle of that process,” said Mark Newman, the Yankees’ senior vice president of baseball operations, who heads up the team’s minor leagues.

…Monte — as everyone in Scranton calls him — is developing at beautiful, tree-lined PNC Field in front of crowds that average around 4,000 fans per game. When you walk into the stadium a sign greets you, saying the Bronx is 128 miles away. Sometimes, it seems, that is where Montero’s head is located, too.

“I just get the feeling that Monte is so blessed physically — and I hate to say it — he is almost bored here in Triple-A,” said Scranton hitting coach Butch Wynegar, a former Yankees catcher. “Maybe if he went to the big leagues tomorrow, this kid might just go off and he just might lock in.”

Good morning beat fresh direct from Jack Curry:

In the first bit here, you’ll see the old H&H Bagels in the background as Henry Winkler and Shelley Long cross 80th street and Broadway:

Morning, Sunshine:

Here’s Margaret Atwood on what she reads:

I like to read at night before bed, too, though it can give you some pretty horrific nightmares–and a stiff neck, because of the position of your head.

Really, though, I will read anything at any time. If there’s nothing else available I will read airplane shopping magazines. You find out some pretty interesting things in there, actually. You think: “Somebody invented this. They actually sat in a room and invented it. And then they went out and raised the money and they manufactured it and now it’s in the airplane shopping magazine.” Boggles the mind.

I used to read the backs of cereal boxes but I’ve kind of exhausted their possibilities. Advertisement used to provide a lot more reading material than it does now‹ads have become too pictorial. They used to have a lot more print. They used to be more narrative. Story ads were still going strong in the forties, and to a certain extent in the fifties. I think it probably started to change in the sixties. They used to have little poems. They used to have quizzes.

I’m a reading junkie, I guess. It’s the fault of my upbringing. I was brought up in the north where there weren’t any other forms of media–other than print. I certainly learned my first French off the backs of cereal boxes. This is Canada: “Eh! Les enfants! Special offer. Collect the box tops.”

I think it’s curiosity that drives me to read. I don’t think “entertainment” quite covers it. It’s not that I’m indiscriminate in my appreciation–I like to feel that I can tell an apple from a pear, and I don’t expect from the pear what I might expect from the apple. In other words, if I’m reading Conan the Conqueror I’m not demanding that it be Middlemarch. They have different things to offer. But in some cases you get led to fine experiences through very devious pathways.

Pass the peas pasta (like they used to say).

Smitten Kitchen wins, and so do we.

Amedeo Modigliani painted the best babes.

“Just a Guy at Oxford” (Bill Bradley)

“The Great Wall of Boston” (The Green Monster)

“Sam, You Make the Ball too Small” (Sam McDowell)

“The King of the Jungle” (Walter O’Malley)

George Vecsey, right, with his arm around the wonderful Ray Robinson

I recently exchanged e-mails with George Vecsey, the veteran columnist for the New York Times, who started his career at Newsday under Mann.

Here’s our chat. Enjoy:

Bronx Banter: When Jack Mann took over the Newsday sports department was he influenced by any sports editors that came before him? I’m thinking of someone like Stanley Woodward.

George Vecsey: I don’t know. He came up through the news department at Newsday, had some college, was well read, surely knew about sports editors, but was so much an outsider that I doubt he would consider himself an acolyte of anybody.

BB: How would you describe to young readers what the climate of the press box was like in 1960? And how did Mann and “his Chipmunks” differ from the older writers?

GV: Well, the dichotomy was not as clear as I guess we would like to have thought. It may have been a function of age. But Isaacs and Len Shecter of the Post and Larry Merchant of the Philly Daily News were not children, and were capable of thinking for themselves, with Jack only part of it. The Chipmunks were young and energetic and brash. The split was probably on the same generational lines of the Kennedy-Nixon election – new vs. old (politics excluded). Even in 1960, some of us (me at least) were anticipating the forces of the mid-60’s in style and music and attitude. But we all were pretty traditional, except in comparison to the older writers, who were often hooked into the free drinks of the press room and the party line of the clubs they covered, or so we thought. Sounds pretty simplistic, looking back.

BB: Who else writing for the New York papers in the early 60s were like-minded? I’m thinking specifically of Shecter at the Post. Who else was part of the new breed?

