Mets rumored to be pursuing Rick Ankiel

Posted on January 30, 2012 by Ted Berg

Rick Ankiel’s name keeps coming up in rumors related to the last spot on the Mets’ bench. Ankiel hits left-handed and plays center field, so on the surface level he fits the Mets’ needs for the spot.

If the Mets have concerns about Andres Torres’ ability to hold up in center field over the course of a season and Scott Hairston’s ability to back him up, then I guess Ankiel makes some sense. For whatever they’re worth, UZR pegs Ankiel as just shy of average in center field — no small feat — largely because his outstanding arm helps mitigate underwhelming range.

But if the Mets think Hairston can handle center and want Ankiel because he hits left-handed, then the only thing he’s really got over Mike Baxter is a Major League resume. Ankiel mashed righties to the tune of an .890 OPS in his renaissance year in 2008, but his offensive numbers across the board have plummeted since then. In 327 plate appearance against right-handers in 2011, Ankiel mustered only a .678 OPS. By comparison, in Baxter’s last full season of Triple-A play in 2010, his line against righties translates to a .769 OPS in the Majors.

That’s only one year for both players, of course. But if the Mets bring in Ankiel and Terry Collins maintains his insistence on platoon matchups, they could very well be assigning the bulk of their pinch-hitting opportunities to a guy that’s not really fit for them.

Though if you’re playing at home, note now that it’s Jan. 30 and I’m lamenting the way Terry Collins might use a player the Mets are speculated to be considering for the very last spot on their roster.

But hey, the Giants are in the Super Bowl!

Twitter Q&A flavored product, pt. 1

Posted on January 30, 2012 by Ted Berg

More to come when I’m back from the studio. And on all prospect matters, I normally defer to Toby.

Depends on how you define “prospect.” But unless you count Mike Baxter as a prospect — and I’m assuming you don’t — the odds look pretty long for all of them. Since all the starting jobs appear pretty well set and the front office is unlikely to pull up a well-regarded young player to be a bench player or ~~eighth-inning~~ mop-up guy, it’ll probably take an injury in Spring Training to get a prospect on the Opening Day roster.

But all that said, it’s probably Kirk Nieuwenhuis. Nieuwenhuis missed most of last year with a season-ending shoulder injury, but he has got a few advantages on his peers in the Minor League system: For one, he has about a half a seasons’ worth of Triple-A experience, more than anyone else you’d like call a “prospect” at this point. Plus, he’s 24, he hits left-handed, and he plays the outfield, where the Mets don’t have a ton of obvious contingency plans behind the guys penciled in to start.

Still, it’s unlikely to happen unless a couple things go wrong (and Nieuwenhuis is fully recovered, of course). The Mets will probably want to give Nieuwenhuis more time to develop and show he’s as good as he played in the first couple months in Buffalo last year before they challenge him at the higher level. But since he’s furthest along than the Mets’ trio of young arms and plays a spot where they appear pretty thin, I’d put him down as likeliest to appear in Flushing in April.

Sandwich of the Week

Posted on January 30, 2012 by Ted Berg

No debate about this one. Could have been titled Sandwich! of the Week based on its size and general awesomeness.

The sandwich: Brody Special cemita from Cafe Ollin, 108th St. between 1st and 2nd Ave. in Manhattan.

The construction: According to the menu, the Brody Special is breaded beef, fried pork, ham, white cheese, yellow cheese, oaxacan cheese and pineapple on a cemita — a huge, round sesame-seed loaf. But there’s clearly other stuff on there too, including black beans, avocado, lettuce, tomato and something peppery.

Important background information: I was really hungry. Sometimes I worry that my sandwich ratings are hugely impacted by how hungry I am when I eat the sandwich. And in this case, it was about 8 p.m. and I hadn’t eaten anything substantial since an undersized cold-cut sandwich for lunch around 11:30, so I was hungry enough to be frustrated at having to tie my shoes before leaving the apartment. Stuff like that.

What it looks like:

How it tastes: This site has in the past praised sandwiches for their consistency of flavors and even distribution of ingredients, and the Brody Special can not boast either of those. And yet somehow, on this sandwich, it works so well: there’s this huge messy pile of ingredients, and with each bite you get a new mix of flavors, and each one is surprising, amazing and satisfying.

There’s delicious, tender, greasy pork in there, and salty ham, and a hint of beefy flavor. There’s creamy avocado and chewy white cheese. There’s sweet, juicy pineapple cutting through, and something unidentifiable and spicy to counter it. And lining the bottom of the sandwich — the only element besides the bread present in every bite — there’s a paste of crushed black beans, a flavorful, starchy binding agent that really ties the sandwich together.

