Friday Q&A, Wednesday edition, pt. 1: Baseball stuff

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Via email, Sean writes:

The reference to Wright’s acts of leadership behind the scenes of 2012 was interesting. I completely understand there is a line about what you can discuss in public forums, given your access.

Maybe you can share though how you find that line in your position, when you’re both a fan but it’s also your job and have some privileged access. Must be especially tough to police yourself given all the forums available for people to express any thought these days.

It’s not all that tough, honestly. Though I have a season credential to Mets home games and some level of access, I’m not a beat writer and I don’t typically travel with the team, so I don’t get nearly the type of privileged information those guys might. On the rare occasion I do, it’s tempting to go nuts and plaster it everywhere because EXCLUSIVE TEDQUARTERS EXCLUSIVE.

But I’ve done far too much trolling of vaguely written and anonymously sourced baseball scoopsmanship to do it myself as soon as I stumble on to any sort of inside information. Typically, I use whatever I learn to inform my writing, and a good conversation with someone inside the organization can provide months’ worth of context about roster moves and the like. But I don’t think it adds much to an argument to cite the nebulous authority that some seem to think comes along with credentials, so I do my best to avoid it.

https://twitter.com/metsthoughts/status/271292969255063552

I don’t know that there’s a good comp, for a couple of reasons. It seems like Jack Taylor’s indisputably impressive accomplishment did come in part due to Grinnell’s offensive system, which I don’t know much about. The previous D-3 single-game scoring record was held by another guy on Grinnell, who scored 89 in a game last year and came off the bench for seven last night.

Also, there’s almost no way a basketball player can score 138 points without taking better scoring opportunities away from his teammates. Look at that article: Even Carmelo Anthony appears to be taken aback. That can’t really happen in baseball.

All that said, I’m going with seven home runs. Our Internet is spotty today and I can’t draw up a more direct comp statistically, but it feels like seven home runs in a game at pretty much any level would be as remarkable and improbable as scoring 138 points.

https://twitter.com/tpgMets/status/271297458053713920

I’ll guess Josh Thole. When we did the Furious Five stuff last year, most of the players had to think a bit to determine their favorite sandwiches. That’s understandable; professional athletes don’t all interact with food in the same way professional sandwich bloggers do. But Thole was on it: Not only could he name a specific sandwich when asked his favorite — a Lobster Roll from Luke’s Lobster — but he said that the first thing he did when he came to New York was get sushi at Tao. So based on that little bit of evidence, I’m going to guess Thole is pretty dedicated to eating well. Lucas Duda is another obvious candidate but that’s purely based on his size.

https://twitter.com/TheSeanKenny/status/271310245781962753

I don’t know if Sean’s referencing something specific that I haven’t read or some particular item of misinformation. I know much has been made over what Jeff Wilpon said about R.A. Dickey and David Wright yesterday. It seems people are understandably pretty fired up that Wilpon said he’d rather keep Dickey and Wright through 2013 without extensions than trade them, since that’s pretty demonstrably not in the Mets’ best long-term baseball interests. But the counter — and I’m reluctant to even mention it, because I realize I’ll now inevitably be accused of shillery — is that it makes no sense for Jeff Wilpon to say, “Yeah, if we can’t get extensions done, we’re definitely trading them.”

Those of you reading regularly probably know I’m not the type to get too bent out of shape or sanctimonious over things people say. I’d happily abide misinformation from the Mets if I could be confident they were operating optimally and on behalf of becoming the best possible baseball team. For now I can only hope for that, though. The way they handle Dickey and Wright will tell us a lot more about what the Mets are doing than the way they say they’ll handle Dickey and Wright.

Finally, via email, Chris writes:

Have you realized the only year the Giants didn’t win the World Series in the past 3 years was when they had Carlos Beltran? Similarly, the only year the Cardinals haven’t won it in the past two years was with Carlos Beltran!

Typical Beltran. For all his “best postseason OPS in baseball history,” he’s never won the World Series, and that’s obviously his fault.

Sea tornado? Sea tornado

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Via Gizmodo:

I may or may not have been out extremely late last night watching a certain unranked college basketball team take the nation’s No. 1 team to overtime only to be jobbed by what looked like (from my extremely biased perspective) awful officiating. And since the Internet will likely be slow on Friday, I’m probably leaning on the Q&A crutch this afternoon. Here’s a contact form for anyone who wants to submit a question and doesn’t have the Twitter:

Go back

Your message has been sent

Select photos of Rickey Henderson doing stuff

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In lieu of anything else to write about, I went to the AP wire to find a photo of Rickey Henderson to post. Problem is, there are way too many to choose just one. Here are some photos of Rickey Henderson doing stuff.