GV: Len Shecter, Isaacs, Merchant, of course. And Stan Hochman A lot of the younger guys were Chipmunks just because we chattered a lot, and hung out together. Looking back, it would be hard to put one label on me, Steve, Maury Allen, Vic Ziegel, Phil Pepe, Paul Zimmerman, Joe Donnelly, Joe Gergen. We (or at least I did) admired Dick Young, who was no Chipmunk, but I knew him through my dad when I was a little kid, and Dick was very gracious to me when I came along as a young writer. I was friendly with older guys like Harold Rosenthal (more acerbic than any of us) and Barney Kremenko (a kind man, a friend), and I learned a lot from Leonard Koppett, one of the great people of the business, and I adored Jimmy Cannon. I don’t know that Bob Lipsyte considered himself a Chipmunk, but he and I hung out a lot in those days, and his excellent early work as a sports columnist (in his first tour of duty, I emphasize) re-defined the genre. So it’s hard to define Chipmunk, at this late date. Every generation has its new look. When I came back to Sports in 1980, there was Jane Gross, Allen Abel, Michael Farber, Jane Leavy, Phil Hersh, all good pals of mine. New faces.

BB: And now, the climate is different from then.

GV: The one difference between then and now was that everybody talked in the press box. Talked about the game. Argued about politics. Bickered about where we were going to dinner. Nowadays, the kids are all hunched over their machines, with headsets on, tweeting and facebooking and blogging and goodness knows what else. Nobody talks in the press box. I miss arguments. I miss human contact. I think we had more fun than the Thumb Generation. But the output in the New York Times is really good, probably better than ever, which is what matters.

(more…)

The DH has been around for almost 40 years, but baseball fans still seem to enjoy debating its merits. While some prefer the increased offense associated with the American League style, others favor the small ball strategies accentuated by the National League approach. In many ways, the give and take is baseball’s equivalent of the old “Less Filling, Taste Great” debate. What side one comes down on is merely a matter of personal preference.

Although statistics can’t answer whether having a DH is better than allowing the pitcher to hit, we can use numbers to address another popular (and related) debate: who has the advantage in interleague play?

Top-10 Pitchers in Interleague Play, Ranked by PAs

Note: Data as of June 21, 2011
Source: Baseball-reference.com

Anyone who has watched the Yankees on YES should be familiar with one side of the debate, which is frequently argued by Michael Kay. According to the broadcaster, the advantage belongs to the National League because its pitchers are more adept at handling the bat. As a result, when American League teams hit the road during interleague play, the drop off between DH and pitcher acts like a ball and chain.

Top-10 DHs in Interleague Play, Ranked by PAs

Note: Data as of June 21, 2011
Source: Baseball-reference.com

A counter to that position suggests that because National League pitchers aren’t very good at hitting anyway, the advantage they enjoy is minimal. However, when the games are played in American League ballparks, having a defined DH gives teams in the junior circuit an edge over their National League counterparts, which frequently employ a bench player in that role (even when a defensively challenged player is used as the DH, a bench player is still needed to take his place in the field).

Both sides of the debate seem to have anecdotal merit, so, what do the numbers say?

Relative Performance of DHs and Pitchers in Interleague Play

Note: Data as of June 21, 2011
Source: Baseball-reference.com

As expected, American League DHs have posted an OPS that is 0.084 points higher than their temporary NL counterparts, while NL pitchers have bested their junior circuit peers by 0.070 OPS points. At face value, the advantage seems to belong to the American League, especially because DHs bat almost twice as much as pitchers during interleague play (2.0x in the NL and 1.7x in the AL). However, because the OPS difference for pitchers is working off a lower base, the National League actually enjoys a 22% edge in that regard, compared to the American League’s 11% advantage in terms of DH production.

Because it doesn’t look as if we’ve settled the debate just yet, let’s throw in one more wrinkle: pinch hitters. Is the American League better off in an NL ballpark because it can use a quality hitter (the DH) off the bench? Or, does the National League get the edge because its reserves often get substantial playing time and have more experience serving as a pinch hitter? Once again, a case can be made for either argument.

Relative Performance of Pinch Hitters* in Interleague Play

*Based on all pinch hitters used to replace a batter hitting in the ninth slot. Pinch hitters used for pitchers batting in other slots have been omitted, and pinch hitters replacing a ninth place batter who is not the pitcher have been included.
Note: Data as of June 21, 2011
Source: Baseball-reference.com

Neither league has really had much luck with pinch hitters during interleague play. Surprisingly, even star DHs like David Ortiz (1 for 16), Frank Thomas (2 for 14), and Hideki Matsui (1 for 10) have struggled when called upon to take one at bat. At the same time, experienced NL pinch hitters like Lenny Harris (3 for 24), Mark Sweeney (1 for 24), and Matt Franco (2-15) also did poorly.  Apparently, coming off the bench isn’t such an easy task when facing the other league (having to face unfamiliar pitchers probably doesn’t help).

