Author Archives: Ted Berg

Susan Sarandon ruins something cool

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Little-known fact: I’m something of an expert in Table Tennis.

I don’t mean in terms of actually playing the game. I’m just OK at that. What I mean is that I’m probably one of the very few people to have ever been paid to write articles about table tennis, thanks to my old job editing the now-defunct WCSN.com.

And though that website’s new home at Universal Sports has archived such hilarious masterpieces as “Wathelet shocks show jumping world” (read it, it’s pretty amazing), for whatever reason my numerous articles on the techniques and history of table tennis are now somehow no longer available on the Internet.

Anyway, I think table tennis is fun as hell, because it is. And when I read an item in the Daily News’ Gatecrasher section today that the cast of Gossip Girl was seen at Susan Sarandon’s new table-tennis club, I was intrigued.

Now I recognize that I’m not exactly running in the same social circles as the cast of Gossip Girl and any club they’re hanging out at is probably not my speed, but I figured maybe that would be a cool trend to trickle downhill to schlubs like me: a bar filled with Ping-Pong tables.

Why not? All my favorite bars are the ones with something to entertain me in them (besides, you know, booze), like a pool table or skee-ball machine or even, in times of desperation, Trivia Whiz or Photo Hunt.

And Ping-Pong is more fun than all of those things, with the possible exception of skee-ball, so having a bar where I could play it would be sweet. Plus it’d become a pretty obvious place to host beer-pong tournaments, which I never participate in but frequently bet on at parties.

But it turns out, Susan Sarandon’s new table-tennis club is not a “club” in the bar sense of the term “club,” but a “club” like a golf club or a polo club. Check it out: It costs $1000 to join.

Look, Susan Sarandon: Table tennis is awesome. We all agree on that. But part of what makes it awesome is that it’s kind of silly. Yes, it’s really fun to posture after Ping-Pong matches and act like you’ve won something actually important. But it’s not something actually important. It’s Ping-Pong. And you’ve taken that posturing way too far, Susan Sarandon.

And yeah, I recognize that it’s played on the Olympic level and it’s taken really seriously in places that are not the U.S. or Canada. I get that. But people take show jumping and curling and the two-man luge seriously, and those are all really silly too.

Oh, and apropos of nothing other than the interplay between Ping-Pong and sillyness: One of China’s top table-tennis players is named Wang Liqin. No disrespect, but how unfortunate.

Greatest hits, pt. 2 and general housekeeping

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If you missed it earlier this week, I added my five most-trafficked SNY.tv columns to the right column of this page, mostly just so I could have something there. But I promised to add my five favorite SNY.tv columns, and so here’s that.

Most of them are from this year, which I suppose makes sense if I’m theoretically improving with practice.

One alarming trend I noticed was that most of my favorite columns came within a month-long period from April 21 to May 21 of this season, so maybe I’ve already peaked.

Anyway, in no particular order:

Other things Steve Phillips said, May 21, 2009.
The less-read companion piece to “Things Steve Phillips said.” Way too long, but it summed up a lot of how I feel about baseball in general. It narrowly beat out a similar article from the previous May.

Moving out, moving on, Feb. 2, 2009.
This is my recap of the fan-organized funeral for Shea Stadium over the winter. It was sad, and I was sad, and I had to spend a ton of time de-wimpifying the column. Still turned out quite wimpy, though.

Mind games, April 30, 2009.
A call to stop speculating on players’ mental states based on what we see of them on the field and through the media. Basically a rehashing of what I always write, which is basically that I know nothing and probably neither do you.

Gone to market, Jan. 15, 2009.
I was trashed for this one in message boards by people asking how I expected Omar Minaya to tell the future, but it’s a solid summary of what have been my main criticisms of Minaya.

Abraham Nunez?, June 6, 2008.
Honestly, I have no idea how I didn’t win a Pulitzer for this epic. This one cracks me up, because it’s a clear case of what happens when I remove my mask of sanity. Chris Carlin bashed it on Loud Mouths, and maybe rightfully so, because it’s about Abraham Nunez. But the Mets’ bench really did suck that year.

