Monthly Archives: August 2011

Quilt. From Mississippi, 1930s-’40s (wool)

Via Ricco Maresca Gallery

If you can deal with the scene (which isn’t always easy), you should stop by the Spotted Pig for a burger.

Oh, and the fried pig’s ear might sound unappetizing to some but it is delicious like you wouldn’t believe.

Murdoch Descending

By John Schulian 

The world changed for everybody at the Sun-Times when the paper was sold to Rupert Murdoch in 1984. It was one of those things that I, forever blind to the realities of business, thought would never happen. I’d seen how he’d trashed the New York Post with his lowest-common-denominator journalism. I wasn’t wild about the Boston Herald, either. Then again, the Herald might have gone out of business if he hadn’t shown up. And it did provide a showcase for the stellar sportswriting of George Kimball, Charlie Pierce, and Michael Gee. But that was small consolation to those of us counting down the days until Murdoch took over in Chicago.

The Sun-Times had become a first-rate tabloid, solid from beginning to end and, on its best days, capable of driving the stolid, well-heeled Tribune into Lake Michigan. The newsroom was packed with aggressive young hard-news reporters–Jonathan Landman, now a ranking editor at the New York Times, was one–and they were always breaking big stories and doing great investigative work. There was plenty of good writing, too. My goal every day was to have the best-written piece in the paper, but I’m not sure how many times that happened, not when I was surrounded by Royko and Roger Simon, another fine city columnist, as well as a corps of lively feature writers that included my old friend Eliot Wald, who went on to write for “Saturday Night Live” in the Eddie Murphy years.

And then there was Roger Ebert, who could out-write us all. I always thought Roger was too generous in his movie reviews, but his features were exquisite. It didn’t matter whether he was writing about John Wayne or a B-movie queen, his prose sang. And when a movie star died, Roger soared higher still. A copy clerk would fetch him clips from the paper’s library. He’d scan them and then write 1,200 of the most beautiful words you’ve ever read in 15 or 20 minutes. Sometimes it seemed like his fingers never touched the keyboard–he just waved them like a magic wand and, abra-ka-dabra, a masterpiece appeared.

It’s for someone else to say how many masterpieces appeared in our sports section. I just know we won more than our share of honors, that out-of-town writers regularly took the time to say how much they enjoyed what we were doing, and that I was proud to be part of it. I was in the company of pros who cared deeply about what they did for a living, guys like Jerome Holtzman, Ron Rapoport, Phil Hersh, Ray Sons, Kevin Lamb, and Brian Hewitt. If I was covering something with one of them, it was easy to divvy up the workload. We knew what the stories were, and one of us would look at the other and say, for example, “Smith or Jones?” There would be an answer, not a debate or a clash of egos, and then we’d get busy with what we were there for: the work.

Our era of good feeling lasted until Super Sunday 1984, the day Murdoch and his zombies took control of the paper. There must have been three or four of us in Tampa for the game – that’s the way we did things back then–and we gathered around the phone as Rapoport called the city desk and asked, “How bad is it?”

The answer came in a headline: “Rabbi held in sex slave ring.”

It ran on page three, which was prime tabloid real estate but hardly the place where the previous administration would have played the story if it had run at all. Looking back, I confess that the headline doesn’t seem that terrible. But I have to remind myself that it wasn’t so much that I was offended by the presence of the dirtbag rabbi in the paper. I was offended by what the story about him portended. Murdoch’s people were just getting warmed up. Overnight they had changed the look of the paper, turning its bright, lively design into something garish and cheap, the print equivalent of a streetwalker addicted to rouge and eyeliner. It stood to reason that the stories would be increasingly tarted up, too.

But when Murdoch tried to foist his trademark crap on them, the good people of Chicago just said no. The Sun-Times’ circulation dropped like a shot put in a goldfish bowl. Murdoch’s henchmen were forced to pull back on the cheap thrills and gaudy garbage. The paper would never be what it had been, nor would it lure back all of its readers, but at least it regained a modicum of respectability. The readers who refused to roll over and play dead were better than Murdoch deserved. The same was true of the editors, reporters, and columnists who didn’t abandon the sinking ship. They would endure, some would even prosper, but when you looked around, there was no ignoring the empty desks.

