Category Archives: Words

Fireworks are awesome

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He’s right, you know.

Regular readers of this site may know that I spent many of my formative years on something of a pyromaniac bender, which included lighting off just about every type of firework I could get my hands on. Usually that just meant standard-issue thunderbombs, bottle rockets, jumping jacks and Roman candles, but one time — I must have been 13 or so — a friend got his hands on something, well… quite a bit larger.

I have no idea how he came by the thing, but it was one of the cake-style fireworks that sits on the ground and spouts off all sorts of awesome. Only this one was huge. Three friends and I took it down to Hempstead Lake State Park, a common locale for teenage high-jinx.

We had to carry it in a hockey bag to keep it hidden. To maintain the charade we actually Rollerbladed there holding hockey sticks, even though no teenager in his right mind would skate over a footbridge to play roller-hockey in a mostly wooded park when there were plenty of fine suburban streets around (Ed. note: “Game off! Game on!“).

We waited until dusk — not full nightfall, in part to keep up the hockey thing, in part because that park got quite creepy at night. We cased out a decent clearing with some good hiding spots and paved getaways (remember: rollerblades) nearby and laid the thing down. The kid who acquired it lit it — his obvious right, though it meant running away on the dirt in stocking feet.

I guess none of us realized that Grucci-level fireworks extravaganzas have to come from somewhere, and that it might be even remotely possible for someone in our social circle to get his hands on something so inexplicably, explosively awesome. Hell, the hiding spot we picked wasn’t even an appropriate vantage point to see the wild, repeated bursts of colors high up in the air and — more frighteningly — near the tops of some nearby trees.

We froze, horrified. We were doomed to be either caught by park police and punished eternally by our parents or burned up in a forest fire of our own devising. Amazing as the display was, all of us only wanted it to end without incident.

But it kept going.

I imagine you realize that when you’re a terrified teenager fearing for your life a few seconds can feel like an eternity. I have no idea how long that thing lasted. Looking back now it feels like it must have been 20 minutes, though I know it must have been closer to one or two.

However long it took, the thing sure was still going when the cops showed up, and we sure were still only very mildly hidden behind a few trees maybe 20 yards away.

Luckily for our sake, the park police were more concerned with the possibility of fire than finding the perpetrators. Drowned out by the noise of the reports, we made a break for it. Last we saw before we stumbled and skated away, two officers were struggling to smother the still-spewing cake with a blanket — an extremely silly sight, really, but one none of us thought to laugh at until long after we rolled our way out of there.

Neither this site nor the SNY.tv blog network endorses reckless use of pyrotechnics without proper supervision. Be safe this weekend.

Sandwich of the Week

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The glorious return.

The sandwich: Double-double “Animal style” from In-N-Out Burger, many locations, none anywhere near New York.

The construction: Two mustard-grilled beef patties on a toasted hamburger bun with lettuce, tomato, American cheese, pickles, tomato, lettuce, grilled diced onions and “spread” — basically Thousand Island dressing.

Important background information: You’ve probably heard of In-N-Out. Hell, you’ve probably even heard of ordering burgers “Animal style” there, even if it’s not on the menu and you’ve never been anywhere near one of the restaurants. By reputation, it is practically the Holy Grail of fast-food burgers, celebrated in classics as monumental as The Big Lebowski, compared — often favorably — to delicacies like those available at Five Guys and Shake Shack.

So the first thing that shocked me about In-N-Out Burger upon my entry to California was the chain’s availability. I thought it was something to be sought out when in the neighborhood to shake down Larry Sellers, not something I’d pass multiple times on drive from the Oakland airport to our hotel in San Francisco. It’s everywhere. I’m not sure if that’s always been the case, but it has been the case every time I’ve been to California — this one time, last week — so in my world that’s how In-N-Out Burger exists: A dominant California fast-food chain.

And definitely that: Fast food. And look, this website has an entire navigational tab devoted to Taco Bell and does not in any way judge more humble cuisines. But In-N-Out isn’t peddling the sort of hip, meta-fast-food pretense you find at Shake Shack, it’s plain-old fast food all the way: Red and yellow neon lights so bright you can’t stare right at them.

