If you’re looking for stuff to read today, I heartily recommend the final installment in Patrick Flood’s three-part examination of David Wright and the Citi Field walls.
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Category Archives: Words
The Mostly Mets Podcast: Is it good?
Things are going to slow down a bit here today because I’m working on a couple of longer things I’m hoping to publish tomorrow. But I encourage you to spend whatever time you might spend reading TedQuarters to listen to this week’s edition of the Mostly Mets Podcast if you are able to and you haven’t already.
I think it’s good. But I must admit that I don’t listen to many podcasts. Because I spend a decent portion of my workdays writing, I usually prefer the words bouncing around in my head while I’m at my desk to be the ones that will ultimately wind up on this page. I find I can’t even really listen to music with lyrics lest I start drifting into weird and barely intelligible Robert Plant tangents in the middle of blog posts about Taco Bell or whatever. I sit in silence, or listen to my Bad Plus and Miles Davis stations on Pandora.
But that’s me. I want to know about you. Please help us help you by taking this quick five-question survey on podcasts.
College students doing dumb things are not really worthy of your sanctimony
Joe Paterno got fired last night for his inaction in response to the rape, abuse and molestation that allegedly occurred under his jurisdiction.
This is not ground upon which I am comfortable treading, and for that I suppose I should be thankful. Nothing in my 30-plus years of life experience has prepared me to understand what would make someone do the things that Jerry Sandusky supposedly did, nor what would make anyone else protect someone they knew did those things, nor the unspeakable trauma endured by the victims. It’s all way beyond my scope. Sorry if that seems like a copout. All I know is that it’s awful.
But I can add a short footnote, perhaps, in qualified defense of the demonstrating Penn State students widely reviled as idiots.
They are, in large part, most likely idiots. Of course. They’re people, for one thing, and people are in large part idiots. And flipping over news vans in defense of a coach fired for keeping mum about child rape is idiotic behavior, no doubt. Even if you believe Paterno was been made a scapegoat, as they apparently do, it’s just not the most productive way to get your point across. Doesn’t make you look like you have reasonable things to say.
Life at a four-year college offers — to most with the means to attend — a weird, isolated terrarium in which to pass some of our dumbest years free of real-world repercussions. Students drink heavily and make out with strangers, and blow off responsibilities and experiment with controlled substances. There are costs to all those actions, obviously, but generally they’re college-level costs, all of which can be chalked up to the learning experience.
And I know that’s not the case for every student, and I know plenty of 18-year-olds in this country and every other one never get the opportunity. I’m not saying any of it is the way it should be. But it is that way: Some significant portion of this country’s teenagers get shipped off to institutions where they are allowed to spend four years doing moronic things mostly free of adult supervision before they graduate and get body-slammed by vicious reality.
That shouldn’t excuse every stupid thing every college kid does, of course. It’s hardly black-and-white. Plus, they’re still subject to the law, and throwing rocks at cops and indiscriminately starting fires are bad ideas at any age. But if you went away to college, think about some of the things you did there before you scold the undulating masses of chanting morons at Penn State for their behavior. Think about the misguided political stances you took, the pretentious performance art engagements, the spring break indiscretions. What would Twitter have said about you?
To say that the college kids are offering tacit approval of the atrocities Sandusky committed is very likely attributing to them a thought process that does not exist.
They’re college kids. College is a confusing time full of overreaction. Their school and their school’s football program, toward which they clearly feel a lot of loyalty, is in crisis. They’re overreacting. And I’m near-certain they’re chanting whatever stupid things they’re undoubtedly chanting because they haven’t yet found a rhythmic cadence to accompany chants like, “I don’t know why I’m angry at my parents!” and “Every day I grow more suspicious that I don’t matter!”
And you can bet a lot of them just want to go outside to see what all the fuss is about, and then some portion of those just get swept up in the nonsense.
I should note, for the record, that our man Devon is among the rare precociously reasonable college students, and he’s on the ground in State College tweeting reasonable things. Give him a follow if you’re interested in the student’s perspective.
Reality has strangled invention
Just a friendly reminder that on the same day Randy at the Apple attempted (with the help of this guy) to determine the free-agent implications of Jose Reyes’ lunch order, the N.Y. Post attempted to determine the free-agent implications of Reyes’ months-old rap song and several media outlets reported that Reyes ate with Marlins’ brass at Joe’s Stone Crab.
So we beat on.