The effect, hard as this may be to believe, not dissimilar from that of a really good Thanksgiving sandwich, with the pork standing in for dark meat turkey, the breading from the beef and the beans operating as stuffing and the pineapple filling in for the cranberry sauce as the sweet, fruity element. But there’s more to this: cheese, for one thing.

And the cemita bread itself is the perfect delivery vehicle for the variety of fillings here. I’m not a big fan of sesame seeds, but the loaf is thin but strong, easily withstanding the grease and juice and providing a nice crunchy, flaky outside to complement the mostly soft mess on the inside.

After the first bite of the Brody Special, I thought, “this is a really good sandwich, but probably just shy of the Hall of Fame.” Then after a couple more bites, I had it as a borderline, 90ish type — one I’d give more careful consideration.

As I continued eating, the melange of flavors and textures swelled and crescendoed, and by the final bites I wasn’t thinking about what I’d write in a review or my own stupid rating system or where I was or how I was getting home or anything beyond the boundaries of that bread. I got completely lost in the sandwich.

What it’s worth: The Brody Special cemita cost $10 and, for me, about a 15-minute walk. Due to my own hunger on the evening in question and the inherently inconsistent nature of the sandwich, I probably wouldn’t recommend trekking to East Harlem for it. But if you’re in the area and looking for something good, it’s worth the price. It’s huge.

How it rates: 93 out of 100.

Jeff Francoeur generous to Oakland bacon enthusiasts

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Ted Berg

They cooked and baked, from regular bacon to home-made chicharron with fresh cheese. All the way up to the chocolate-covered bacon. Seriously. They ate and they drummed, they shouted and had fun, they cheered and they ate some more. And when the game was over, there was a spare plate left for Jeff Francoeur….

The next day, he walked out to his position before the game, carrying a signed baseball in his hand. He spotted the familiar faces, smiled and threw the baseball over the fence.

There was a hundred dollar bill rubber-tied to the baseball. And an inscription: “Beer or Bacon Dog on me. Jeff Francoeur.”

– Bojan Koprivica, Hardball Times.

Oh, Frenchy.

Via Craig Calcaterra.

Mets sign a Tuiasosopo

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Ted Berg

It’s true. It’s the baseball-playing Matt installation of Tuiasosopo, not the footballing Marques, Zach or Manu.

Unfortunately, for a big guy with a football pedigree, Tuiasosopo has never really shown a hell of a lot of power in the Minors. He’s got a career .255/.360/.430 line in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League, though to his credit he has played his home games in Tacoma, hardly the league’s best place for mashing. That translates to a .223/.307/.357 line in the Majors at a neutral park.

The upside for Wally Backman and the good people of Buffalo is that Tuiasosopo plays all over the place. In the last two seasons with the Rainiers, he has logged time at all four infield positions — though only two games at shortstop — and both corner outfield spots. He strikes out a bunch and he hits right-handed, neither of which bodes well for his chances of spending any significant time with the big-league Mets. But he can draw a walk, and, you know, Moneyball.

People, camels: Still going

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Ted Berg

Princess, the star of New Jersey’s Popcorn Park Zoo, has correctly picked the winner of five of the last six Super Bowls. She went 14 and 6 predicting regular season and playoff games this year, and has a lifetime record of 88-51.

Her pick this year: The New York Giants.

The Bactrian camel’s prognostication skills flow from her love of graham crackers. Zoo general manager John Bergmann places a cracker and writes the name of the competing teams on each hand. Whichever hand Princess nibbles from is her pick. On Wednesday, she made her pick with no hesitation at all, predicting bad news for Bill Belichick, Tom Brady and the New England Patriots, even though the Las Vegas oddsmakers have New England favored by about 3 points.

– Wayne Parry, Associated Press.

Really? We’re still doing stuff like this? I figured it would die out with the World Cup octopus, but then I guess I frequently underestimate people’s capacity for general silliness. We are, after all, still using a groundhog to forecast the weather.

But no one actually takes Groundhog Day seriously, right? Am I to take it that anyone, when really pushed, believes Princess the Particularly Lucky Camel can successfully predict the outcome of football games better than, say, a coin toss could? I doubt it, and even if there are a few people who do I strongly doubt they read this website, but just in case:

Camels can not read. Since I have no means of communicating with camels I have no way to confirm this, but I doubt camels understand the rules of American football or even the concept of competitive sport. If you can get a camel to explain to me the distinction between roughing the kicker and running into the kicker, I might at least listen to what it had to say about the outcome of the Super Bowl. But I refuse to buy that camels can just magically, psychically see into the future, because if they could I suspect there’d be a lot more camels.