Because of its ubiquity and that beckoning fast-food glow, I went twice. The first, I ordered a regular double-double, minus the raw sliced onion — that’s not my bag. The second time, I opted for Animal style, figuring the diced grilled onions would be less intrusive. But I was hungry and I didn’t take a photo. There are plenty of pictures available on the Internet.

So, I guess: What it looks like.

And here’s the regular Double Double just so this post isn’t too texty:

How it tastes: Relative to what?

To my sky-high expectations: A bit disappointing. To Shake Shack and Five Guys: Not as good (more on that in a bit). To the standard fast-food burger chains, McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Burger King: Excellent.

Ordering it Animal-style is key; the second burger I had was so much better than the first that it’s a wonder they keep the mustard-grilling and extra pickles exclusive. They add a ton of vinegary tang to the affair, and even the onions — my old enemy — add a familiar greasy, sweet flavor to the thin, tasty beef patties.

The bun is good — toasting it was a great touch. And the lettuce and tomato are clearly way fresher than you get at most fast-food places, bringing juiciness to the sandwich and maybe helping you forget that you’re actively destroying yourself with red meat (and a side of underwhelming french fries).

But someone’s going to try to tell me that this meat, in terms of pure meaty deliciousness, stands a chance against the meat in the Shake Shack burger in a one-on-one taste test? C’mon. C’mon. Not even close.

Push comes to shove I’d take the Five Guys meat over this too. Plus there’s more of it, and at Five Guys I can find any topping I want — including bacon — right there on the menu with no need to spend time on the Internet uncovering secret codes before I go in. It’s awful cute that In-N-Out doesn’t let you know it’s full array of options, I guess, but really: Why?

But then, I’m not sure why anyone sees the need to pick a winner among the three. They present very distinct burgers and very distinct burger-eating experiences, and all — my various quibbles with In-N-Out noted here not withstanding — are plenty delicious. I will instead celebrate the work all three chains have done in elevating the standards set for this sandwich, as they undoubtedly have. Hooray for cheeseburgers.

What it’s worth: Only $3.15, plus the flight to California.

How it rates: 71 out of 100.

Clearly Canadian

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This morning, I asked Twitter to look up Jason Bay’s stats on Canada Day — which is today, July 1.

This brilliant image is ripped off from our man Patrick Flood at PatrickFloodBlog.com.

Matthew Callan obliged. In 22 at-bats on Canada day, the Vancouver native has only two hits, both of which came for the Pirates in a 2005 tilt in Milwaukee. Bay has walked twice and struck out 12 times on the day celebrating the anniversary of the Constitution Act of 1867.

Disappointed that Bay is, all small sample caveats noted, not the Canadian hero I hoped he’d be, I repeated Callan’s research for another noted slugger from north of our border: SABR hero Matt Stairs.

By my count, in 43 at-bats on July 1, Stairs has 13 hits with six walks, 14 strikeouts, two home runs and a double. That’s an impressive — and very Matt Stairsy — .302/.388/.465 line if you’re playing at home.

I did not repeat the exercise for Canadian-born Larry Walker, Justin Morneau, Corey Koskie, Russell Martin, Joey Votto or anyone else, in part due to time constraints and in part because I want to go on believing that Matt Stairs is the Canadian player that performs best on Canada Day, deserving of all the Molson.

Suburban wildlife getting a lot more terrifying

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Growing up in the Long Island suburbs, the scariest wild animals we ever encountered were raccoons. And no one knew anyone that had actually been attacked by a raccoon, we just knew they had a reputation for orneriness, they hung out in people’s garbage, and they could potentially be rabid.

In Westchester, though, we’ve got a particularly terrifying coyote problem, thanks in part to an old-woman-who-swallowed-the-fly scenario kicked off by the northeast’s out-of-control deer population. Plus, someone hit a mountain lion on the Merritt Parkway a couple of weeks ago and now Greenwich residents keep claiming they’ve seen others.

