Monthly Archives: September 2013

This is dope: The Serious Eats Guide to Ramen Styles.

Photograph by Charles Marville. 

Phillip Toledano’s beautiful journal. Worth your time.

It was cool in the Bronx this morning so for the first time since the spring I wore a jacket. Happened to have a wool cap in the pocket which was good because it was chilly once I got outside. Dude lives in my building is standing on the steps outside with his son and he says to me, “It’s not that cold you gotta wear a hat.”

Few blocks later I pass by an old woman I see every morning. She says, “It’s not winter yet, you don’t need to wear a hat do you?”

Remember when you were a kid and you wouldn’t wear a hat for anything, not even if it was freezing out? Now that I’m grown I’m not about getting sick, man, so if the shit is cold, I’m wearing a hat.

So, what to take from this story? That the citizens of the Bronx are kids at heart, or maybe they are sad that the summer is over. Both may be true. What’s also true is that certain parties just love to bust balls.

Rays-Rangers and an open thread for to discuss anything that you’d like.

[Painting by Kelly Walker via It’s a Long Season]

Excerpted from From Black Sox to Three-Peats: A Century of Chicago’s Best Sports Writing (University of Chicago Press), edited by Ron Rapoport and featuring stories from the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Chicago Daily News, and the Chicago Defender, among other papers. It’s an excellent collection, and this week we’ll be selecting a story every day to give you a taste. First up: Westbrook Pegler’s “The Called Shot Heard Round the World,” from the Chicago Tribune, Oct. 2, 1932.

There, in the third ball game of the World Series, at the Cubs’ ball yard on the north side yesterday, the people who had the luck to be present saw the supreme performance of the greatest artist the profession of sport has ever produced. Babe Ruth hit two home runs.

Now, Lou Gehrig also hit two home runs, and Jimmy Foxx of the Athletics or any other master mechanic of the business might have hit three or four home runs and you would have gone away with the same impression that a factory tourist receives from an hour of watching a big machine lick labels and stick them on bottles of mouthwash or pop. The machine might awe you, but would you love it?

The people who saw Babe Ruth play that ball game and hit those two home runs against the Cubs came away from the baseball plant with a spiritual memento of the most gorgeous display of humor, athletic art and championship class any performer in any of the games has ever presented.

The Babe is 38 years old, and if you don’t know that he is unable to hike as far for fly balls or stoop as nimbly as he used to for rollers coming to him through the grass, that must be just your own fault, because he would not deceive you. As an outfielder he is pretty close to his past tense, which may mean that one more year from now he will be only a pinch-hitter. He has been breaking this news all year to himself and the customers.

Why, when Bill Jurges, the human clay pigeon, hit a short fly to him there in left field and he mauled it about, trying for a shoestring catch, he came up off the turf admitting all as Jurges pulled up at second.

The old Babe stood up, straightened his cap and gesticulated vigorously toward Earl Combs in center. “Hey!” the old Babe waved, “my dogs ain’t what they used to be. Don’t hit them out to me. Hit to the young guy out there.”

The customers behind him in the bleachers were booing him when the ball game began, but they would have voted him president when it was over, and he might not be a half-bad compromise, at that. Somebody in the crowd tossed out a lemon which hit him on the leg. Now there are sensitive ball players who might have been petulant at that and some stiff-necked ones who could only ignore it, boiling inwardly. But the Babe topped the jest. With graphic gestures, old Mr. Ruth called on them for fair play. If they must hit him with missiles, would they please not hit him on the legs? The legs weren’t too good anyway. Would they just as lief hit him on the head? The head was solid and could stand it.

I am telling you that before the ball game began the Babe knew he was going to hit one or more home runs. He had smacked half a dozen balls into the right-field bleachers during his hitting practice and he knew he had the feel of the trick for the day. When his hitting practice was over he waddled over toward the Cubs’ dugout, his large abdomen jiggling in spite of his rubber corsets, and yelled at the Cubs sulking down there in the den, “Hey, muggs! You muggs are not going to see the Yankee Stadium any more this year. This World Series is going to be over Sunday afternoon. Four straight.”