Those have been added to the sidebar. I have also added, as per Anit’s suggestion, a link to the embarrassing photos of Cole Hamels post for anytime anyone needs a pick-me-up. Being a Mets fan is tough, and New York City can be a cold place, but neither is anything that a picture of Cole Hamels with his dog in a backpack can’t cure.

Lastly, I’ve added two videos to the “About Ted” page. One of them got me in trouble for drinking on camera, and then got me an Emmy nomination (!?). The other one allowed me to just go mess with people in Shea Stadium.

Past the breaking point

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A couple of readers in the Voice of the People section in today’s Daily News, apparently responding to some earlier discussion that I missed, suggested that Johnny Vander Meer’s record of two no-hitters in a row is the baseball record least likely to be broken.

That could be true, but — and not to diminish the accomplishment, because it’s amazing — it sort of feels like a bit of a novelty record, no? I mean, Vander Meer’s dominance over those two starts is crazy, but it also feels like a crazy run of luck. It’s a pretty safe bet that no one’s ever going to break Fernando Tatis’ record for grand slams in an inning, either.

I feel like the record least likely to be broken that is often overlooked — and this is a pretty record-ish record — is Cy Young’s ridiculous 511 wins. The game has changed drastically since Young played, and so we almost look at that like a footnote more than anything — a novelty itself — but it’s no less amazing. Walter Johnson is the only other pitcher to break 400.

Basically, for anyone to even come close to Young’s record at this point, teams will have to radically change the way they use pitching staffs in some unforeseen way. I strongly doubt anyone is ever again given the opportunity to throw 400 innings in a season — and rightfully so, since so many of the circumstances have changed.

But that dude must have had some kind of arm.

The definition of ambivalence

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Back when I supported myself by tutoring for the verbal SATs, I spent a lot of time explaining to high schoolers the difference between indifference and ambivalence.

Indifference means you’re impartial or you don’t care. Ambivalence means you have mixed or contradictory feelings, hence the prefix ambi-, meaning both.

I can’t think of anything in New York sports in recent years that I’ve been more thoroughly ambivalent about than the Atlantic Yards landgrab that would move the Nets to Brooklyn, which is hotly contested and going to state supreme court tomorrow.

I lived about five blocks from the proposed site from 2005 until August, first in Prospect Heights, just south, then in Fort Greene, just north. I loved living in Brooklyn, in both spots. It fit me in some way that I can’t say anyplace else I’ve ever lived has.

On one hand, I feel like there are a ton of people there who would absolutely embrace a professional team and create one of the most diverse and energetic fanbases in the league. On the other, I certainly recognize that eminent domain seems unfair, and I find it difficult to argue in favor of kicking people out of their homes against their will.

But progress is progress, and a lot of times unfortunate people have to be displaced for decisions a community — since the city’s and borough’s elected officials are in favor of the development — deems necessary for continued growth. On the other hand, the traffic at Flatbush and Atlantic already sucks, and I could only imagine what it would be like the night of a Nets game, even if the spot is a huge subway and LIRR hub.

I love contemporary architecture, and I hate when people make new buildings that are supposed to look old, so I think it’s cool that Brooklyn would theoretically have a huge 21st century skyline. On the other hand, I’m not at all fond of Frank Gehry’s work and many of the proposed skyscrapers looked completely ridiculous. Then again, I hear Gehry’s off the project, but that in turn makes me worry about whatever they’ll settle on eventually.

I guess my issue is that there’s so much information out there about the project, but it’s very difficult to find any from anyone without some sort of agenda. It seems likely to happen, but not nearly to the scale initially planned.

So that’s cool, I guess. I still don’t know.

Who’s the real Carlos Beltran?

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Marty Noble, in a mailbag for Mets.com, says the Mets are “boxed in” with Carlos Beltran and probably could not trade him even if they wanted to because of the money he’s owed.

That’s probably true. As great as Beltran is, it’s tough to imagine a team wanting to give up much of value for a guy coming off an injury-plagued season with two years remaining on a huge contract.