Today in suburban overreactions

Posted on January 26, 2012 by Ted Berg

A Rockville Centre attorney is under arrest after allegedly holding a suspected teenage prankster at gunpoint until officers arrived at her home Sunday night, Nassau County police said.

Bernadette Greenwald, 47, apparently lost her cool after someone repeatedly rang her doorbell and ran from the home around 11:15 p.m. Sunday.

The “ding, dong, ditch” prank was apparently carried out three times and after the last incident, police said Greenwald, a former Bronx Assistant District Attorney, grabbed her .9 mm pistol and fired one round into the air in front of her house.

Police said Greenwald later saw a 17-year-old boy walking in front of her N. Forest Avenue home. She allegedly approached the teen and pointed the gun at him. Greenwald’s retired Air Force pilot husband apparently returned home to discover the youth inside his home.

– CBSNewYork.com.

Regular readers of this site know that I am a native of Rockville Centre, New York and that I was, in my teenage years, the perpetrator of various teenage pranks and the one-time quasi-victim, so to speak, of a wild overreaction to one of those pranks.

But thankfully no one ever pulled a gun on me, forced me into their house and held me at gunpoint until the cops came. And while I can understand being a bit miffed or unnerved by teenagers doing stupid things in the middle of the night, just, well… c’mon, lady.

Anyway, this seems like as good an excuse as any to note my favorite boredom-driven suburban pranks. Ding-dong-ditch (we called it ring-and-run, actually) got old pretty quick and toilet papering required money and coordination, but lawn ornaments presented ample opportunities for creativity without much risk or planning.

One thing we liked to do was pick up people’s lawn ornaments and tastefully arrange them on the lawn of a different house on the same block. I always had this image in my head of some homeowner in his bathrobe stepping outside to fetch the paper in the morning, noticing his missing cherub, then spotting it across the street alongside his neighbor’s walkway and being all, “WTF?” And then maybe he steals it back or maybe he awkwardly confronts the neighbor about it. The whole thing cracked me up.

But my favorite prank centered around these white, wooden reindeer that came into fashion in the town just about the same time we started driving. I don’t know where they came from — my family never had them — but I guess their understated, Nordic simplicity spoke to the people of Rockville Centre or something, because there were at least a pair on every block. And some homes had whole, ostentatious fleets of them: up to nine reindeer lined up in sleigh-pulling formation or otherwise just grazing on their front yards.

Since the reindeer were lightweight and very simply constructed, they were incredibly easy to rearrange. And it so happened that the two standard shapes of these reindeer lent themselves particularly well to being arranged in all sorts of suggestive positions.

That’s how I spent most of my December nights in my junior and senior years of high school: Reindeering, we called it. And we were in high school, so everyone involved was a hormone-fueled encyclopedia of vile, debased and downright bizarre concepts for how reindeer might seek pleasure. Those neighbors that made the mistake of hosting nine of the things regularly woke up to depraved Caligula orgies enacted on their front lawns with their simple, tasteful white reindeer.

After a while, people started going to great lengths to stake the reindeer down and wire them to trees, but it was just never terribly hard to move them around. Ultimately, the reindeer either went out of style or the townspeople grew tired of the Sisyphean ordeal of repositioning their reindeer thrice a week before the kids woke up to avoid that awkward conversation; they were scarce by my junior year of college.

So there’s no real specific story or punchline here. We were never caught or held at gunpoint, and I have yet to receive my appropriate comeuppance. I regret nothing.

Enter Firstmeal!

Posted on January 26, 2012 by Ted Berg

Taco Bell, the fast-food chain that caters to late-night snacking, is making a play for the breakfast crowd.

The Mexican-style restaurant chain introduced a breakfast menu Thursday at almost 800 restaurants, mostly in nearly a dozen Western states. The rollout adds to the scramble among fast-food heavyweights competing for the morning allegiance of on-the-go consumers….

The chain’s breakfast staples include burritos stuffed with eggs and either sausage, bacon or steak; sausage and egg wraps; hash browns; hot or iced coffee, and orange juice. Taco Bell is teaming with such recognizable brands as Johnsonville, Cinnabon, Tropicana and Seattle’s Best. Menu items range from 99 cents to $2.79….