The latest? There’s a baboon on the loose in New Jersey. The people at Great Adventure claim its not one of theirs, but they are nonetheless working with authorities and encouraging everyone to remain calm, because everyone always urges everyone to remain calm even in situations (there’s a baboon in my backyard hurling feces at my children!) that seem to call rather expressly for panic.

Things I guess I missed while I was away

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Not sure if this is something anyone else noticed or something that even merits a blog post, but Josh Thole seems to have put his early season struggles behind him. He’s up to a .254/.345/.322 line, so it’s not as if he’s the second coming of Mike Piazza, but he’s now well within the range of respectability for catchers — especially 24-year-old catchers.

His defense hasn’t been stellar behind the plate this year, but Thole now has about a full season’s worth of Major League action on his resume, in which he has posted a solid .273/.352/.352 line.

Plus Thole hits left-handed and hits righties well, making him a valuable part of any catching platoon. Mets catchers — primarily Thole and folk-hero Ronny Paulino — have combined for sixth-best in the NL in OPS in 2011.

If you squint

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On the latest episode of the Mostly Mets podcast — which you should check out, by the way — one of my co-hosts (I forget which) mentioned that “if you squint,” you could see how Jason Bay might be coming out of the awful funk that plagued him for the early part of the season.

And that’s true. You can see that if you squint. Bay has his OPS up over the Ordonez Line to .656, a .241/.326/.330 split. That’s still way below standard for Bay, for players making as much money as Bay and for Major League corner outfielders in general, but hey, baby steps here.

If you want to toy with arbitrary endpoints — and I don’t, but I will because it’s Friday and I’m off to a slow start this morning — Bay is hitting .340 with an .887 OPS over his past 13 games. He even has two homers in that span, which feels like a revelation for him.

The last time we watched a once-strong hitter struggle (nearly) as mightily as Bay did these past couple of months, Carlos Delgado busted out with a two home-run game in Yankee Stadium and then proceeded to carry the Mets into an unlikely and ultimately ill-fated Wild Card chase in 2008. I don’t know why I assumed that if Bay broke out there would be something like that, some tidy moment to identify as the turning point where he returned to hitting like the guy who averaged 30 home runs a year from 2004 to 2009.

Maybe Bay’s return to form will be a bit more polite. Maybe it has already started, and only the squinters have noticed.

Still hard to tell. To these untrained eyes, it appears he’s making contact more frequently but remains vulnerable to breaking pitches on the outside half of the plate. But then I never saw quite enough of Bay in his heyday to know exactly what he looks like when he’s going well. I imagine few Mets fans have. So I think our squinting, in this case, amounts mostly to hoping.

But, you know, baby steps.

Hope for the Sanchize?

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Once again, Sanchez backers only have to look to Eli for hope. In 2005, Manning had 17.1% poor throws. The average is about 15% most years, 14.8% last year. But in 2010, Manning’s rate dropped to 13%, sixth lowest where lower is obviously better. Sanchez dropped from 19.2 to 18.2% last year. If Manning tightened things up as he got older and more experienced to the point where his accuracy now grades above average, why can’t Sanchez?

– Mike Salfino, SNY Why Guys.

Good stuff from Salfino. I’d never seen poor-throw percentage tracked before.

Points at Jonah Hill

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The term “Moneyball” is now synonymous with on-base percentage, if mostly for people who don’t read. That misses the point of the book. Still, most Moneyball 2.0 articles take the position that a majority of baseball teams understand the importance of getting on base and keeping the lineup moving, such that it isn’t a way to find cheap, good players anymore. Moneyball-as-on-base-percentage is supposedly dead.

Only, once again, check out these current Mets. David Wright and Ike Davis are injured, Jason Bay can’t hit the ball past the infielders, and on most days, the lineup is Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran, and a half-dozen second basemen scattered all over the field. But they keep scoring runs….

Because –- points at Jonah Hill –- they get on base.

– Patrick Flood, PatrickFloodBlog.com.

OK, I remember what I said yesterday about not getting too caught up in the returns of a couple days’ worth of baseball games, even if what the Mets have done in the past four has been just about the craziest f@#$ing thing I’ve ever seen. But if we’re talking about stepping back and taking in the whole picture, we need to also count these recent games as part of that evidence. They happened, after all.