Aggregate Performance of DHs, PHs and Pitchers in Interleague Play

Note: Data as of June 21, 2011
Source: Baseball-reference.com

In 13,852 interleague-related plate appearances, National Leaguers have produced a line of .220/.288/.342. Meanwhile, in 14,145 such plate appearances, the American League’s output has been .218/.292/.348. Considering the voluminous sample size, the similarity in performance is astounding.

Select Statistical Totals for DHs, PHs and Pitchers in Interleague Play

Note: Data as of June 21, 2011
Source: Baseball-reference.com

Before concluding, it’s worth pointing out there are two areas in which the National League has enjoyed an advantage: sacrifice bunts and double plays (see chart above). So, with all else being equal, perhaps the senior circuit’s small ball philosophy has given it a slight relative advantage? Unfortunately for the NL, those fundamentals haven’t been enough to overcome the AL’s overall interleague superiority, which, as this analysis shows, is not derived from having an extra hitter.

Historical Interleague Record

Note: Data as of June 22, 2011
Source: MLB.com

After crunching the numbers, it’s apparent that both leagues enjoy a significant statistical advantage when playing interleague games in their home ballparks. What’s more, the respective edges seems to cancel each other out when considering all participants impacted by the different set of rules. So, as it turns out, both sides of the debate are correct. Or, maybe they’re both wrong? Here we go again.

Michael Sokolove has a measured and insightful piece in the New York Times Magazine about aging athletes. Derek Jeter is a feature player:

The careers of elite athletes, enviable as they may be, are foreshortened versions of a human lifespan. Physical decline — in specific ways that affect what they do and who they are — begins for them before it does for normal people. The athletes themselves rarely see the beginnings of this process, or if they do, either do not acknowledge it or try to fight it off like just another inside fastball. They alter their training routines. Eat more chicken and fish, less red meat. They try to get “smarter” at their sport.

A great many of us, their fans, live in our own version of denial — even in this age of super-slow-motion replay and ever more granular statistical data. We want to think our favorite players have good years left, great accomplishments ahead of them, just as we would hope the same for ourselves. The writer Susan Jacoby, who happens to be a devoted baseball fan, is the author of “Never Say Die: The Myth and Marketing of the New Old Age.” “Fans don’t like to watch aging in these relatively young guys,” she told me. “It makes us uncomfortable. We think, If it happens to them, what the hell is going to happen to us?” Jacoby, a self-described insomniac who listens to sports-talk radio in the middle of the night, said she has been appalled at the “venom” she sometimes hears directed at Jeter. “It’s like they’re saying, ‘The hero is not performing.’ Well, he’s gotten older.”

Older, for ballplayers, begins much sooner than we think. “A lot of fans, if they really studied it, would be surprised at how early players really peak, especially hitters,” Jed Hoyer said when he spoke to me by phone from San Diego, where he is general manager of the Padres. Previously he was an executive with the Red Sox, one of the more data-driven franchises in baseball. “The years of 26 to 30 are usually the prime years,” Hoyer continued, “but you’ll see plenty of guys start to trend down, even if it’s subtle, before they’re 30.”

It is almost impossible to age gracefully as an everyday player. You can transition to a role player like Jason Giambi has done in Colorado, but Jeter is in a tough spot and Sokolove is dead-on in describing Jeter’s career as “charmed.” Yet Jeter’s relative good fortune has changed over the past year. Everything about him these days is touchy:

The prospect of this article did not sit well with the Yankees, or at least elements of its hierarchy. Jason Zillo, the team’s media director, would not grant me access to the Yankees’ clubhouse before games to do interviews. I have been a baseball beat writer, have written two baseball books and have routinely been granted clubhouse credentials for a quarter-century, as just about anyone connected to a reputable publication or broadcast outlet usually is. “We’re not interested in helping you, so why should I let you in?” Zillo said, before further explaining that he views his role as a “gatekeeper” against stories the Yankees would rather not see in print.

I was surprised that he would deny access to The New York Times Magazine. But if I learned anything over the course of working on this article, it is that aging is a sensitive issue. It happens to everyone, but that doesn’t mean we’re comfortable with it. Jeter has become a lightning rod on the topic. We see him getting old, but we’re supposed to pretend he is just in a prolonged slump. “The reason the response to athletes’ getting older is so powerful is that the decline occurs in public,” Susan Jacoby told me. “We don’t see it when a man has trouble with an erection for the first time. Or a mathematics professor forgets something. It’s not Alzheimer’s, but it’s age, and it’s difficult. But it’s private.”

This is a long story but well-worth reading. Fine job by Sokolove.

