Author Archives: Ted Berg

A White Castle Hall of Famer

Posted on by
5

I will never be President; I will never be a football player. But I am a White Castle Hall of Famer.

– Victor Gradowski, White Castle Cravers Hall of Fame inductee

OK, there’s really so much here. First off, who knew White Castle even had a Hall of Fame? Apparently the ceremonies will be at White Castle’s home office in Columbus, Ohio — the fast-food equivalent of Mecca — and there are 67 White Castle enthusiasts enshrined in the Cravers Hall of Fame.

Second, why the hell isn’t my dad in the White Castle Cravers Hall of Fame? The Daily News article says Gradowski earned the honor for eating five cheeseburgers a week for four years. That’s what, a thousand White Castle cheeseburgers?

My dad has been eating White Castle for like 50 years; I’d venture to guess he has at least quadrupled Gradowski’s total. Dude has an iron stomach. Next year I’m nominating Don Berg for the White Castle Cravers Hall of Fame.

I certainly get The Crave sometimes, and when White Castle was my nearest fast-food place in Brooklyn I went there with some frequency, but I’d hardly say I qualify for the Hall of Fame. Taco Bell, though, is a different story. Does Taco Bell have a Hall of Fame?

More Matt Garza stuff

Posted on by
2

Duda alone would not get a deal done as it would take at least one more player – probably someone with even better prospect status, as Duda himself failed to rank in Kevin Goldstein’s top 11 list this past winter. For that reason, the Mets may have little to no interest in Garza as it is, but their depth makes them an interesting candidate for a trade. Even if nothing comes from it.

– The Process Report

Wait, really? A deal for Matt Garza centered around Lucas Duda? Do it. Do it.

Look: I like Duda as much as anyone; it really seems like something clicked for him this year and he blossomed into a legit power-hitting prospect. But he’ll be 25 on Opening Day, he has only one year of Minor League excellence on his resume, and he’s not much of a defender.

Garza is 27, under team control through arbitration through 2013, and has pitched well and stayed healthy in baseball’s toughest division since 2008.

I imagine it would take a good deal more than Duda to net Garza in a trade. But the Process Report is a sabermetrically inclined Rays blog, not a bunch of delusional Mets fans proposing senseless deals on talk radio. And their main point here is a good one — the Mets have a lot of young depth at the corners and need pitching, the Rays have pitching to trade and need someone to replace Carlos Pena.

Since Garza would likely help the Mets both in 2011 and down the road, dealing for him would not represent the type of imprudent spending I advised against here. If the cost in prospects is reasonable, acquiring Garza would mean taking advantage of a rare opportunity to grab a reliable and cost-controlled starting pitcher, albeit one with a disgusting chin beard.

Floyd Landis fires another salvo in battle for title of ‘World’s Most Detestable Athlete’

Posted on by
3

Floyd Landis’ team manager says it is “ridiculous” to think the American cyclist will face trial in France for hacking into a doping laboratory’s computers.

Landis, who was stripped of the 2006 Tour de France title for doping, is riding for the Orca Velo Merino team in the six-day Tour of Southland in New Zealand.

Team manager Wayne Hudson on Wednesday dismissed as “old news” reports that Landis and coach Arnie Baker might be tried in France for hacking the computer system of the Chatenay-Malabry lab, saying the American cyclist was “not losing any sleep” over it.

– Associated Press

Y’all know I don’t like to idly speculate, but guess what? Floyd Landis put someone up to hacking into the blood lab’s computers and stealing documents. I can practically guarantee it, because Floyd Landis is one of the sports world’s foremost liars.

If you were never forced to edit endless cycling stories for your last job, you might not know that Landis won the Tour de France in 2006 before blood tests revealed unnaturally high levels of testosterone. Landis first claimed it was because he was out drinking the night before the test, then tried to argue that he’s just more masculine than most men and so produces twice as much testosterone.

Landis reportedly told cycling legend Greg Lemond about his doping regimen, in a series of conversations in which Lemond told Landis that he had been sexually abused as a child.

When Lemond was called to testify against Landis, Landis’ business manager called Lemond from a listed number pretending to be his abusive uncle and threatened to tell the world about “how we used to hide your weenie.”