Here’s Rickey stealing a base in 1986:

Here’s Rickey Henderson celebrating breaking the Major League record for stolen bases in 1991:

Here’s Rickey calling timeout in 1999:

Here’s Rickey catching a ball in 2000:

Here’s Rickey scoring in 2000:

Here’s Rickey making a catch in 2002:

Here’s Rickey charming the crowd at a 2001 press conference:

Here’s Rickey hitting a home run in 2003:

Here’s Rickey sliding into home during a San Diego Surf Dawgs game in 2006:

Here’s Rickey wearing an awesome white suit at his Hall of Fame induction ceremony alongside Jim Rice in 2009:

Here’s Rickey posing with his own shoes at the Hall of Fame:

Here’s Rickey low-fiving Guy Fieri after homering in the All-Star Legends and Celebrity softball game in 2010. He also homered in the 2011 version of the event:

Here’s Rickey throwing out the first pitch before an A’s game in 2011, wearing… something:

Today in dumpster diving

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Bedbugs destroyed our great dumpster-diving tradition, I think. It wasn’t long ago you could reliably find good stuff left up for grabs on street corners and figure someone just discarded it because they were moving and didn’t have the space or they were redecorating and going with a different color scheme. I still use a desk lamp I found in the lobby of my old apartment building about seven years ago. But if I saw that same lamp available in any public space today, I’d assume it was positively riddled with bedbugs desperate for a ticket inside my apartment to nest in my bookcase and breed under my pillow.

The Tigers cut Ryan Raburn today, which was not unexpected after his miserable 2012 campaign. Whatever happened to Raburn this season appears to be the baseball equivalent of a bedbug infestation: He went from being a good hitter in 2009 and 2010, to a slightly below average one in 2011, to sub-Jason Bay levels in 2012.

With Bay now gone, the Mets’ best righty-hitting outfielder currently in house is either Juan Lagares or Cory Vaughn, neither of whom has yet played above Double-A. If there’s any hope Raburn can return even to his 2011 form, it can’t hurt the Mets much to act on it. He’s hardly Scott Hairston in his ability to hit lefties, but presumably bringing in Raburn would not preclude Hairston’s return, given the organizational dearth of outfielders. Plus, Raburn’s not just an outfielder: He’s logged considerable time at second base in the Majors, with stints in the infield corners as well.

At 32, he looks like a reasonable low-risk option to fill a platoon or bench role in Flushing in 2013. If it pays off, Raburn would be a very useful guy to have: Depending on how the outfield shakes out, he could split time with Mike Baxter or Lucas Duda in a corner and/or spell Daniel Murphy and Ike Davis when they need days off, especially against tough lefties.

I know, I know. LOLMets. But it is what it is, and Raburn looks like a particularly good fit for the Mets, given their needs.

Hat tip to Eno Sarris.

R. Kelly promises 85 new chapters of ‘Trapped in the Closet’

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I want everybody to know I’ve got 85 chapters of ‘Trapped in the Closet’ waiting in the studio for y’all.

– R. Kelly.

85! Eighty five! I wouldn’t believe it, except I totally do. He’s already come this far, and this is apparently what R. Kelly does now. I jokingly compared him to Homer when he was only five chapters deep, but if he really goes to more than 100 it’s probably time we stop calling him a contemporary R&B singer and start calling him an epic poet.

He’s also working on adapting ‘Trapped in the Closet” into a Broadway musical, which I will see. I really hope they don’t write a second song for it, though.

Via James K.

Taco Bell Tuesday

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Are all the songs about Tuesdays sad? “Ruby Tuesday,” “Tuesday’s Gone,” “Tuesday Afternoon,” “Tuesday Heartbreak.” No one writes a “Tuesday I’m in Love.”

First and foremost: Our man @Ceetar, who has come out of Internet anonymity and revealed himself to be Michael Donato, sampled the churrs at his local Taco Bell last week. He even snapped some photos for the people:

That’s a bold claim — quite literally — from the self-aware wrapper: “the tastiest experience of your day.” So how is it?

“Soft, chewy and crisp, warm and delicious,” Donato reports. “It was pretty much a perfect churro and the curvy nature of it is much more visually appealing than the typically straight one that looks like a pipe fitting or something.”

Alarming story: One time at Splish Splash out on Long Island, I got a churro and bit into it to find a metal rod inside. It seemed like it was probably the metal rod upon which the churro had been heated in the spinning churro-machine thing, which somehow came off with the churro when they served it to me.

‘Upscale’ Taco Bell planned in Philadelphia: Details appear few and far between. Is this another of the new, glowing Taco Bell prototypes we’ve discussed before, or something greater? Another salvo in the Franchise Wars? The first U.S. installment of the defunct Chinese full-service Taco Bell Grande experiment? Obviously TedQuarters will stay on top of this story as it unfolds.

Book review calls Taco Bell “the largest restaurant franchise in the world:” It’s in the Wall Street Journal, a fairly reputable source, so if you want to go ahead and cite that as fact I won’t stop you. The only problem is I’m pretty sure it’s not true. The article cites Taco Bell’s 5,800 outposts as evidence of its dominance, but as recently as 2011, the Journal reported that both Subway and McDonald’s franchises numbered in the 30,000s. Plus, much of the book review revolves around the utterly fruitless pursuit of cultural authenticity in food. Everything we eat everywhere is the byproduct of some earlier cultural exchange.