Beyond that, trading Beltran, one of the very best players in the game from 2006-2008, would likely amount to selling low for the Mets.

I don’t think it’s even really worth discussing, and, since Beltran is my favorite Met to watch, I would never advocate trading the guy. But there are couple of red flags on Beltran that make me a little nervous about his next two years.

According to Bill James’ Plus/Minus, Beltran went from being one of the top center fielders in baseball in 2007 and 2008 to just slightly above average in 2009. Obviously he was injured, plus defensive stats tend to fluctuate pretty wildly anyway, but that big a dropoff can’t be a good sign.

More alarmingly, and sticking with the BillJamesOnline theme, Beltran went from being consistently one of the best baserunners in baseball (averaging a net gain of about 42 bases a year from 2002-2008) to being a -3 in 2009. That’s a pretty tremendous downfall, and not something that can be explained by a couple of failures to slide.

Naturally, both of these are speed-related problems and so, if Beltran is healthy, we should expect the numbers to head back toward his mean. But his injury was a vague one and I’m a paranoid Mets fan. I can imagine nothing worse than seeing Beltran become an injury-plagued or ineffective albatross in his last couple of seasons with the team, somehow empowering all the misguided fans who have forever felt he was overpaid and apathetic.

Of course, all that said, he did hit .325/.415/.500 in 2009. So, you know, even if he’s not quite Carlos Beltran in 2010 and 2011, smart money says he’ll still be really awesome.

Items of note

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Mets’ top pitching prospect Jenrry Mejia will make his AFL debut today. Ike Davis had a pretty decent day there yesterday.

The Jets’ defense is appropriately chagrined.

Jay-Z is unwilling to perform “Yankees Rule This Town”, a parody of his “Rule This Town.” Really? Shocker. Joan Jett covered “I love Rocky Road” like a billion times.

(FWIW, I once pool-hopped at a house that supposedly belonged to Joan Jett. Also, there’s probably a special ring of hell for wacky morning DJs on Top 40 stations.)

In advance of the big fella’s start on Friday, Steve Lombardi at WasWatching.com breaks down CC Sabathia’s starts with between 7 and 10 days of rest. There’s no real identifiable pattern, it appears.

Terrifying item of utmost concern

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I know I promised no more than one non-sports post a day, but I don’t think this constitutes breaking that promise. This horrifying bit of news is entirely connected to sports:

The price of  chicken wings is skyrocketing.

More on this will certainly follow in the coming days, but I must now go to ShopRite to start hording. I recommend you do the same. Boneless wings are not wings.

From the Wikipedia: Godwin’s Law

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The second in the From the Wikipedia series highlights Godwin’s Law, which states that, as any threaded online discussion continues, the probability of a comparison involving NAZIs or Hitler approaches one.

This is both hilarious and pretty obviously true. People love nothing more than comparing one another to Hitler to make their points. And it’s funny because it’s such a pointless thing to do and a bad way to prove an argument.

One of the reasons I’m really excited to have this blog is that it provides a forum through which to more directly interact with readers, because I’m certain that’s where journalism is going. And I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the volume of comments so far, considering this blog technically hasn’t even launched yet.

But please, keep it civil. Hitler, I promise, is not lurking in the comments section of sabermetrically inclined New York sports blogs. Let’s assume that the people who make their way here are smart, reasonable humans with interesting and worthwhile opinions, and let’s not call each other morons until we prove it to be so.

Flushing Fussing’s greatest hits, pt. 1

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I’m looking for content with which to fill out the sidebars here, and I got the idea from Alex Belth and the folks at Bronx Banter to link up some of my greatest hits, so to speak, from SNY.tv.

I realize that’s a bit self-serving, but so is this entire blog, so, you know, whatever. Anyway, I figured I’d break in down into two groups of five: The five most trafficked, and my five personal favorites.

It’ll take me a while to figure out my five favorites, especially since I’m rarely thrilled with the stuff I write and I’ll be biased against the columns that have turned out wrong. But here are the five most popular:

1) Things Steve Phillips said, May 18, 2009.

