Category Archives: Words

Wrigley wakes up

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Walking up Wrigley Field’s concrete ramps to the press box this morning, I caught the inimitable smell of hot cotton candy. I turned a corner and spotted the vendors, at the machine, forming the confection. Around and around, again and again. Sweet and colorful, but nutritionally devoid and questionably palatable.

The Cubs haven’t won a World Series in over 100 years. It seems like every offseason they go about building their team the entirely wrong way. Buy high, sell low. Reward veterans for one good campaign. The whole thing. Around and around, again and again.

And yet the fans keep showing up. Some reporter doing a radio interview on the phone behind me just said that a crowd of 35,000 is a bad day for Wrigley. Seems accurate. Seems like none of them ever boo, either.

It’s weird.

So I’m here

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I’m set up in my hotel room now after a flight, a hotel check in, some blazing-hot sriracha chicken fingers from Goose Island, a Mets loss to the Cubs game and then about a half hour’s worth of computer trouble.

I had a more fully formed post in my head about this city but it will have to come later. I should mention that I may have said, “I like Chicago,” previously here, but I talk out my ass. I’ve spent about 72 enjoyable hours in Chicago before landing here today. I liked the very small sample of Chicago I was exposed to in the midst of a whirlwind baseball tour that put it up for comparison with such utopias as Detroit, St. Louis and Peoria.

I really don’t know anything about Chicago and I don’t imagine I’ll learn enough in the next 72-some hours either. It seems civilized, even to a lifelong New Yorker, someplace I could handle living if my home metropolis got swallowed up by the sea or destroyed by Godzilla or something.

And it produces good comedy and, I’m told, great pork, so that’s cool.

But I’m not even sure I know why Chicago is here. Why is Chicago here? I’m guessing shipping. I know it was a big railroad hub and it’s right on the Great Lakes, so that would make sense.

Anyway, there’s that to figure out, plus something about Cubs fans I’m working on. But now I’ve got to go see a man about a sandwich. This was something of a lost day on the blog and on the Twitter due to all sorts of technical hangups and shortsighted decision making on my part. Tomorrow and Sunday there’ll be much more from the Windy City, which is, indeed, quite windy.

“Hey Malcovich, think fast!”

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I’ve always wanted to be mildly famous. Not like big-time Tom Cruise famous where the paparazzi follows you everywhere, because that seems like a huge pain in the ass. Just like about as famous as James Rebhorn, the guy who played the secretary of defense in Independence Day, because I feel like being that amount of famous makes everything you do exponentially funnier.

Think about it: If you popped a tire and Tom Cruise helped you jack up your car, you’d be like, “that was weird… what a freak, he obviously wants his ego stroked or something, that’s creepy.” But if James Rebhorn pulled over and bailed you over, you’d be all, “Sweet, Rebhorn! This guy plays a sniveling bureaucrat in like a billion different movies,” and you’ve have a hilarious and random story to tell your friends for the rest of your life.

And it doesn’t even have to be James Rebhorn being a good samaritan. It’d be just as funny if James Rebhorn cut you off on the parkway or if you pulled up next to James Rebhorn at a red light and saw him pick his nose. Pretty much any vehicular interaction you could have with noted character actor James Rebhorn would be a funny one.

I know this for a fact because the younger brother of one of my friends once got into a fender-bender with the actor David Paymer, and I still find that funny.

I listed two character actors but any other means of minor fame is fine by me too. Character actors just the most identifiable random not-quite-famous people, for whatever reason.

Anyway, part of the fallout from this job is that on rare occasion people actually do recognize me from the video stuff I do on SNY.tv, which I enjoy, in part because I’m tremendously vain and in part because it feels like a very small step toward that Rebhorn stature I so desperately desire.

By “on rare occasion,” by the way, I mean “almost never.” Sometimes at Citi Field, but only three times when I’m not walking around the place where the Mets play with a credential around my neck that says my name on it.

One time was some guy in a bar who saw my stuff on MetsBlog. Not a particularly notable interaction.

Another time I was in a parking garage waiting for the attendant to bring my car around. A businessman was sitting in his car, nearly ready to pull out, and rolled down his window.

