The roast chicken turned out okay on Saturday night–it’s a start, anyway–and the chicken salad was even better yesterday.
Then, with a little bit of help…
I made this easy and delicious apple cake from Dorie Greenspan (via David Lebovitz):
It is a sure shot.
The book is “Around My French Table” and it’s terrific.
Yesterday was the 10th annual No Pants Subway Ride in New York. Man, and I had to stay home (click here for more photos).
Meanwhile, peep this cool New York City Subway Moment by Emily Lemole Smith.
[Photo Credit: News.com.au and Liptick Alley]
From Matt B…The Kinks!
“True Grit” hits Pay Dirt. The Coen’s remake will be their biggest-grossing movie to date. Also, the classic Charles Portis novel has sold over 100,000 copies since the beginning of November.
Nah, it’s not snowing today–though we’re expecting more of the white stuff this week–but we’ve hit a dead-spot in Yankee news. Okay, this has been a slow winter all around.
Still, Chad Jennings offers a few tidbits, Steve Lombardi looks at the Yankees’ first round draft picks since 1990, Larry Koestler takes on some 2011 projections, and our man William writes about the passing of former-Yankee Ryne Duren.
How many days left ’til pitchers and catchers?
[Photo by Navid Baraty]
Yesterday gave us two exciting NFL playoff games. Is it greedy to ask for more of the same?
Knicks play the Lakers tonight in the City of Angels. That might be worth staying up late for…
In the meantime, it is sunny but cold in the Rotten Apple so stay warm, eat well, and let us be thankful for what we’ve got.
Now, press play on this track and get your ass a-steppin’.
I don’t I don’t like handling birds–I always think of the Sledgehammer video–but roasting a chicken is something any self-respecting cook should know how to do. I haven’t done it in years and my mission this winter is to become competent at roasting a chicken. I’ve been thinking about it for a couple of weeks and tonight is the night–the bird in the oven as we speak and will be done in time for the Jets game.
I’ll let you know how it turns out. And speaking of boids, how about them Seahawks giving the Saints hell through the middle of the third quarter?
[Photo Credit: Sarah Shatz via Food 52]
Win or suck tonight for the Jets. What’ll it be?
[Picture by Bags]
That’s what Mel Brooks yelled at a nun one day when he was walking down 57th street (get Kenneth Tynan’s book, “Show People” or “Profiles” for his great piece on Brooks).
Here’s a 1982 Rolling Stone Interview with Brooks conducted by Michael Sragow:
How did you first react to ‘My Favorite year’ ?
Brooks: I said, “Wait a minute, you’re singing my song. What is this – the story of a little Jewish boy from Brooklyn and a guest star on Your Show of Shows? I lived this life.” I looked at Joe Bologna and I said, “That is Sid Caesar.” There’s a certain primitive energy that Joe Bologna and Sid Caesar share, a very basic animal energy . Eat. Go. Sleep. The first thing I wrote for Sid was about a jungle boy who’s been captured and taken to New York City as an experiment to see how he will survive in the big city. He’s interviewed by Carl Reiner. “What do you eat, sir?” “Pigeons. Crave pigeons, go in park, many pigeons in park. Eat pigeons.” “What do you fear?” “Buick, Big, yellow, very danferous. Wait, wait till lights, eyes go out – smash in grille, all night, with club. Kill Buick.” Joe Bologna has the same thing going int he movie.”Send the girl some steaks,” he says, “I’ll send her some steaks.” Nothing romatic, no flowers. To make up with a writer, he sends some tires’ his borther owns a tire store. But they’re very real. I love all the tlittle touches int eh movie. I love when Peter O’Toole realizes that he’s going to be working in front of a live audience. That is the essence of the movie – when he says, “I’m not an actor , I’m a movie star.” There’s a big difference.
Big up Steve Buckley, longtime Boston sports writer, who came out today in a column for the Boston Herald. Wonderful news. It’s sad but true that homosexuality is the last great taboo in American sports. It shouldn’t be, but there you have it.
One day, there will be openly gay jocks in this country and somehow the Earth will keep turning.
As my wife said to me this evening, “Where you put your dick has nothing to do with your ability to hit the ball a country mile with millions of people watching.”
Back in 2003, I spoke with Rob Neyer about homosexuality in baseball:
BB: I’ve been talking about what kind of player it will take to come out of the closet, and I’ve think, like Jackie Robinson, it will have to be a man of great character as well as great skill.