He turned, rippling with the fun of it and, addressing the Chicago customers behind third base, yelled, “Did you hear what I told them over there? I told them they ain’t going back to New York. We lick ’em here, today and tomorrow.”

The Babe had been humiliating the Cubs publicly throughout the series. They were a lot of Lord Jims to him. They had had a chance to be big fellows when they did the voting on the division of the World Series pool. But for a few dollars’ gain they had completely ignored Rogers Hornsby, their manager for most of the year, who is through with baseball now apparently without much to show for his long career, and had held Mark Koenig, their part-time shortstop, to a half share. The Yankees, on the contrary, had been generous, even to ex-Yankees who were traded away months ago, to their deformed bat boy who was run over and hurt by a car early in the season, and to his substitute.

There never was such contempt shown by one antagonist for another as the Babe displayed for the Cubs, and ridicule was his medium.

In the first inning, with Earle Combs and Joe Sewell on base, he sailed his first home run into the bleachers. He hit Charlie Root’s earnest pitching with the same easy, playful swing that he had been using a few minutes before against the soft, casual service of a guinea-pig pitcher. The ball would have fallen into the street beyond the bleachers under ordinary conditions, but dropped among the patrons in the temporary seats.

The old Babe came around third base and past the Cubs’ dugout yelling comments which were unintelligible to the patrons but plainly discourteous and, pursing his lips, blew them a salute known as the Bronx cheer.

He missed a second home run in the third inning when the ball came down a few feet short of the wire screen, but the masterpiece was only deferred. He hit it in the fifth, a ball that sailed incredibly to the extreme depth of center field and dropped like a perfect mashie shot behind the barrier, long enough to clear it, but with no waste of distance.

Guy Bush, the Cubs’ pitcher, was up on the top step of the dugout, jawing back at him as he took his turn at bat this time. Bush pushed back his big ears, funneled his hands to his mouth, and yelled raspingly at the great man to upset him. The Babe laughed derisively and gestured at him. “Wait, mugg, I’m going to hit one out of the yard.” Root threw a strike past him and he held up a finger to Bush, whose ears flapped excitedly as he renewed his insults. Another strike passed him and Bush crawled almost out of the hole to extend his remarks.

The Babe held up two fingers this time. Root wasted two balls and the Babe put up two fingers on his other hand. Then, with a warning gesture of his hand to Bush, he sent him the signal for the customers to see.

“Now,” it said, “this is the one. Look!” And that one went riding in the longest home run ever hit in the park.

He licked the Chicago ball club, but he left the people laughing when he said good-bye, and it was a privilege to be present because it is not likely that the scene will ever be repeated in all its elements. Many a hitter may make two home runs, or possibly three in World Series play in years to come, but not the way Babe Ruth made these two. Nor will you ever see an artist call his shot before hitting one of the longest drives ever made on the grounds, in a World Series game, laughing and mocking the enemy with two strikes gone.

Westbrook Pegler (1884-1969) was one of America’s most widely read sportswriters during the Golden Age of Sports in the 1920s. He then turned to political reporting, for which he won a Pulitzer Prize for articles on union racketeering, and wrote columns that were reviled in many quarters for their mixture of personal invective and right-wing politics. 

Marc Hermann recreates crime in the city.

From Cinephilia and Beyond, another sure shot.

“Woman with Newspaper” By Richard Diebenkorn.

Welcome to the first official edition of Where & When, wherein you the player try to solve the mystery of where and when a given picture is taken. Because of the success and fun of the Geography Quiz post, it’s been decided to post subsequent games semi-regularly on Mondays and Thursdays. I had a list of rules and regulations sketched out and all, but I’ve decided to kinda let things fall into place by themselves and answer any specific questions you may have as we go along. If you have any ideas or suggestions, feel free to post a comment. Above all, have fun!