If my life’s greatest accomplishment turns out to be defending Carlos Beltran from Steve Phillips, I’ll be fine with that. For whatever reason, many of my most popular columns, it seems, are the ones written in blind rage, and this was one of those.

Probably because I was the only person with the patience to transcribe the nonsense Phillips spewed, the column got linked all over the place, including by Joe Posnanski, one of my favorite sportswriters, and by Maxim Magazine. I guess it had a broad appeal. Plus, it got me quoted in the New York Post. It was weird.

2) What’s next for Minaya, Jan. 30, 2008

My reaction to the Johan Santana trade. This one was so popular, I’m certain, because of the surge in traffic to this site and MetsBlog.com surrounding the deal.

This is funny to me for a number of reasons. I obviously can’t contain my excitement over Santana, but the column gets at a lot of the main points I always make, about the importance of not trading the farm and searching the scrap heaps for cheap talent. Mostly, it’s funny because there are copy-editing mistakes aplenty, and because it’s the first time I mention Val Pascucci — except I spell his name wrong.

3) Why I like Carlos Beltran, July 9, 2008.

More Beltran love. This one I liked. The only one here that could be a crossover candidate for the five personal favorites. (Sneak preview: It won’t be, only because it’d be weird to have it linked twice.)

4) Help from the Far East, Oct. 16, 2007

This one, a rundown of the available Japanese pitching talent, comes with a funny anecdote. Apparently it was so loaded up with falsehoods and general ignorance that it inspired Patrick Newman to start his fantastic English-language Japanese baseball site, NPB Tracker. As someone who spends so much time rallying against ignorance in the mainstream media, I humbly appreciate the irony.

In my defense, NPB Tracker obviously didn’t exist at the time, so I was attempting to do what I could with the data available to me. I caught up with Patrick for an interview a year later.

5) An egging most baffling, July 10, 2009

Another column penned quickly in anger. I remember I was on the B Train heading over the Manhattan Bridge to Brooklyn after work when I got a text message from my buddy Jake Rake, just saying, “Jeff Francoeur, really?” The train was back underground before I could figure out what he meant, but I obviously knew something was up. By the end of the 10-minute walk from the station to my apartment, I had the bulk of the column written in my head, and it was on the site about an hour later.

Obviously, Francoeur played a lot better than I expected. A lot. So maybe it’s egg on my face once more. And I know a lot of Mets fans are now sold on the guy. I’ll know better than to totally thrash a deal like this next time, but I’m definitely not willing to say I was wrong yet.

Let’s not go nuts over Yorvit Torrealba

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Mike Silva, in a post to New York Baseball Digest, reminds us that Mr. Rocktober, Yorvit Torrealba, was nearly a Met.

It’s true. And Torrealba deserves credit for coming through in the clutch a bunch of times after a brutal year in which his son’s kidnappers made fun of his batting average.

But I suspect there’s a whole ton of randomness at play here. Torrealba did knock the crap out of the ball in 36 high-leverage at-bats in 2009, according to baseball-reference.com, but a) it’s 36 at-bats and b) across his career, Torrealba has been slightly worse in high-leverage situations than in others.

Torrealba had a nice season for a catcher, hitting .291 with a .351 OBP and a .380 SLG, but he posted a .355 batting average in balls in play. Considering his career BABIP is .296, I’m willing to bet there was a little bit of luck involved. Granted, Torrealba’s line-drive rate increased, too, but I, for one, wouldn’t bet on him maintaining either.

In the two years since the Mets backed out of their Torrealba deal and obtained Brian Schneider, Torrealba has posted an 81 OPS+ to Schneider’s 80. Schneider has played a good deal more over that time, though Torrealba obviously had a lot to deal with off the field this season.

Straight up, Torrealba overcame some horrific personal adversity to have a decent season and should be lauded for that. Maybe the run of apparent good luck at the plate was some sort of karmic repayment toward the debt of what happened to his family. But he’s not a better hitter than even Schneider, so it’s hard to get too upset that the Mets missed out on him.

Of course, I’d like it if the Mets could have kept Lastings Milledge, but I fear I’m in the minority there.