The biggest departure, of course, was Royko, who jumped to the Tribune, which he had hated and baited throughout his career. In sports, we lost our top two editors, Marty Kaiser and Michael Davis, plus Phil Hersh, who went to the Tribune by way of the Philadelpia Inquirer and became, with Randy Harvey of the L.A. Times and Mike Janofsky and Jere Longman of the New York Times, a reigning expert on Olympic sports. I like to think that Roger Ebert stayed at the Sun-Times because he truly loved the paper where he has spent his entire career.

Would that I could say the same about myself. Truth was, I wanted no part of the Murdoch regime. I would have gone anywhere that could afford me, but the columnist gigs at papers fitting that description were locked up. The editors who had looked out for me at Sports Illustrated were gone, Inside Sports had been taken over by nickel-and-dimers, and The National had yet to become a gleam in Frank Deford’s eye. Maybe I should have tried freelancing, maybe I should have gone to work on a screenplay or a novel. But I liked the idea of a steady paycheck. When the new regime offered me a contract that would pay me six figures a year for three years–big money in that era–I forsook my principles and misgivings and signed on the dotted line.

I would pay for it.

Click here for the full “From Ali to Xena” archives.

Another sure shot from Pete Dexter. From the May 31, 181 issue of Inside Sports.

The Apprenticeship of Randall Cobb: The Late-Booming Karate Fighter From Abilene Wants to Be The Baddest Ass In Boxing

By Pete Dexter

The face suggests more than 21 fights, but that’s how many there have been. Counting the two as an amateur. There is a scar over the left eye, a missing tooth. The nose is flat and soft, without cartilage.

Apart from that, it’s a face that’s been hurt.

On March 22, a 26-year-old fighter named Randall Cobb lost a majority decision on national television to Michael Dokes. Two of the judges gave the fight to Dokes, one called it a draw.

Dokes was supposed to win. He is the fastest fighter in the division, maybe the most talented. He was schooled through a long amateur career and brought carefully through 20 fights as a professional. The only problem Dokes ever had was a lack of size, and in the last year he has grown two inches to 6-2 and filled out to 218 pounds, and there is a feeling among some people that after Larry Holmes retires, Dokes doesn’t have any problems at all.

Given all that, there are people who like the other guy’s chances.

At 22 years old—a long time after most professionals were polished fighters—Randall Cobb had his first amateur fight. He had a second and then turned professional, saying he was going to be the heavyweight champion of the world. Ali was the champion then. Cobb would have had trouble naming five other men in the division.

He spent three years knocking out people like Chebo Hernandez (the former heavyweight champion of Mexico) and then, with 18 lifetime fights and 18 days to get ready, he crawled into the ring with Earnie Shavers and won on a TKO in the eighth.

He lost a split decision to Ken Norton and then dropped the fight to Dokes. In each of the fights he got better, and he is still just learning. He has the best chin in boxing and in the Dokes fight—when he caught much of what Dokes threw on his gloves and arms—the people who have watched Cobb got their first sign that he wasn’t going to be proving it the rest of his life.

After the fight Cobb sat with ABC’s Keith Jackson, who asked if he had been surprised Dokes hadn’t run more. Cobb said, “I don’t know how it looked from here, but to me it looked like I was running my ass all over the ring trying to catch him.”

As he said that Dokes dropped into the chair next to him. Cobb smiled. “We’ll have to do this again, Mike.”

Dokes shook his head. “Oh, no,” he said. “No, I don’t think so.”

“I’m going to go back and start all over,” Cobb said later. “I’ll do whatever I got to do and I’m going to keep doin’ it until it’s right.”

His mother heard that and nodded. “Some day that dog’s going to lie in the sun,” she said.

Randall Cobb is my friend. I know him, he won’t cheat himself. And after it’s over—it doesn’t matter how many times he’s hit in the face—he’ll be able to look in the mirror and not be afraid of what he sees.

(more…)

 

Mornin’.

[Photo Via I’ll Keep My Eyes Fixed on the Sun]

I was at Citifield on Saturday afternoon. The Mets were losing 7-1 then rallied to take a 9-7 lead. They went ahead against K Rod of all people.