“Hey, are you Ted Berg?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said, excitedly.

“I’ve seen your stuff,” he said, almost in disgust, as he rolled up the window.

The third time was last night outside MCU Park in Brooklyn.

I didn’t stay for the Cyclones’ last night. I wanted to because I love that park and I wanted to see some of the Wallyball everyone has such strong opinions about, but for a variety of reasons I also wanted to get home and I feared the hours worth of traffic I faced.

But before I left Coney Island, obviously, I stopped to get a cheese dog at Nathan’s.

Look: I’ve never been what you’d call a skinny dude. I played offensive line in high school football, and even then I carried a few extra pounds around my midsection. I like food a lot. I’m cool with it. I realize I could be healthier, eat better, work out more, all that, but that would mean not eating cheese dogs when I’m in Coney Island, and that’s inconceivable to me.

And though I’m hardly neurotic, it’s hard not to feel a little bit self-conscious when you’re walking down the street punishing a cheese dog, trying to keep all the excess cheese, ketchup and mustard from spilling all over your clothes, licking one hand clean while carrying a huge soda in the other.

It was the perfect time for some guy to drive by and, from a moving car, yell, “Ted Berg — Sandwich of the week!”

My first thought was, “oh Ted, you disgusting beast, what have you become?”

My second, a few moments later, was that this was a pretty hilarious way for someone to recognize me.

I mean, anyone familiar with the “Sandwich of the Week” series must be a TedQuarters reader, not just someone who sees the Baseball Show videos on MetsBlog or whatever, and so obviously a hero. I very much appreciate that. If you’re reading this, guy, feel free to identify yourself.

Second, it’s funny to think of how it must have been for that guy, who knows me as some sandwich-loving Mets fan, to spot me outside a Mets’ Minor League facility destroying a hot dog, cheese everywhere.

I don’t know if he saw me from far away or what, but I like to think he was all, “hey, that guy kind of looks like that Ted Berg fellow, but I’m not sure… oh, he’s eating a cheese dog, yeah, that means it’s definitely him.”

And I’m fine with that.

Hold on a sec

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Several Miami Dolphins crawled across the field after practice Tuesday — not due to exhaustion, but because they were looking for a diamond earring.

Defensive end Kendall Langford said he forgot to take his earrings off before practice and lost one during drills. He said the diamond was nearly 2.5 carats, which is why he was still on the field an hour after practice scanning the grass.

– Associated Press.

Wait, really? Because my understanding is that if the Dolphins are looking for someone to find lost gemstones around their facilities, they’ve already got a guy:

R.I.P. Roger Podacter.

What’s funny about this

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Jerry Manuel is suffocating from the silence above him.

The embattled Mets manager admitted yesterday that he would “love to know” if the organization plans to bring him back next season, but he also isn’t about to seek out GM Omar Minaya or Jeff Wilpon for an answer.

– Mike Puma, N.Y. Post.

What’s funny about this is that on the Mets’ radio broadcast last night, Howie Rose and Wayne Hagin anticipated exactly that type of gravitas from the Post in response to Manuel’s comment.

But Manuel, they explained, said what he said after having been asked the same question by the same reporter several different ways. Rose said Manuel essentially relented and said, “yeah, sure, I’d love to know,” when asked if he would prefer to know his job status for next season. Because who wouldn’t?

The writing’s on the wall for Manuel, and from a fan’s perspective, you know, fine. He bunts too often and mismanages the bullpen.

Puma’s doing his job obviously, trying to come up with some way to sell papers on the first night of what looks to be a long September for the Mets. But this is a nothing thing. Hagin and Rose dismissed Manuel’s comment as a throwaway line.

Not that it really matters one way or the other, I guess.

Seizing this opportunity

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The Cardinals are fading fast, so I might as well seize the opportunity to point this out while I can: Major League Baseball’s Wild Card system is unfair. A lot of times it works out fine and good teams wind up in the playoffs, and certainly it makes for some exciting pennant races, plus there’s always a lot of randomness at play anyway.