These Mets have a good offense. They’re third in the National League in runs per game and tied for second in park-adjusted OPS+ and batting average. They’re second in on-base percentage and tops in walks. They’re first in stolen bases and they steal them at a good clip.

They don’t hit a lot of home runs, but they sustain rallies. They do it, as Flood notes, without David Wright or Ike Davis, and with second basemen filling in everywhere. So what gives?

Remember this post? Last season, the Mets gave 1633 plate appearances to players with on-base percentages below .300, by far the most in their division. 1633. One thousand, six hundred and thirty three.

One game shy of the halfway point in 2011, the Mets have given only 173 plate appearances to players with OBPs below .300. One good game from Lucas Duda and that number will drop to 103. There’s a decent chance the Mets will end the season having given half as many total plate appearances to players with OBPs below .300 than Jeff Francoeur got for them in 2010.

Granted, .300 is an arbitrary mark and this is only an exercise. Plus the year’s not over yet and if one regular player goes into the tank before September that figure could spike a bit. But all nine of the guys the Mets started against the Tigers last night have on-base percentages above the league average, as do two of the guys who were on the bench.

For some reason, a few stubborn fools still act like it’s heresy to suggest that a team’s 27 outs are precious, and that clubs should be happy to waste many of them on players with big, exuberant swings that connect on rare occasions and miss on most. But I shouldn’t pander; I will assume for the sake of this post that you’ve now seen the value of a lineup without gaping holes.

It’s pretty sweet, really. Remember that accurate criticism of the Omar Minaya regime that persisted in some circles about how it never complemented great players with suitable roster depth? The Mets have two great players now, but they’re surrounded by a bunch of dudes who actually deserve to be playing regularly in the Majors. So we go on about their grit and revel in their resolve.

People seem eager to credit Jose Reyes for the Mets’ recent run, and good. It’s not all thanks to Reyes but he has been awesome, and if everyone’s going to blame star players undeservedly when a team struggles, the stars should certainly earn at least their fair share of the praise upon their team’s successes. We are still long in Reyes’ debt in this transaction.

Shame about the pitching, or they could really have something here.

The 2011 Mets: Not the worst team ever

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OK, so it’s easy to go back and pick on some anonymous MLB scout now, with the Mets a game above .500, playing like offensive juggernauts, appearing extremely unlikely to wind up the worst team in baseball history. Tweets like this one and columns like this one were commonplace in April when the Mets looked terrible, and they seem awfully silly now that the Mets look decent.

But then that’s kind of the thing. The Mets looked horrible early in the season and they’ve looked downright amazing the last three games. In reality they’re something in between the two, and it’s kind of a scout’s job to recognize a team’s true ability. I imagine the conversation referenced above was a somewhat sarcastic one, and I hope if pressed any paid Major League scout would know better than to think a club that then had David Wright, Jose Reyes, Ike Davis and Carlos Beltran in its lineup was not, in fact, the worst ever. If he legitimately believed that, he should carefully consider a new field.

It’s a good lesson regardless. Eyeballs and small samples can deceive everyone — myself certainly included — and it’s easy to get caught up in thinking whatever we’ve seen happening over a handful or even a month’s worth of games represents something certainly meaningful, choosing to ignore the evidence we have that contradicts our conclusions.

I can point out right now that the Mets are 35-26 since their 5-13 start, and I suppose if I wanted I could chalk up those early-season struggles to a bad bullpen and a new manager and a variety of factors that all for some reason stopped weighing on the team on April 20. And if I run wild with it, I can say that if the Mets play just a couple games better than this new, post-April 20 clip for the rest of the season, well, hell, that’d be good enough to have them in the hunt for 90 wins and a playoff spot even despite the miserable start.

I hope that’s the case, because I’m a Mets fan. But that pesky 5-13 thing, that happened too. A lot of the faces have changed since then, but not all for the better. Some guys have played over their heads, some guys have underperformed. We have to look at the largest possible sample, and that shows a 40-39 team. That’s not the most thrilling or groundbreaking conclusion, I realize. But hey, at least they’re not the worst team ever.