Neyer: Yeah, I think that’s right. And in fact, I think the comparison is apt. I got some flak from some people today in response to my column. I said the first gay player to come out would be a hero, to me at least, along the lines of Jackie Robinson and Curt Flood. People said, You can’t compare being gay to being black. Okay, fine, so it’s not exactly the same thing, although one could argue that people are born gay, or at least with the propensity toward being gay, just as you are born black. But my point was, though I didn’t make it explicitly, is that the thing that Todd Jones is saying about a gay player is the exact same thing that was being said about a black player in 1947. What he’s saying is, Oh no, I don’t have anything against gays personally, I just don’t want them around here because they’ll be a disruption. It’s the same kind of crap that members of the Dodgers were saying in 1947. It’s a bunch of bullshit. He doesn’t want to have to deal with it, that’s what it comes down to. The point of my column was that Todd Jones should be able to say whatever he wants to, without fear of being fined or suspended.
BB: Or getting killed by the P.C. Police.
Neyer: Exactly. But I also made the point that I think he’s full of shit. It’ll be a great day when a gay player comes out. And eventually—I hope in my lifetime—there will be lots of gay players, and nobody will give a damn.
BB: Buster Olney told me that he thinks the first gay player will probably have to be an established star—although he made the point that Billy Bean was in as good a situation as he’d seen for someone to come out, with the Padres in the early ’90s. Do you feel it would take an established star to be able to get away with it?
Neyer: I do. I think you have to have the combination of being a great player and also having the personality to withstand all the hassle. If you weren’t a good player it would become very awkward for a couple of reasons. One, the other players would not be as accepting if you are the 25 guy on the roster. Now if you are the best player on the team, or close to it, your teammates are going be a little more likely to say, Okay we can live with this guy the way the Dodgers did with Robinson. It would also make it much tougher on management if the player wasn’t great. It’s going to cause a disruption; there is no question about that. The media circus is going to be crazy when it happens. And the team will be put in this really awkward position. What if the guy is the 25th guy, and he really didn’t deserve a spot on the club? But they wanted to send him out. People will say you are only sending him out because he’s gay. And nobody wants to be put in that position, no team wants to be put in that position.
BB: Nobody wants to be the Pumpsie Green of the movement.
Neyer: That’s right. For all parties considered I think it’s going to work better if it’s a great player, or at least a good player. I think having him be the back-up shortstop could be a problem.
BB: One of the questions I have is what would a player stand to gain by coming out? Is it simply a guy saying, “I don’t want to live a lie anymore?”
Neyer: Or again it could be a guy who thinks this is important for other gays. That’s talking about the principle. I don’t know if it’s really our job to distinguish between motivations. It’s certainly more admirable if the player is doing it out of a sense of justice as opposed to a sense of “I just can’t live a lie anymore.” Either one is admirable I suppose, and we should be sympathetic to either position. But if there is something larger involved than just, “I can’t do this anymore unless I tell people I’m gay,” it would be meaningful. It’s not a selfless act in that situation, it’s more of a selfish act, which I can certainly sympathize with, and would cheer for him as well, but it wouldn’t be the same as somebody who would do it because he felt that he had a responsibility to make things better.
BB: I assume that there are gay ballplayers just like there are gay accountants. Do you think that teams and the writers who cover those teams know or suspect that some guys are gay, but just don’t want to deal with it publicly?
Neyer: I do think that’s the case. From what I understand, and I don’t know this to be a fact, because it’s been a while since I read anything about it, but I do think that there were people who knew that Glenn Burke was gay when he played for the Dodgers. I think there are gay ballplayers. I have no doubt about that, whatsoever, and I suspect that some of those players are either known to be gay by their teammates or are suspected to be gay. I think that it’s out there; I just don’t think people want to have to deal with what happens when you make it public. Think about all of the players who really aren’t going like you if you’re gay. They are certainly out there. I honestly believe that if a player came out, for the most part he’d be accepted by his teammates. I really think that. Would it be tough? Sure. Would there be some teammates that wouldn’t talk to the guy? Yeah. But you know what? Every clubhouse has guys that don’t get along now. It would just be a different reason not to get along. But for the most part I think they would be accepted, just like we accept gays that we know in our profession. Just like people grew to accept Jackie Robinson. Some of them didn’t like him, and didn’t go out to dinner with him, but they accepted him as a teammate. I think it would work exactly the same way in baseball with a gay player if someone gave it a chance.
BB: Someone’s going to be the Pee Wee Reese and go out and put his arm around the guy.