Our first challenge comes from Banter regular RIYank who, I must say, gave me the inspiration to make this game, so it’s only right that he leads off:

“I don’t know if this one is easy or not. I would find it quite confusing, though there is definitely enough information in it for you to figure out the location and the approximate year. I’m tempted to say more, but I’m afraid extra commentary would make it too easy.

A Klein bottle full of Brett Gardner’s Famous Imaginary Root Beer to the winner!” – RIYank

My only current requests are that you answer the question fully: Where is the location and When was the picture taken. Also, although you are allowed to use the internet, in the interest of fairness please refrain from using the photo credit for your research. The link is for copyright purposes and may reveal the answer to the challenge, which would basically negate the purpose and spirit of the game altogether. Be sure to credit the sources you do use while answering the question; be it a web page, a book, personal experience, whatever. Feel free to share any trivia or personal experience you may have related to the location depicted, and again, have fun.

The answers will be posted at or after 6pm the next day, so that our friends overseas or on night shift duties can also play.

Have at it!

[Photo Via: Ephemeral New York]

Summer ends and with it a couple of eggplant recipes from Food 52: here and here.

Our pal Kevin Baker’s new novel, The Big Crowd, was reviewed by Scott Turow yesterday in the Times:

The novel succeeds in creating a compelling imagined world. Most of the telling is through dialogue, and Baker’s re-creation of the cadences and diction of another time is impressive. Charlie is described as “a jake guy,” while Toots Shor says of a bet he’d like to make, “I could use the kale.” In anger, Tom barks “Nuts,” rather than the coarser language of today. And the hit men have the colorful nicknames of bygone times: Kid Twist, Cockeye Dunn, Tick-Tock Tannenbaum.

Best of all, the novel delivers on what the title promises, a detailed rendering of the relationships within that era’s power cabal. “A city like New York,” Charlie tells Tom, “it’s got to have great men — not good men — to run it. . . . We’re held together against the chaos by the grip of a few strong men, that’s all.” Baker offers a vast array of secondary characters — cops and thugs, politicians, bureaucrats, clergymen, bosses and hangers-on — who grow increasingly vivid as they appear and reappear in the gradual recounting of various incidents, like the murder of Peter Panto, an upstart organizer on the docks. Actual historical figures, including Robert Moses and Cardinal Spellman, are served up unsparingly.

I’ve read few other novels that portray in such a nuanced way the temptations of power, the complex division of control in a great metropolis and the perils of political deal-making in that environment. Baker doesn’t like the Big Crowd any more than Tom O’Kane does, but, fortunately for us, he understands its workings very well.

[Photo Credit: Mark Nadir]

During my freshman year of college there was a girl down the hall who happened to be dating one of our RAs. The RA’s birthday was coming up, and the girl — we’ll call her Caroline — had a brilliant idea for the perfect birthday gift. Since the RA — we’ll call him Neil — loved to sing, Caroline decided to make a donation to one of the campus a cappella groups, which would then allow Neil to sing a song with them. Ah, but here’s the beautiful part. Caroline chose a love song, knowing that Neil would end up serenading her in front of the entire dorm. Needless to say, it worked like a charm. So Caroline got a gift for Neil that was actually a gift for herself.

All of this came flooding back to me as I watched the Red Sox fumble their way through the pre-game ceremony meant to honor Mariano Rivera. Mo’s been getting gifts at every stop this season, so I knew there’d have to be something special at Fenway, but I had no idea the Sox could screw it up so badly. (I should’ve been paying attention; the Sox can’t do ceremony. Exhibit A: Pedro Martínez and Kevin Millar completely butcher Fenway’s 100th birthday celebration; exhibit B: Big Papi’s F-bomb during the Boston Strong ceremony.)

As the festivities began, Master of Ceremonies Dave O’Brien directed the crowd’s attention to the video board where they showed a clip of the sarcastic cheers Mariano received on opening day at Fenway Park in 2005 after blowing those two saves in the 2004 ALCS. I have to say that I’m curious to know how long it took them to come up with that angle.