But the idea of rewarding the non-division winner with the best record doesn’t really make sense so long as the clubs play unbalanced schedules. Those Cardinals get to play the bulk of their games against the Astros, Brewers, Cubs and Pirates, four teams toiling well below .500.

And yet St. Louis is only a half game better than the Rockies in the Wild Card race, even though Colorado regularly squares off with the Giants, Dodgers and Padres, all of whom are above .500.

The example isn’t perfect because the Cardinals are only 31-29 against the N.L. Central, so it’s not like they’ve coasted into playoff contention by dominating their weak opponents. But then, what would their record be if they faced the rigors of playing in any other division?

It strikes me that you can have an unbalanced schedule or a Wild Card, but you probably shouldn’t have both. I don’t imagine this system is going anywhere so maybe I’m just an old man yelling at clouds, but to me it doesn’t seem like it would be too hard to come up with a better one.

A while back I suggested (twice, actually) that the whole “Year of the Pitcher” thing might have something to do with the league-wide pitching talent finally catching up to the number of teams after expansions in 1993 and 1998, among other things.

So I imagine Major League Baseball could jumpstart offenses a bit by expanding to 32 clubs and giving each league four four-team divisions, eliminating the Wild Card.

Some would argue that shaking up the divisions would destroy certain rivalries, since in that model perhaps the Mets would no longer play the Braves, boohoo. But extant rivalries would intensify and new rivalries would develop.

Another potential downside would be the possibility that teams in each division run away with it and there’s not much meaningful baseball in September. But that’s basically happening in the American League this year anyway. Unless the White Sox manage to make a run in the Central, the only compelling race in the Junior Circuit is which A.L. East team wins the division and which takes the Wild Card.

A nice additional benefit to expansion could be the possibility that it would make the players’ union more amenable to some kind of salary cap or a more punitive luxury tax system to prevent the Yankees from doing what they do, which seems to piss people off so much. The Mets annually show us that there’s no strict correlation between payroll and winning, but I suppose it wouldn’t hurt the game to level the playing field a bit.

And I don’t know about that stuff and I haven’t thought it all the way through. I just know that if the Cardinals manage to scrap out the Wild Card this year, it’s kind of a travesty given how much harder the haul has been for the teams in the other N.L. divisions.

I realize, of course, that lots of things about baseball aren’t fair and that random events like that are a big part of the game, but I do feel the onus should be on the league to make everything as equitable as possible.

Fatherly heroics

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During the decisive fourth inning of the Yankees-A’s tilt last night, Mark Teixeira unloaded a massive moonshot towards our seats, Bob Iracane calmly stood up, pointed his glove towards the heavens, and easily snagged Teixeira’s thirtieth tater tot of the year.

– Rob Iracane, Walkoff Walk.

Funny recap from Rob at Walkoff Walk of how his father caught Teixeira’s home run last night.

My own father caught a moonshot in his very first game at Citi Field last year, except by “moonshot” I mean “softly hit Ramon Castro foul ball” and by “caught” I mean “had it land right in his damn nachos.” But hey, at the time we had no idea that Ramon Castro foul balls would be in such short supply at Citi Field.

The nachos, miraculously, were mostly OK.

Just sayin’s all

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According to a source, the Mets are willing to engage in extension talks with Dickey this offseason, in lieu of salary arbitration or a one-year deal. Dickey is arbitration-eligible for one more season, meaning he will be under team control in 2011 regardless of whether he agrees to a new contract. Because of that, the Mets could wait to see if the 35-year-old knuckleballer can duplicate his 2010 success.

But according to people familiar with the Mets’ thinking, the team has determined that Dickey’s performance this year (9-5, 2.57 ERA) is not a fluke. Therefore, the Mets are open to a contract extension that would keep the pitcher from becoming a free agent after next year.

– Andy Martino, N.Y. Daily News.

Let me start by saying I love R.A. Dickey as much as the next guy. He’s a knuckleballer, for one, and who doesn’t appreciate a knuckleballer? The world needs knuckleballers. They allow 29-year-olds who can’t throw harder than 65 miles an hour to maintain some small hope of a Major League career. That’s important.