Classic gyro-eating difficulties
Am I out of line to want my gyro bread bisected and then stuffed: thereby making my it more of a gyro sandwich than a gyro wrap? Tasting Gyros is a mouthparty. Eating Gyros is anxiety inducing. I feel like I’m too worried about how not to spray tzatziki on everyone to be able to fully enjoy the meal. Also, as currently constructed, its impossible to get a consistent bite. I’m either chomping on all bread and veggies or all meat and sauce. There’s like one bite in the whole process that is a perfect mix. (and it keeps me coming back every time). Sure, I could somewhat ease the mixing problem by reconstructing it myself a bit, but I paid for a meal, man, not a job. Who knows, maybe it’s been tried and the bread just isn’t hearty enough to support both sides when halved.
– Cake-Eater, via email.
Lots of classic gyro-eating problems here. I wish I had more wisdom, but truth is, eating a gyro is a tricky (albeit ultimately rewarding) endeavor.
Forget about splitting the gyro bread in half. I’ve only seen one place pull that off — The Little Cafe, near Georgetown in DC — and that place is now closed. Presumably the amount of effort that took ran them out of business. Plus — and as you suggest — though the gyro bread is thick, it’s not thick enough to withstand being stuffed with meat and sauce and vegetables. It worked at Little Cafe because the stuffing was chicken and hummus. Lamb is a greasy meat. That’s going to seep through.
I’d say: 1) The foil is your friend. The best way to keep everything as neat as possible when eating a gyro is to keep as much foil on the sandwich as long as possible. That means tearing it off bit by bit as you eat your way through. By the end you’re going to have one extremely messy sauce-well of foil, but you’re just going to have to face that when you get there. And it’s going to get all over your hands. Cost of doing business, brother.
2) Cut down on the vegetables. Seriously, are you eating that gyro for the iceberg lettuce and mealy tomatoes, or for the delicious, greasy hunks of lamb with tzatziki and hot sauce? See if you can talk the street-meat guy (are we talking street-meat gyros here? I get a good 85% of my gyros off the street) out of tomatoes entirely, and tell him to go light on the lettuce. You won’t be sorry. That stuff is just a third wheel on your date with delicious gyro meat. I get that you want some lettuce in there for crunch, but you’re still going to get plenty — and it’s going to mix in better with the meat if there’s less. It’s physics, or something.
Also, the gyros poster above hung on the wall at a diner in my town. Several times I tried to convince the owner to sell it to me but he never budged. Then the last time I was in there it was gone. What gives? I wanted that poster!
Someone reads meaning into Jose Reyes’ lyrics
Remember when Jay-Z said, “I got 99 problems but a bitch ain’t one”? That was true. At that time, he had precisely 99 problems and none of them involved a female dog.
It’s an under-reported truth that all rap lyrics are meant to be interpreted literally. Seriously. The members of N.W.A. just wanted to encourage listeners to have sex with police officers. Go to Tone Loc’s house right now and you will still see the Spuds McKenzie-shaped hole in his door from the incident with his dog and the Funky Cold Medina.
Somehow, all this has gone unrecognized far too long in sports journalism. Luckily, Kevin Kernan is here to clear it all up:
In his song and video “No Hay Amigo’’ that was released in July, Reyes sings the following powerful words:
“There are no friends. A friend is a dollar in my pocket. As soon as you turn your back your friends want to stab you in the back. A real friend is a glass full of water in the desert to quench your thirst. … Where were you when I used to practice without any food to eat or when I used to spend a week with the same T-shirt? There are no friends. My friends are my mother and my father, the ones who struggled with me to make me who I am.’’
The Mets are no longer Reyes’ friends….
The Mets cannot quench Reyes’ thirst.
Telling.
BREAKING: Jose Reyes eats a sandwich
(Not really.) Randy from The Apple got the scoop that Reyes ordered a turkey club, and came to me for help interpreting the news. Check it out.
What we’ve come to
Look: Einstein was sweet, don’t get me wrong. This site respects smart dudes and independent thinkers, and he was undoubtedly both those things.
But his famed quote about the definition of insanity is, as far as I’m concerned, a blemish on his record. Not due to any fault of his own, really — just because of the frequency with which it is used in baseball discussions, to which it absolutely does not apply.
For the record: The definition of insanity is not “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Look it up. There are a bunch of different definitions, but none of them is that.
I say the Mets should tender contracts to Angel Pagan and Mike Pelfrey, and that they shouldn’t trade David Wright. And you say, “well… that’s the definition of insanity.”
No. No. For one thing, it’s baseball. You’re not talking about controlled laboratory experiments, you’re talking about a sport dominated by randomness.
Hell, look at Mike Pelfrey’s career statlines. Mike Pelfrey mostly throws only one pitch. Mike Pelfrey tries the same thing over and over again and gets different results. In 2007, he did bad. In 2008, he did good. In 2009, bad, in 2010, good again, and then in 2011, bad.