Then,  in the 9th, they blew it. Went something like this:

The worst part was that K Rod got the win.

Nick Blackburn loaded the bases in the second inning and then came out of the game with a lateral forearm strain. But the Yanks did not score and there still was no score in the bottom of the fifth when Nick Swisher and Curtis Granderson botched a fly ball putting runners on second and third with nobody out. Then Ivan Nova, who had several pitches working today (fastball, curve, change-up), struck out the next two batters and got a ground ball to get out of it.

Robinson Cano doubled in the next inning–a line-drive to left field–tagged to third on a deep fly ball by Swisher and scored on a sacrifice fly by Russell Martin. In the seventh, Granderson, who has seemingly done it all for the Yanks this year, added to his resume when he hit a long fly ball off the top of the wall in right center field. The ball came back into the field but bounced far enough away from the outfielders to give Granderson a shot at something more than a triple. He ran all the way home and slid across the plate just ahead of the throw, good for an inside-the-park home run. Mark Teixeira followed with a line drive home run the old fashioned way, over the fence, and the 3-0 lead was enough.

David Robertson got into a pickle in the eighth, but even with the bases loaded, he escaped unharmed. Mariano Rivera put heads to bed–killing them softly–in the 9th and Yanks return to the Bronx heppy kets. Alex Rodriguez did not get a hit in his return but that was a footnote to Granderson’s heroics and seven shutout innings from Nova.

It was a good Sunday.

And that’s word to Rabbi Marshak:

Alex Rodriguez is back.

Derek Jeter DH
Curtis Granderson CF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Robinson Cano 2B
Nick Swisher RF
Russell Martin C
Brett Gardner LF
Eduardo Nunez SS

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

The Great One:

[Photo Credit: Bixentro]

Here’s the recap: The Twins beat the Yankees on Saturday night, blitzing through A.J. Burnett and cruising to a comfortable 9-4 win.

Now here’s the interesting part. Burnett was bad. Unspeakably bad. He couldn’t locate either his fastball or his curveball all night long — and by “all night long” I mean an inning and two thirds. Over the course of those five outs he gave up five hits, walked three, and was tagged for seven runs. He had his usual wild pitch to allow the game’s first run in the first, then yielded a sacrifice fly for another run before finally escaping.

He gave up a home run to Danny Valencia to open the second inning, then found more trouble when Luke Hughes doubled with one out, and Ben Revere singled him in an out later. It was 4-0, but it could’ve stopped there were it not for some bad luck. Revere took off for second and Russell Martin threw a dart across the diamond to nail him — except the umpire incorrectly called him safe. After a walk and another wild pitch, Burnett found himself at a crossroads. There were men on first and third and he had worked himself into a full count against one of the three recognizable names in the Minnestoa lineup, Joe Mauer. Burnett’s pitch came in at the knees and started off the plate before darting back towards the corner. It could’ve been called a strike, but it wasn’t. (To Burnett’s credit, he acknowledged afterwards that you shouldn’t expect to get a call on a pitch like that when you’ve had no command of the strike zone all night.)

With the bases now loaded, Joe Girardi made the decision to lift Burnett, and this is where things got interesting. The YES cameras zoomed in on Burnett as he stared hard at something. He could’ve been staring in disbelief at Girardi, or he could’ve been staring at a popcorn vendor in the stands. It was impossible to tell without a wider perspective, but Michael Kay and John Flaherty in the booth told us that he was staring down Girardi, and Kay jumped on the moment, calling all his fellow villagers to light their torches and storm the castle.

“What does Burnett want?” he asked incredulously. I’m just guessing here, but maybe he wanted to pitch better. Maybe he was upset that he had just faced a marginal AAA team and only managed to get five outs.

After he handed the ball to Girardi, Burnett walked towards the dugout but then turned back to the mound and clearly said, “That’s fuckin’ horseshit!” Flaherty then took the kerosene from Kay and said, “Looks like he had some words right there for Joe Girardi.” To which Kay responded, “I don’t know what those words could be that would be legitimate.” (As an English teacher, I cringe at the construction of that sentence, but that’s really what he said.)