“Okay, so we have to plan something for the Rivera ceremony. Any ideas?”
“Sure, why don’t we just give him something cool and talk about how great he is?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Okay, well why don’t we tie it into the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry?”
“That sounds better, what do you have in mind? Maybe Rivera’s greatest moment?”
“Yeah, I was thinking about that three-inning relief stint in the ’03 ALCS. That was wicked awesome.”
“No, that won’t do. Why don’t we tie it into one of our greatest moments? Like ’04?”
“You want to honor him by reminding him of one of his greatest failures?”
“No, I want to honor the Red Sox while we give him a cheap painting!”

I wish I could say that I’m making that up, but they really did choose that moment as the one that said the most about Rivera. To his credit, he simply smiled and played along.

But things got worse. As Dustin Pedroia presented Rivera with the #42 placard which was slid into the Fenway scoreboard each time he took the mound, O’Brien couldn’t just introduce little Pedroia, he had to sing his virtues. “Presenting that gift is another Red Sox player who, like Big Papi, might join you one day in Cooperstown, our brilliant second baseman, Dustin Pedroia.” Who was the ceremony for again?

The next gift was presented by Koji Uehara, whose brilliant 2013 season stands as a reminder of how great Rivera has been for so many years. He really said that.

The ceremony closed with a video montage. I’m not sure if it was produced by the Red Sox and shown in the park, or if it was something that ESPN put together for the viewers at home, but it was more of the same. The first clip — the very first clip of the video meant to honor Rivera — showed Dave Roberts stealing second base in that ’04 ALCS, and the next highlight was the line drive going back through the middle past Rivera, bringing home Roberts. The rest of the video focused on the Rivalry and included Pedro throwing Don Zimmer to the ground and Jason Varitek punching A-Rod in the face. You know, all the touching, emotional stuff you’d expect to see when an organization is honoring a retiring athlete.

Stay classy, Boston. Stay classy.

If you think I sound bitter about that, imagine how I felt once the game got started. When I wrote the recap for last Sunday’s game against the Red Sox, I referenced the Boston Massacre. What happened in Boston this weekend could hardly be called a massacre. It was nothing so dramatic as that. This was a slow death, a syringe in the arm, the victim left to bleed out over the course of several hours — or in this case, three days.

It wasn’t long ago that I believed the Yankees were actually better than the Red Sox. I can’t imagine how I ever thought that.

The Yankees picked up an early run in the first inning after Granderson walked, went to third on an errant pickoff attempt, and scored on Alex Rodríguez’s ground out. It was meek, but it was a run.

Fifteen minutes later, the game was over. It seems pretty clear that Ivan Nova isn’t healthy, but that’s not the way Orel Hershiser sees it. The Ol’ Bulldog believes that Nova simply isn’t trying hard enough, isn’t bearing down, isn’t emotional enough. I don’t want to stir things up, but comments like that sound an awful lot like the criticisms Latino players have been hearing for the past fifty years. But perhaps Hershiser knows better than I do. Maybe Nova simply stopped caring after being the best pitcher in the league in August.

Either way, Nova isn’t right. He was hit hard in the first inning, giving up a double to Daniel Nava, a single to Ortiz, and a homer to Mike Napoli. The score was only 3-1 and there were eight innings left to play, but the hole felt a lot deeper than it might’ve a few weeks ago.

The Yankees couldn’t do a thing against Clay Buccholz after that gifted run in the first. Buccholz was having serious trouble with his control, but the Yankees could never take advantage. The Red Sox, meanwhile, kept adding to their lead in quirky ways, one run at a time.

Jarrod Saltalamacchia was credited with a steal of home in the fourth when Brendan Ryan, the defensive specialist, dropped a throw to second on the double steal, then kicked it around long enough to allow Saltalamacchia to score. In the fifth, Nova plunked Mike Carp with the bases loaded, making it 5-1, then they scored two more in the 6th and two more in the 7th to stretch the lead to 9-1.

The Yankees scraped together a run in the ninth, but it hardly mattered. The game and the series were over. Red Sox 9, Yankees 2.