And was Pagan trying to do something expressly different in 2010 than he was in 2011? He suffered through some injuries, so that could explain some of the dip in production. But it’s possible he too tried the same thing and got different results. After all, at least some of Pagan’s struggles must be explained by the near 50-point drop in his batting average on balls in play from 2010 to 2011.
Anyway, I’m getting away from the point. Bringing back Pagan, Pelfrey and Wright (and Jose Reyes, which I’d also advocate) in 2011 won’t mean trying the exact same thing again.
Players change from year to year, and young players (hopefully) improve. There’s some turnover: Carlos Beltran is gone now, Daniel Murphy and Lucas Duda should be in the lineup somewhere come Opening Day. Players returning from injury should help the club’s offensive fortunes. Opportunities given to injury replacements in 2011 should benefit the team’s bench in 2012.
This is, of course, me looking at a nearly empty glass and pronouncing it full. There are a lot of issues with this club, and it’ll take a whole lot to go right for the Mets to win anything meaningful in 2012.
But since given the team’s financial inflexibility, there’s no single feasible move or series of moves that could catapult the club into certain contention for this season, it does not seem at all insane to suggest the Mets make a couple of inexpensive, short-term moves to return players who could bounce back.
Crazy would be… well, crazy would be advocating the Mets non-tender Pagan in favor of signing Rick Ankiel, who is not as good as Pagan.
Here’s what you have to hope happens: David Wright flourishes in the cozier Citi Field and hits like he did from 2005-2008. Ike Davis returns from injury and locks down the cleanup spot in the Mets’ lineup. Daniel Murphy finds a position — at second base, I guess — and keeps hitting like he can. Pagan returns to something closer to his 2010 form on offense and on defense. Josh Thole puts his defensive struggles behind him and again puts up decent offensive numbers for a catcher. Lucas Duda hits like he did in 2011 for a full year in 2012 and either a) plays well enough with shorter fences in right field to avoid entirely embarrassing himself or b) moves to left field when Kirk Nieuwenhuis kicks down the door from Buffalo (assuming Jason Bay is still struggling).
Or Bay, too, benefits from the closer walls, maybe. And Reyes… well, I guess if you’re hoping all that stuff happens you might as well hope Reyes can’t find a better deal than whatever it is the Mets are offering and comes back home to his adoring fans. Oh, and Jon Niese lives up to his peripherals, Pelfrey posts his 2010 line, R.A. Dickey pitches like he did the last two seasons, Dillon Gee holds it together, and Johan Santana resembles at least a league-average starting pitcher.
Sandy Alderson and the SABRos cobble together a better bullpen with scrap-heap guys and Rob Carson types, and come deadline time one of the pitching prospects appears ready for primetime, so Pelfrey can be moved to help address the team’s most glaring need.
That’s what we can cling to, I guess. If everyone in the lineup returns to their best form or enjoys their best possible year — kinda like the way the 2011 Cardinals did, say — then it would be one of the best in the league, and that rotation, if healthy, should be good enough to keep that lineup in games.
Is it all likely to go that way? Oh hell no. But that’s what we’ve come to.
It’s sub-optimal, I know. But I wouldn’t say all hope is lost yet, and I wouldn’t advocate silly moves just for the sake of change. As I’ve said before: The change we’re seeking has already been made. Because of the Mets’ financial circumstances, it’s going to take the new front office some time to make more of an impact. But it’ll come. No need to force it.
Pouring out a sandwich
Non-banned-Ryan passes along the terrible news (that happened a few weeks ago) that Sam Ricobene, a man partly responsible for the best-rated sandwich ever reviewed at this site, has passed away at 79.
Also, worth noting: Banned Ryan is still going. Popped up here again this week, commenting from a new IP address. Seems like he’s a pretty dedicated reader — he even asked about a mobile site. His comments weren’t particularly trolly, but I had to ban him again because this site’s banhammer is absolute. Thanks for reading, though.
Cormac McCarthy reviews Taco Bell
And so the man defied the villagers and ate the taco. In defiance of the will of those people but also in defiance of some order older than he. Older than tortillas. Than the ancient and twisted cedars. How could we know his mind? We are all of us unknowable. Blind strangers passing on a mountain road.
The man laid there in the village square for three days and nights and took no food and spoke to no visitor. The older villagers said that the man should not have eaten the taco and no sane man would do so and the price of such folly was known to all.
If you only read one fake Cormac McCarthy Tumblr, make it this one. Via Tom.
Also, did anyone see the movie version of The Road? I loved the book, but the movie might have actually been too depressing. That’s the type of story you want to be able to put down and space out, I think. Great Omar work though.
Tedquarters 