Even as I watched it the first time through, I saw the whole exchange in a different light. Girardi looked like he responded to Burnett, but whatever he said was directed towards home plate and seemed to be peppered with the word “pitch,” as if we were telling home plate umpire D.J. Reyburn “That was a good pitch, that was a good pitch” in reference to the 3-2 pitch to Mauer that could’ve ended the inning. More on all this later.

So Burnett walked off the field, into the dugout — and straight into the clubhouse. The YES cameras later caught Girardi hopping off the bench, heading down the tunnel into the clubhouse before returning with Burnett, who dutifully sat on the bench and watched as Ayala allowed all three of his base runners to score.

Michael Kay, John Flaherty, Ken Singleton, and Jack Curry would all interpret these events the same way. Burnett was upset with Girardi and cursed him as he left the mound. He was so angry that he violated baseball protocol and went straight to the clubhouse, hoping never to return. Girardi would have none of this, so he chased him down, scolded him, and dragged him by his ear back into the dugout. Presumably, there would be no dessert for him either.

I don’t think any of this happened. When Jack Curry asked Girardi about what had happened between Burnett and him, Girardi looked legitimately stunned, then became as angry as I’ve seen him in his tenure as manager. “You can write what you want, and you can say what you want. He was pissed because he thought he struck out Joe Mauer.” When asked about the dugout situation, Girardi only got angrier. He explained that he had gone down into the clubhouse to look at the replay of the pitch. Curry kept pressing him, but Girardi finally shut him down.

As for Burnett, he looked just as surprised when asked about the “confrontation,” and his explanation made even more sense. He explained that Martin had said to him that 3-2 pitch had been a strike (Girardi also mentioned this), and that his horseshit statement was simply expressing his agreement with Martin’s assessment of the call. When asked about whether or not those comments might actually have been directed at his manager, “I was not talking to Joe, absolutely not. No matter how mad I get. That guy’s taken my back, every day I’ve been here. No matter how boiling I’m gonna be, I’m not gonna say that towards a manager, not him, not a chance.”

The only two voices that mattered were the only two voices that made any sense.

What doesn’t change, though, is that Burnett isn’t getting people out. There’s been a lot of talk recently about how Burnett’s contract should be separated from any discussion about his effectiveness, but the pressure will only continue to build the closer we get to October. Regardless of how large his paychecks are, can Burnett be trusted to take the ball in Game 2? Only time will tell.

[Photo Credit: Hannah Foslien/Getty Images]

The Bombers look to secure another winning series with a victory tonight.

Alex? Here’s hoping for a Saturday Night Special.

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

Cool out.

[Photo Credit: bitchassbidness]

For the past two years, in mid-August the Minnesota Twins have been competitive enough to defuse the inevitable Brett Favre melodrama. Favre is out — supposedly — Donovan McNabb is in, and Republican presidential hopefuls who win straw polls in neighboring Iowa and confuse celebrity birthdays and deathdays are providing the melodrama. The Twins, they entered tonight’s game 15 games under .500, 11 games behind the division-leading Detroit Tigers, almost irrelevant in the AL Central.

But for the Yankees, the Minnesota Twins are relevant. They’re on the list of “teams we should beat whenever, wherever” en route to the postseason. Thursday night, with C.C. Sabathia on the mound, mission accomplished. Friday night, with Phil Hughes going, the team performance was even more impressive.

First let’s take the offense. The first time through the batting order, Derek Jeter, Robinson Canó, Nick Swisher and J Martin were the only Yankees to swing at the first pitch against Kevin Slowey, who was making his first start of the season for the Twins (his previous six appearances had been in relief). None of the four first-pitch swingers put the ball in play. Martin was the only one to keep his in fair territory, however. He crushed a hanging curveball into the leftfield seats not unlike someone named Trevor Plouffe did in the first inning for the Twins.