Plus he reads literature, philosophizes, and would be a ballboy at the U.S. Open but won’t part ways with his beard. Oh and he makes a hilarious face when he pitches. Plus he’s got a 157 ERA+. The guy is a hero any way you slice it.

And so I won’t immediately say talk of an extension is a bad idea, especially since Dickey has been unbelievable this year. But I’ll say a couple of things about the discussions worry me, even if I don’t put too much stock in any anonymously sourced stories. Remember that last year at this time we were hearing lots of talk of a Jeff Francoeur extension.

First of all, I was under the impression — or at least under the rampant speculation — that the Mets would have a new GM by November. Word of an extension for Dickey shouldn’t help dispel rumors of a muddied organizational structure or that the new hire will come from within. So there’s that.

The second thing is that, though there’s evidence that Dickey has been getting better for a while now, and though I don’t want to be the person to stomp all over an awesome thing, 20 starts is not nearly enough of a sample to call something “not a fluke.”

I hope and want for Dickey to be great, and since I don’t know the terms of the rumored extension there’s no real point in fretting about it too much. I can’t imagine the Mets would actually pay him like he’s going to be one of the 10 best pitchers in the National League. Which is good, because that would be ridiculous.

Dickey is a different pitcher from Tim Wakefield because he throws harder and throws his knuckleball at two different speeds, but Wakefield’s the best comparison we have in recent vintage since he’s pretty much the only other successful knuckleballer. And look what Wake did to the National League when he broke in with the Pirates in 1992 and the American League when he resurfaced in 1995. Kind of looks a lot like what Dickey’s doing this year.

Wakefield was a decent and valuable pitcher for the Sox for a very long time, but outside of a blip year in 2002 he was never again what he was in his first time around the league in 1995. And so I fear the same might be true for Dickey.

The Mets will always need effective innings, and it seems like guys who can control knuckleballs will be able to provide those. And so Dickey should be that. I just don’t know that it’s reasonable to expect him to continue dominating National League hitters once they’ve seen his signature pitch a few more times. I wouldn’t necessarily say this is a fluke, I’d say it’s the perfectly natural progression of a deceptive pitch.

‘Mass Transit Menace’ totally awesome

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Mass transit menace Darius McCollum racked up his 27th arrest in three decades Tuesday by taking a Trailways coach on a cross-state joyride.

The 45-year-old transportation-obsessed oddball went from the driver’s seat to a holding cell after cops caught him with the hot wheels in Queens.

“I’ll bet they won’t leave the keys in the ignition,” McCollum told the arresting officer. “I’ll bet they’ll be more careful now.”…

No one was hurt and the bus was in tiptop condition. That’s how it’s been in every McCollum escapade since he commandeered an E train and drove to the World Trade Center in 1981 when he was just 15.

– New York Daily News.

This guy pops up every few years and every time it’s something like this: He impersonates a mass-transit employee, gets on some mode of mass transportation (or, once, in a control tower), operates some piece of machinery safely and effectively for a while until someone finds him out, then cooperates with the arresting officers. It’s a whimsical story, but he’s hardly a menace.

McCollum has Asperger Syndrome, which explains the fixation with mass transit — not that trains aren’t sweet and all. I worked with a few kids with the disorder when I was TAing in the high school. I’m hardly an expert on the subject, but I think it’s a hard one for even the experts to figure out.

Anyway, if I ever make a ton of money, I’d like to start a charity called the Awesome Fund. Basically, it would raise money to benefit people who do awesome things then need money to cover their legal fees because their awesome actions were illegal, like the JetBlue flight attendant beer bailout guy for example. Plus it would benefit other awesome people who hadn’t done anything illegal but were down on their luck. Also, it would work to raise awareness of general awesomeness.

I’m not sure that Darius McCollum needs money, but I think the ability to effectively impersonate mass-transit employees and safely operate complicated 15-ton machinery for no other reason than that you like trains and buses and you think it seems like fun is pretty damn awesome. And you know what? I don’t even think that makes you an “oddball,” just a guy with a dream and a series of well-thought-out plans.