[Photo Credit: David Goldman/AP]

First:

Flipped:

Sometimes a place closes and you feel nothing, like the girl in “A Chorus Line.” That’s the way it is for me and H&H Bagels. I’ve known the store my entire life. It opened the year after I was born and was located on the southwest corner of 80th Street and Broadway just a few blocks from where my grandparents lived. Next time you watch “Night Shift,” you can see the old store front in the background as Henry Winkler and Shelley Long cross the street. That was a few years before H&H blew up and became a big deal, “the” place for bagels.

H&H was famous for it’s fat, doughy bagels, extravagant prices, and for its no frills (you could buy butter or cream cheese there but they wouldn’t put it on the bagel for you). It was a yuppie phenomenon. The bagels were tasty, but they were bloated and overrated. And again, way too expensive (these days one cost $1.40). If you preferred a meaty bagel, though, it was heaven.

But it’s also a neighborhood place so many Upper West Siders are upset that H&H is closing without ceremony. I appreciate that even if I don’t share their sense of loss. What I will miss is the smell. You walked past the place and the air smelled comforting and inviting.

[photo credit: highlowfooddrink]

The Reds began the second game of Wednesday’s split doubleheader with concerns about Johnny Cueto’s stiff neck, but before the first inning was over, Yankees’ starter Brian Gordon was the one suffering the effects of whiplash.

Fresh off his debut against the Texas Rangers, Gordon was hoping to write another chapter in his feel good story. However, after surrendering three home runs, there wasn’t much chance for a happy ending. In fact, the beginning was anything to write home about either.

After Chris Heisey’s lead off home run, it soon became apparent that Gordon was merely the foil in someone else’s fairytale. Heisey followed up his opening salvo with a second homer off Gordon in the fifth that extended the Reds lead to 4-1. Then, with the game no longer in doubt, the Reds’ center fielder punctuated his historic night with a third home run off Hector Noesi.

Three Homer Games Against the Yankees, Since 1919

Source: Baseball-reference.com

Although Heisey’s power surge was historic, the real star of the game was Cueto. The ace right hander was supposed to start the first game of the series, but a sore neck forced the Reds to push him back. If only they had decided to hold him out one extra day.

The only real blemish on Cueto’s record was a second inning home run by Nick Swisher that tied the score at 1-1. After the homer, Cueto set down 15 of the next 16 batters, a stretch that was interrupted by Alex Rodriguez’ seventh inning single. In that frame, the Yankees loading the bases, but Cueto turned the rally aside by retiring Ramiro Pena and Jorge Posada, who was making a bid to play hero in both games of the doubleheader.

When the Yankees failed to capitalize on their threat in the seventh, the game was basically over, but that didn’t stop the Reds from tacking on six more runs against Noesi en route to a 10-2 victory. The double-digit outburst was unique for two reasons. First, it exceeded Cincinnati’s combined run total over the previous five games. Secondly, it was only the third time all season that the Yankees lost by more than five runs. I guess they were due.

By dropping the night cap, the Yankees not only forfeited a chance to take over first place, but also failed to even their regular season record against the Reds. As a result, Cincinnati remains the one team against which the Yankees do not have at least a .500 record. Considering how infrequently the two team meet, the Yankees will likely have to wait at least another few years before getting another crack at the Reds. I wonder if the team will be able to sleep on the plane ride home?

So the Yanks went out and won with their second unit today. Freddy Garcia pitched seven innings, a couple of unearned runs scoring thanks to an error by Ramiro Pena. David Robertson chucked a scoreless eighth and threw a fastball, right down the middle, past Joey Votto to end the inning. Man, don’t try that at home, kids.

Mariano struck out two in the ninth and got the save. Brett Gardner helped turn a nifty double play and the deciding hit came from Jorge Posda, who hit a two-run home run in the sixth.

Final Score: Yanks 4, Reds 2.

Good news with Johnny Cueto on the hill for the Reds tonight.

Brett Gardner LF
Curtis Granderson CF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Nick Swisher RF
Russell Martin C
Eduardo Nunez SS
Ramiro Pena 2B
Brian Gordon RHP

Smile, it won’t mess up your hair…and:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Credit:The Under Girl]

The Bombers are fielding their B squad this afternoon.

Brett Gardner LF
Curtis Granderson CF
Nick Swisher RF
Robinson Cano 2B
Jorge Posada 1B
Eduardo Nunez SS
Ramiro Pena 3B
Francisco Cervelli C
Freddy Garcia RHP

Yet we still root:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Painting by Roger Patrick]

The butterscotch pudding at Community Food and Juice is yummy but rich.  I could not eat the entire thing by myself. Better of sharing it with a friend or two.

Here’s a good Bruce cover…