Martin’s solo home run tied the game and allowed the offense to collectively exhale and get into the rhythm. They scored a run in the fourth and in the fifth, which Martin led off with a single, the top of the order wore out Slowey. With Gardner on first base (he reached on a fielder’s choice), Jeter squibbed a single up the middle on an 0-2 pitch. The at-bat may have been the turning point in the game. It set up first-and third with one out, and Curtis Granderson followed with a double that tightroped the first base line and skidded off the bag before barreling into the rightfield corner. Gardner scored, Jeter to third. Mark Teixeira followed with a sac fly to make it 4-1 and the Score Truck had a head of steam. The coup de grace came in the sixth, as J Martin unloaded again. This time, it was a two-run shot to left that broke the game open. With Scott Brosius doing a guest spot in the YES booth in that same half-inning, it seemed fitting that the best No. 9 hitter in recent Yankee memory observed the current No. 9 hitter have arguably his best offensive night as a Yankee. The Yankees posted another two-spot in the ninth inning to complete the rout at 8-1.

Now, let’s take the pitching, specifically Phil Hughes’s outing. Despite Freddy Garcia’s placement on the disabled list and what that means for the temporary settlement of a five-man rotation, Hughes still has pressure on him. Every start is an audition to present his case to remain in the rotation through September and into October. Given what happened in Boston when he appeared in relief, perhaps Hughes has readjusted his brain chemistry to be a starting pitcher.

Hughes cruised much the way he did in Chicago on August 2. He pounded the strike zone with his fastball, changed speeds effectively, and maintained his aggressiveness with two strikes. That aggressiveness didn’t manifest itself in strikeouts as it had in Hughes’s previous two starts against Chicago and Tampa Bay, but it did lead to weak contact and routine outs. Between the home run he allowed to Plouffe in the first inning and the walk he issued to Plouffe to lead off the seventh, Hughes only allowed one Twin to reach base.

Joe Girardi allowed Hughes to start the eighth, and pitcher rewarded manager by retiring the first batter. The next two at-bats didn’t go quite as well. Luke Hughes (no relation) singled to left on a 1-2 curveball and Tsuyoshi Nishioka followed with a screaming liner that caught Gardner in left more than Gardner caught the ball. That was it for Hughes.

Credit Girardi for relieving Hughes when he did — not because of the pitch count, but because in the last eight batters he faced, Hughes issued two walks, a hit, and a loud out. Overall, Hughes was as dominant as he was in the rain-shortened effort against the White Sox. He is 3-0 in his last three decisions as a starter and his fourth straight quality start. Since returning from the DL on July 6, he’s lowered his ERA from Chien-Ming Wang (13.94) to Sergio Mitre (5.75).

All signs point to Hughes being on the right track.

J Martin said of Hughes, “He’s progressing late in the season. You’d rather have somebody peaking late than peaking too early.”

CURRYING FAVOR FOR GRANDY
Curtis Granderson figured prominently in the Yankees victory, yet again. Midway through the game, Jack Curry joined Michael Kay and John Flaherty in the YES broadcast booth and Curry asked Kay if he had an MVP vote, who he would vote for. Kay believed that Adrian Gonzalez would win, because his batting average entering Friday’s action was more than 60 points higher than Granderson. Curry said he’d vote for Granderson.

Traditionally, the Triple Crown categories have swayed the writers’ vote for Most Valuable Player. If that were to hold true this year, Granderson holds the edge over Gonzalez in both home runs and RBIs. He also has scored more runs than Gonzalez (113 to 81), and has a higher slugging percentage (.596 to .543), and OPS (.973 to .950). Granderson also leads the American League in triples and has 23 stolen bases. His 113 runs scored lead all of baseball, as do his 12 home runs against left-handed pitchers. The only thing Granderson hasn’t done is hit for average. With that in mind, I’ve thought that if Granderson finishes the season within 10 points of .300 on either side, he has a chance to win the MVP.

But there’s a catch.

Six years ago, I wrote a column arguing that Baseball Prospectus’s VORP statistic should be the primary determinant in MVP voting. If that were to hold true this season, Jose Bautista would win, as his VORP total is 69.2 to Granderson’s 57.6. Bautista’s batting average is .314 to Granderson’s .284, he leads the American League in home runs (35), on-base percentage (.455), slugging percentage (.638) and OPS (1.093). The Sabermetricians would put Bautista as the MVP. In terms of VORP, Gonzalez ranks fourth on his team.