The thing is, I could hardly care less about international cycling and I’m not one for sanctimony over doping, but Landis would seem a whole lot more sympathetic if he just came out and said, “yup, I did it. Just like every other person who has cycled competitively in the last 15 years.”

Because if you were never forced to follow cycling for your last job, you might not know that professional cyclists enhance their performance to lengths that would make Jose Canseco blush, and that doping in the sport is so pervasive that it’s more or less impossible to succeed without doing so.

Cross Adam Dunn off your wishlists

Posted on by
2

The Mets have hired former Blue Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi as Special Assistant to the General Manager.

Ricciardi, if you’ll recall, once ripped Adam Dunn on talk radio, claiming that he “doesn’t really like baseball that much.” Then he said he called Dunn and apologized, but Dunn denied ever speaking to Ricciardi. Ricciardi maintained that the person on the other end of the phone said he was Adam Dunn and said, “That’s quite a prank to pull.” All this is available on Ricciardi’s Wikipedia page.

On the upside, he put together a decent young core of pitching talent in Toronto that didn’t really take hold until after he was fired at the end of the 2009 season.

Ricciardi played infield in the Mets’ system for two seasons in the early 1980s. He told reporters he had a standing offer from Theo Epstein to join the Red Sox front office, but decided to join the Mets when Sandy Alderson got the job. He said he hopes to bring the Mets to where the Red Sox are (in the organizational sense, not moving them to Boston). He stressed the importance of building a farm system through the draft and international scouting.

He said he’s excited to work for a team with the resources that the Mets have.

World’s Champions

Posted on by
1

This just in from the TedQuarters San Francisco desk:

Some Giants fans — specifically, the ones who man the TedQuarters San Francisco desk — have organized a Facebook group in the hopes of bringing back the “World’s Champions” jerseys that the team wore in 1906.

They looked like this:

According to the Baseball Almanac, the unis were the brainchild of legendary manager and baseball fashionista John McGraw:

Since McGraw had also been heavily criticized for his refusal to participate in a post-season series in 1904, his smugness was unrestrained and he outfitted his new champions with the words “WORLD CHAMPIONS” across the chests of both the home and road suits for the 1906 season.

Your move, Bruce Bochy.

Manhattan mini golf

Posted on by
8

Hudson River Park’s newest pier — opening Friday and stretching 1,000 feet into the river — adds a West Coast flair to the Big Apple with competition-ready beach volleyball courts, skate park and kids’ climbing walls.

“It’s like a small part of Redondo Beach here in New York,” Connie Fishman, president of the Hudson River Park Trust, said of the newly rebuilt Pier 25.

Like Redondo Beach, with an ocean pier and a national reputation for beach volleyball, Pier 25 was designed for the active, outdoors set with futuristic kids’ playgrounds and climbing walls, miniature golf, basketball and volleyball.

– Tom Topousis, New York Post.

I suppose the climbing walls and volleyball courts are cool if you’re into that stuff, but I excerpt this Post piece here because of the mini-golf mention.

I am something of a mini-golf enthusiast, and though I no longer live in the city, I’m happy to hear Manhattanites will have access to miniature golf without having to leave the borough.

A little Internet research tells me there had previously been a mini-golf course on Pier 25, but since I never knew about it, as far as I’m concerned it never existed. Also, apparently there are nine holes at South Street Seaport.

This article makes the course at Governor’s Island sound pretty appealing, and though I didn’t get to play it while there for the Vendys, it did appear inviting. It just would have seemed strange, I think, for a lone man, stuffed to the point of delirium, to stroll up for a round of solo mini golf.

And I didn’t notice any moving obstacles anyway. Apparently there are some at the New York Hall of Science — I didn’t even know there was a mini-golf course there — but that’s only a nine-hole affair. Way too many area mini-golf courses are the terrain-based type, which I guess do a better job of simulating actual golf, but don’t feature big spinning wheels that knock your ball off the course or clowns that spit it back at you, Happy Gilmore style.

As far as I know, you pretty much have to go to Lake George to find a course with a bunch of moving, spinning things, and that’s terrible. Not that going to Lake George is terrible, because funnel cake and everything, but it’s just a long way to go to find decent moving-obstacle-based mini-golf. Get on it, local business.