Neyer: That’s right. It sort of has a different connotation I suppose.
BB: Maybe he’ll squeeze his ass instead.
[Photo Credit: Lucius Beebe Memorial Library]
“Still Life with Violin and Music,” By William Harnett (1888)
Over at Pinstriped Bible, our man Cliff takes a look at the Yankees starting rotation:
Of the pitchers who have yet to reach the majors, there are two basic groups, a quartet of middling arms that have reached Triple-A and the three Killer Bs, the team’s top pitching prospects, none of whom has spent a full season at Double-A. The former group consists of David Phelps, D.J. Mitchell, Hector Noesi, and Steve Garrison, all of whom will be 24 this season. Noesi and Garrison are on the 40-man roster. Phelps and Mitchell are not. Garrison is the lone lefty. Noesi is the only fly-ball pitcher among the bunch. Phelps is the most ready having posted a 3.17 ERA in 11 Triple-A starts last year with an outstanding 4.73 K/BB. Per a recent conversation with Baseball Prospectus’s Kevin Goldstein, Garrison is the weakest of the bunch, and none of them have stuff as good as Nova’s.
The other three arms, of course, are Dellin Betances, Manny Banuelos, and Andrew Brackman. I don’t expect the Yankees to jump any of the three of them to the majors given that they have combined to make just 20 Double-A starts, but if the Yankees get desperate enough during the season, and one of the above is simply dominating in Trenton, they may have no other choice, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, which we very well might given the fact that the Yankees would have difficulty fleshing out a four-man playoff rotation right now, never mind a five-man unit that will allow them to keep up with the Red Sox over a 162-game season.
[Photo Credit: Zimbo]
Dig this cool article in the Times on the simple pleasures of Hash:
At his modest restaurant Stove, on an equally modest block of Astoria, Queens, Mr. Cass makes a hash that many consider the best in New York, a title that he wears lightly. It’s simple, he says: two kinds of boiled potatoes, diced and mashed. Caramelized onions, present in two forms: sliced, and ground. House-corned beef, purpose-made for the dish. The whole of it mixed together on Saturday night, ready for Sunday morning’s brunch rush. “Season it up and let it sit, that’s the only secret,” he said.
The final cooking step is turning the meat and potatoes and onions together in the pan (or on a griddle), pressing down to make the edges of everything crisp up. The ingredients must be jumbled together — made a hash of. If the ingredients are coerced into tidy separate circles, well, that’s not hash. (Chefliness can go too far).
Sounds like it is worth the trip. Or should be something you can make right quick at home.
[Photo Credit: A Girl Named Bong]
Chunks of Funk:
Mario Puzo said that I’m the Don/wwI’mthesh**.com.
I went to pick up chicken soup in my neighborhood last night and when I went to pay I wished the cashier a happy new year.
“Got any resolutions?” she said?
“Yeah, to be kinder to myself.”
“Oh,” she said, and looked at me. “That’s really cool.”
I surprised myself with that answer. Sometimes, you are honest when you don’t mean to be.
I walked outside and the street was clogged with cars. One guy, four cars behind the putz who stopped in the middle of the street, started leaning on the horn. “That’s not going to help,” I said to nobody.
I walked across the street and saw a man in a wheelchair yell, “That’s not going to help!”
I smiled as I walked past him and shrugged, “Sometimes, people can’t help themselves I guess.”
The man glared at the traffic. “Moron.”
“Yeah, you know it’s just so tempting, though. You are irritated, stuck in traffic, it’s the end of the day, and you’ve got that horn right there. How can you not press it?”
“Well, I’m tempted to throw a brick through a window but that doesn’t mean I’m going to do it.”
“Point taken.”
New York is a funny town.
[Picture by Bags]
During the short, cold days of winter the Summer Game is never far from our thoughts:
Originally, blogging inherently meant not only being an outsider but an amateur. Now that the idiom has been co-opted by professionals in the mainstream, it is something different. Or, a blog can be many things–started by an amateur at home, or part of a reporter’s job. Being an amateur means anything goes and so a lot of blogs are not memorable, and many don’t last, but being an independent blogger also grants you a freedom that professional journalists don’t enjoy. I’ve found that the best bloggers have standards and are at least professional in their amateur approach.