So where’s the line? Granderson, compared to Gonzalez and Bautista, is a different offensive player. Not better, but different. Speed adds that other dimension. Perhaps the speed makes Granderson a more complete offensive threat. That completeness is what swayed Jack Curry.

The bottom line: the decision will be subjective, and bias will be involved. If Granderson isn’t the league MVP this season he’s definitely been the MVY (Most Valuable Yankee).

 Good stuff from Alex Rodriguez via Chad Jennings:

“I look at Cal Ripken,” Rodriguez said. “He was always my role model. He played to about 40 or 41. The one thing about third base is (you need) a strong arm and one step and dive. When you think about center field or the middle of the infield, you have to do so much more. As a shortstop, I always felt like that. As a third baseman, even if you have limited range, if you have good hands and a strong arm, I think you can play there forever.

“As long as you’re driving the ball offensively, it’s very important to be out there at third base because it allows your team, your roster and the organization to have a solid bat at DH, or have it as a rotator where you can have guys like Tex, Jeet, myself and Robbie to occupy it. You kind of strangle the team a little bit by just being an everyday DH when you can go out and play third base. You can always go out and find a guy that has a little more range at third, but if you can be a guy that can produce 30 runs, drive in 100 runs and make 10 or 12 errors, I think anybody would sign up for that.”

Here is tonight’s batting order…

Brett Gardner LF
Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Robinson Cano 2B
Nick Swisher RF
Eric Chavez 3B
Jorge Posada DH
Russell Martin C

And that’s word to Sy Ableman.

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

Knowing the Yankees’ traditional habit of bringing back old favorites for one more go-round, I would not be at all surprised if a former Yankee rejoins the team for a second stint before the August 31st deadline. The Oakland A’s have made Hideki Matsui available, especially now that he has cleared waivers; he can be traded to any team in either league. The A’s don’t want much: just some salary relief on a player who will leave at season’s end as a free agent, and perhaps a warm body from Single-A ball. If the Yankees end up reacquiring Matsui, they would make him the left-handed DH in a platoon with Andruw Jones, further cementing Jorge Posada’s status as a pinch-hitter and occasional starter at first base.

Matsui’s season numbers are not that impressive–a .738 OPS and a mere 11 home runs–but they are better than Posada’s and have also been on a major uptick of late. (Also, remember that Matsui has had to play half of his games in the barren hitter’s wasteland known as McAfee Coliseum.) Since the All-Star break, “Godzilla” has hit .385 with a .573 slugging percentage. If he can hit at even 75 per cent of that level over the final six weeks of the season, the Yankees would be ecstatic. They would also have a more dangerous DH available to them for the American League playoffs.

The last impression that Matsui left on Yankee fans was a hearty one: an MVP performance in the 2009 World Series. I, for one, would enjoy seeing an encore in 2011…

***

Another former Yankee happened to be in Cooperstown this week. Joe Torre spent three days here as part of Major League Baseball’s owners meetings. Now working as a vice president of MLB, Torre is handling umpire evaluations and doing his best to improve the performance of arbiters while improving their relations with the players.

Torre is also doing his best as an ambassador of the game. I witnessed first hand how Torre deals with the public. Two families of fans came up to him in the Otesaga Hotel and asked him to have their pictures taken with him. Torre did not bat an eye. Even as one man struggled to make his camera functional, Torre remained patient and gracious. He is one of the people in baseball who simply gets it. We need more like him.

We also need more like him in the Hall of Fame. That should happen in December of 2013, when Torre is next eligible for Hall voting as part of Expansion Era candidates being considered by the Veterans Committee. Now that Torre is retired from managing, he should have little trouble acquiring the 75 per cent of the vote needed for election.

Assuming that Torre makes it, he will go in on the strength of his managing with the Yankees. Any manager who has ever won at least three championships has been elected to the Hall upon retirement; with four titles, Torre has more than enough championship hardware to convince the electorate that he is deserving.

Yet, Torre’s candidacy does not rely solely on his managing. Voters can and should consider a man’s entire career in determining Hall of Fame worth. When you combine Torre’s four managerial championships with what he did as a player–a career average of .297 and an on-base percentage of .365, a 1971 batting title with the Cardinals, five seasons with 100-plus RBIs, and much of the damage done while playing the demanding positions of catcher and third base–it’s obvious that Torre deserves a plaque in Cooperstown.