The rollout is taking place in Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Utah, New Mexico, Nevada and Colorado, and there are a limited number of participating stores in Texas, Ohio and Oklahoma.

– Associated Press.

You guys!

So who has got a good excuse for me to visit Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Utah, New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado or certain parts of Texas, Ohio and Oklahoma?

Sandwich? of the Week

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Ted Berg

This one is difficult and important. As of right now, 67 percent of TedQuarters readers believe a whole wheat everything bagel with cream cheese is not a sandwich, though a boiling debate persists in the comments section.

Our man Devon reminds me that I have in the past classified a bagel with cream cheese as a sandwich — probably by email since I can’t find it in the archives — but I reserve the right to change my mind now. That exchange must have happened in some loosey-goosey era, sometime before I was dedicated to determining exactly what constituted a sandwich.

The candidate: A whole wheat everything bagel with cream cheese from H&H Midtown Bagels East on 2nd avenue between 81st and 82nd streets in Manhattan. Seth informs me that this H&H is not actually affiliated with the city’s west-side H&H bagel stores and that it’s another Famous Original Ray’s Pizza thing. But then, really, who cares? They’re really good bagels. More on that in a bit.

The construction: A whole wheat everything bagel with cream cheese, served… well, we’ll say “sandwich-style.” For what it’s worth, I never, ever deconstruct a bagel I get prepared for me at a bagelry. But if I’m eating a bagel at home I always split the bagel in half, spread cream cheese or butter on both halves and eat them separately — open-faced, if you will.

Arguments for sandwich-hood: It’s a form of bread on either side of a form of cheese. Though there’s always a ton of cream cheese and they inevitably require napkins, bagels with cream cheese are inarguably portable.

Counter-arguments: Well… it’s a bagel. And there’s no meat in there. Cream cheese feels more like a spread than a cheese.

How it tastes: This is the most important thing: Amazing. My wife and I spend a lot of our time seeking out good bagels, and we’ve determined that H&H has the best in our new neighborhood. They do enough business that the bagels are always fresh and often hot, and they’re perfectly prepared: boiled then baked, hearty and chewy on the inside with just a little bit of crunch on the outside.

H&H Midtown East puts its toppings on both sides of the bagels, which is not absolutely necessary but a nice bonus. I always get everything bagels because I like the addition of a little bit of salt and garlic flavors, but would never want my bagel overwhelmed by either of those seasonings in isolation. I’m not sure when or why I started ordering whole wheat bagels, nor am I certain I like them better than regular ones. I think I may have convinced myself they’re healthier.

Cream cheese is cream cheese: Hearty for a spread but fluffy for a cheese, with a delicious, mild tang that seems to perfectly complement the sweetness of a bagel.

What it’s worth: $2.25: Basically the same as a slice of pizza. But better for carbo-loading! I should note also that H&H Bagels Midtown East is open 24 hours, which is amazing and makes me so happy I live in the city again. I purchased and ate the bagel photographed above in the 1 a.m. hour.

The verdict: This is a dilemma. On one hand, we have the grilled cheese: Cheese between two pieces of bread and inarguably a sandwich. On the other, we have the buttered roll, bearing many of the qualities of a sandwich but — I think we can agree — pretty obviously not one.

I reserve the right to change my mind about this, but I’m prepared to say that a bagel with cream cheese is not a sandwich. It’s an amazing, delicious breakfast staple that can be enjoyed anytime, but it is not a sandwich.

The distinction lies, I believe, not in the nomenclature so much as the focus. A grilled cheese sandwich is a cheese sandwich. You’re in it for the cheese. The buttery bread is but a delicious vehicle for its delivery. The draw of a bagel with cream cheese is — to me at least — the bagel. The cream cheese is also awesome, but I think it is with good reason that you’d refer to it as a bagel with cream cheese, not a cream-cheese sandwich on bagel.

Does that make any sense? There’s a distinction here, and it’s important but also hard to put into words. I don’t mean to say that the thing doing the sandwiching can’t be a fundamental part of the sandwich because I don’t want to undercut all the great rolls and buns and breads of this world. But if the thing doing the sandwiching — the bagel, in this case — represents the bulk and the focus of the food item, then I’m not sure it’s a sandwich. Ham and cheese on a croissant is a sandwich, for instance, but a chocolate croissant is not.

I think if you added bacon or salmon to the bagel with cream cheese, it’d be a sandwich. But on its own — or even with one of those cream cheese with stuff in it that never really appeal to me — it’s just a bread product with a spread.