In the baseball world, there is a select group of guys who were blogging when I started Bronx Banter back in 2002 that are still going–Geoff Young, Jon Weisman, Aaron Gleeman and David Pinto to name a few. Rich Lederer is one of that crowd. Ah, Rich. Woolly Bully himself. The man who relishes a good fight, a guy who isn’t afraid to piss people off. He’s got chutzpah, I’ll tell you that. We began an on-line friendship in 2003 when we both brought our blogs to all-baseball.com. And Rich has been campaigning for Bert Blyleven’s Hall of Fame candidacy ever since.
A bunch of the all-baseball crew met at the winter meetings in Anaheim back in 2004 (that’s Rich as the Incredible Hulk). Here is how Alex Ciepley described Rich, a big, middle-aged guy who was the very opposite of the nerd-in-the-basement-blogger stereotype:
Rich’s Weekend Winter Meetings Beat was in full effect again Saturday morning. Fresh off an evening in which he had managed to both raise and lower Scott Boras’ ire, Rich was all smiles, eager for another day of baseball highs.
SI’s Tom Verducci was apparently a Lederer target, and I joined Rich, Jon, and Verducci in mid-conversation. Verducci has the glow of an athlete, a rare claim among the writers in the room. Steve Finley had the glow when walking through the lobby on Friday night. Matt Williams, standing alone outside the hotel’s glass doors, has the glow. Even the old-timers, Lou Piniella and Felipe Alou, have it. Verducci, too — if you didn’t know his gig you might think he was a retired outfielder looking for a job.
Verducci might not have known Rich’s gig, either, as Rich directed the conversation towards Verducci’s Hall of Fame ballot. I knew there was trouble ahead as soon as Verducci admitted he’ll only vote for a couple guys this year, and that some of Rich’s favorites weren’t among them.
Sandberg? Close but no cigar.
Blyleven? (Now the kicker.) Not even close.
For those who aren’t familiar with Rich’s player fetishes, Blyleven may top the list. He wrote a beautiful and memorable piece detailing Blyleven’s qualifications last year, and I braced myself when hearing Verducci say Blyleven was “never dominant” during his career. Did Rich’s hair just stand on end? Dum-dum-dum-dum-dee-du-wah. Here it came: 5th in career strikeouts. 9th in career shutouts. Top 20 in a host of other categories. Was Rich able to convince Verducci of the case for Blyleven, or is Rich himself only the lonely on this one?
(For what it’s worth, Verducci thinks Blyleven will get in today, though I don’t know if he was personally influenced at all by Rich’s arguments.)
I remember calling Rich at one point, maybe in 2005, and told him, “Hey, you might want to give this Blyleven thing a rest. You don’t want to be just known as the Blyleven guy.” But I was thinking about Rich as a professional writer and he never had any such aspirations. He is a hobbyist, albeit one with roots in the professional game (his father was a journalist as well as a public relations man for both the Dodgers and Angels). Rich took on the Blyleven cause because he honestly felt that the voting process for the Hall was not completely kosher.
Rich recently told John Paul Morosi of Fox Sports:
“The only problem I have with the word ‘campaign’ is that it makes it sound like this was orchestrated with Blyleven’s blessing, and that couldn’t be further from the case,” Lederer said over the phone this week. “I’ve talked with Bert, and I’ve emailed with Bert, but we’ve never even met in person.
“I’m not even sure how to describe it. I don’t know if ‘campaign’ is the right word or not — I’m kind of at a loss. It’s just something I got behind, because I felt he was very deserving. And this is a way for me to follow in the footsteps of my dad, to put to use my love of baseball and analysis. It’s been fun.”
…“The Internet flattens the world a little and allows someone like me to have a say, an audience, and indirectly participate in the discussion,” Rich Lederer said. “I enjoy that. If not for the Internet, it would be next to impossible for me to have an impact on those types of things. It’s been a great vehicle. People say there have been more words written about Bert’s candidacy than anyone else in the history of the Hall of Fame.”
Lederer is one of the spawn of Bill James (as are many contemporary baseball writers from Rob Neyer and Joe Sheehan to Joe Posnanski), using reason and data to build his case. He has been tireless in his advocacy of Blyleven–something I hope the pitcher appreciates. But I think Rich is after something more than just building a case for his guy, he wants the fundamental voting process to change, to be more considered and thorough. And because of the Internet and places like baseball-reference.com, the information is available. It’s foolish to think that all of the baseball writers will change their approach but some of them might.
Rich is not alone–Jay Jaffe, Jonah Keri, and Craig Calcaterra have helped lead the charge. Still, Rich put in the work and deserves kudos for his efforts. I was wrong when I told him to back off stumping for Blyleven. Not bad for a rank amateur!