If he is elected in 2013, then the summer of 2014 will be a fun one for Yankee fans in Cooperstown…

***

Reports of his demise were greatly exaggerated.

Those words would apply very well to Derek Jeter, who has lifted his average to a season-high .291. Right after his extraordinary 5-for-5 game that saw him reach the 3000-hit mark, Jeter fell into a brief slump. Some Internet writers who cannot contain their antipathy for all things Jeter and the Yankees absolutely reveled in his struggles. They treated the 5-for-5 game as a blip on the screen, acting as if Jeter’s subsequent problems were further proof that his days as a serviceable major league player had ended.

Jeter has been on a full-fledged tear since that mini-slump occurred, and though he’s still not the player he once was, a shortstop who can hit .290, reach base a respectable 35 per cent of the time, and run the bases like Jeter does have value. He’s still a better option at shortstop than the scatter-armed Eduardo Nunez or the hitless wonder that is Ramiro Pena.

Yet, some of those critical writers, especially those in the Sabermetric category, have gone quiet on the subject of Jeter. It is no longer convenient to talk about the future Hall of Famer, not when he is going well and again helping the Yankees win games. From them, we hear nothing but silence.

Bruce Markusen writes “Cooperstown Confidential” for The Hardball Times.

For the comic book heads out there…

…check out 1979semifinalist.

It’s a really good blog.

Boo.

Sometimes the simplest thing on the menu is the most intriguing.

My wife and I celebrated our fifth anniversary at Manzo recently. It was our first time at Eataly and we drove ourselves into a ravenous state walking around the market for 30 minutes before our meal. The menu – a fantastic menu for me – swirled before my eyes as every choice seemed better than the one next to it.

I skimmed right past something called ‘tajarin al sugo d’arrosto.’ It was a pasta, though beyond that I had no idea, and I was busy reading menu items which contained words I understood. I got to the end and started to think about my order when I noticed that the last page of the menu contained a glossary of terms.

Tajarin al sugo d’arrosto is a simple dish, ribbons of egg-flour pasta in a light sauce made from the juices of the roast meats. Manzo being a meat place, they have a lot of that juice to go around.

It occurred to me that I rarely order something with such a bare menu description. But the idea of it wormed into my brain and I couldn’t shake it. I asked the waiter to give me his take, ala Alex Belth, and he was a brilliant salesman. He gave me the Indiana Jones “you’ve-chosen-wisely” vibe which made me proud for an instant before I realized I was such an easy mark.

We ordered a lot of incredible dishes, but a week later, I’m still thinking about the tajarin. Still wishing there was one more chunk of bread to wipe in the sauce.

Here’s an attempt to reverse-engineer the recipe, though they have used a different pasta from the one I’m pining for.

Here is an excerpt from Roger Ebert’s forthcoming memoir:

My blog became my voice, my outlet, my “social media” in a way I couldn’t have dreamed of. Into it I poured my regrets, desires, and memories. Some days I became possessed. The comments were a form of feedback I’d never had before, and I gained a better and deeper understanding of my readers. I made “online friends,” a concept I’d scoffed at. Most people choose to write a blog. I needed to. I didn’t intend for it to drift into autobiography, but in blogging there is a tidal drift that pushes you that way. Getting such quick feedback may be one reason; the Internet encourages first- person writing, and I’ve always written that way. How can a movie review be written in the third person, as if it were an account of facts? If it isn’t subjective, there’s something false about it.

The blog let loose the flood of memories. Told sometimes that I should write my memoirs, I failed to see how I possibly could. I had memories, I had lived a good life in an interesting time, but I was at a loss to see how I could organize the accumulation of a lifetime. It was the blog that taught me how. It pushed me into first- person confession, it insisted on the personal, it seemed to organize itself in manageable fragments. Some of these words, since rewritten and expanded, first appeared in blog forms. Most are here for the first time. They came pouring forth in a flood of relief.

The book is due out next month.

[Photo Credit: Babelsdawn]

The farmer’s market wins again. Really, it makes life in the city even better than it already is.

Jim Henson and the Muppets Take…Queens.