Of all the games I’ve watched this season, there is no question that this one was the most difficult. The backhanded ceremony, the irritating ESPN announcers, the dominance of the Red Sox, and the increasing possibility of a postseason without the Yankees was simply too much to take. Monday’s off-day couldn’t come at a better time, and not just for the Yankees. I could use a break, too.

Oh, and that song that Neil sang for my friend? Wouldn’t it have been fitting if he had sung “Sweet Caroline”? Thankfully, that wasn’t it. “Only You,” by Yaz. It was absolutely adorable.

[Photo Credit: Jared Wickerham/Getty Images]

Yanks got a ray of luck this afternoon when the Twins came from behind to beat Tampa. In order to avoid a catastrophic weekend, they need to stop mincing around and beat the Red Sox.

Curtis Granderson CF
Alex Rodriguez DH
Robinson Cano 2B
Alfonso Soriano LF
Lyle Overbay 1B
Mark Reynolds 3B
Ichiro Suzuki RF
Brendan Ryan SS
Chris Stewart C

Never mind the scoreboard:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Via: Colorado Democrat]

“Handclapping Song” The Meters

[Photo Credit: Larry Sultan via MPD]

“I’ve always been a guy that’s said bend, don’t break,” C.C. Sabathia said after the game today. “I’ve been breaking a lot this year.”

Sabathia wasn’t great, Jon Lester was. Minus Lil’ Sori, the Yanks got 3 hits, while the Sox chipped away with 5 runs as the Sox beat the Yanks again.

Final Score: Red Sox 5, Yanks 1.

Boo, Hiss.

[Photo Credit: Robert Herman]

Every game is critical now, we know that. Kuroda wasn’t great last night but he was tough and he kept his team in the game. Today, the Yanks once again look to their Big Guy to come up Big.

Curtis Granderson CF
Alex Rodriguez DH
Robinson Cano 2B
Alfonso Soriano LF
Mark Reynolds 3B
Vernon Wells RF
Lyle Overbay 1B
Brendan Ryan SS
J.R. Murphy C

Never mind the Fox announcers: Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Picture by Bags]

Five O’Clock Whistle

[Drawing by Andrew Wyeth]

I played high school baseball with a mountain of a kid named Burns. He was an offensive lineman, really, and he played third base for us. He was the kind of guy who struck out or hit the ball 350 feet. He wasn’t mobile in the field but he had a strong arm, the kind of guy you hated to have a catch with warming up because he threw so hard. One day during infield practice, a ground ball took a bad hop and hit Burnsie in the nuts. He remained in his crouch for a moment and then, in the same position, fell to the ground. I was at second base and it was hard not to laugh. But you had to admire his lack of fear.

I thought of Burnsie last night when Shane Victorino led off the bottom of the 7th with a screamer to third. Eduardo Nunez, no third baseman by trade, took one look at it and ducked out of the way. You couldn’t blame him but it was play he had to make. It was the last hitter that Hiroki Kuroda faced and before the inning was over the Red Sox turned a 4-4 game into an 8-4 advantage. Losing the game wasn’t Nunez’s fault, but it was a drag because after giving up 4 runs in the first and looking absolutely lost, Kuroda pitched valiantly.

The Yanks ran into some back luck, hitting the ball hard but not getting hits (having a gimpy Alex Rodriguez on the bases failing to score from first on a double in the gap by Robinson Cano), and their recent string of tough loses to the Red Sox continued. Worse than their hurt feelings was the fact that the Rays, Orioles and Indians all won.

A cruddy night for our boys, no other way to put it.

[Photo Via: MPD]

Yanks are hunting for a playoff spot; Sox are looking to fuck shit up for them.

It’s our man Hiroki.

Curtis Granderson CF
Alex Rodriguez DH
Robinson Cano 2B
Alfonso Soriano LF
Lyle Overbay 1B
Eduardo Nunez 3B
Ichiro Suzuki RF
Brendan Ryan SS
Chris Stewart C

Never mind last weekend: Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Via: The Minimalisto]