Thank you for reading TedQuarters

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This is the 5,000th post published to this site since it launched in Oct. 2009. I don’t know why I felt the need to note it here, as I typically don’t have much time for milestones and didn’t even notice when I passed any earlier mark. But for whatever reason, I saw this one coming from a couple hundred posts away. Let us mark the occasion with a celebratory photograph:

In all seriousness, thank you for reading TedQuarters. Though I’m a rather vain dude — site’s called TedQuarters — it is pretty crazy to me that there’s a non-zero number of Mets fans outside of my immediate family who care to read about what I ate for lunch yesterday. I appreciate it. I enjoy this part of this job very much and I am reasonably proud of some of the material I’ve produced for this site, and I know from my history that I would not bother keeping it up if I didn’t know that people were reading.

Also, for what it’s worth: The goal here has never been quantity. But by my best estimate, in terms of word count this site’s archive is in length somewhere between War and Peace and In Search of Lost Time. Tolstoy couldn’t lean on Q&A posts for content, though.

Sandwich of the Week

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The sandwich: Milano Special from Milano Market, 89th and 3rd in Manhattan.

The construction: Ham, salami, ham capicola, mortadella, lettuce, tomato, and roasted peppers with oil & vinegar on semolina bread. On the menu, the Milano Special comes with provolone cheese, but I substituted fresh mozzarella.

This is important: If you’re getting a sandwich from an Italian deli boasting homemade mozzarella, always get the mozzarella on the sandwich. That’s no knock on delicious provolone, it’s just that fresh mozzarella is pretty much the creamiest, tastiest, best thing. And chances are whatever sandwich you’re ordering already has all the saltiness you need and then some, so while the provolone might be a bit more assertive, it’s probably unnecessary.

Important background information: Milano Market gets its second Sandwich of the Week due mostly to its proximity to my apartment. My since-revived car died in a parking spot right outside Milano Market, so a visit became inevitable as soon as it was clear I’d have to spend time waiting by the car for roadside assistance.

Also: I worked in an Italian deli for three years and made countless Italian heroes. But though it’s entirely possible the deli had some set list of ingredients for an Italian hero specified somewhere, I never, ever followed it. To me, a request for an Italian hero meant an invitation for improvisation. The sandwich created depended on my levels of energy and enthusiasm that day, the customer’s friendliness while ordering, and the meats we had at our disposal.

For the uninitiated, the following is a brief primer on select Italian deli meats less common than Genoa salami and pepperoni:

Capicola: Not to be confused with Ham Capicola or Cappy Ham — ham seasoned in the style of capicola — legit capicola (or coppa) might be the most underrated and underutilized Italian cold cut. It’s cured ham that packs a ton of salty flavor, and the hot variety adds a lot of peppery spice. Capicola needs to be sliced thin or it will be too chewy for sandwich purposes, but it can be a fine, less-expensive substitute for prosciutto.

Mortadella: Basically the Italian version of baloney and, in fact, the Bologna-based product from which every first grader’s favorite lunchmeat derives its name. Mortadella brings a slightly porkier taste than baloney and perhaps even more grease, as evidenced by the visible hunks of lard in its constitution. Mortadella is most useful to add bulk to a sandwich, and can be avoided on Italian heroes aimed at finer palates. For some reason, some mortadellas contain pistachios. No one knows why.

Pancetta: Rarely incorporated on sandwiches despite extraordinary awesomeness, pancetta is a fatty Italian jowl bacon that complicates the sandwich-making process by being better cooked. A great option for an Italian take on the classic chicken cutlet with bacon and cheese.

Prosciutto: Extremely expensive and difficult to work with, prosciutto is awesome on its own or wrapped around appetizers but often suboptimal on sandwiches. Prosciutto sliced thicker than transparently thin becomes unwieldy on a sandwich, so its inclusion requires an expert deli person and a well sharpened slicer. It boasts so much flavor and is so costly that you’ll rarely see more than a thin layer on a sandwich. Due to its delicate nature, prosciutto is often at its best on simpler sandwiches, perhaps just with some mozzarella and roasted peppers.

Soppressata: For my money, soppressata is the best deli meat. It’s a more coarsely ground cousin to the common salami with a heartier, spicier flavor. Salamis are by their nature both very airy and very easy to slice thin, so ordering a half pound of soppressata yields a much higher stack of meat than the same weight in ham.

If I’m putting together an optimized Italian hero and I’ve got everything available, I’m probably using ham cappy for some meaty bulk, coppa and soppressata for flavor, maybe a thin layer of pepperoni for spice and color, fresh mozzarella, oil and balsamic vinegar, and roasted red peppers.

What it looks like:

How it tastes: Like a solid Italian hero. Which is to say: unspectacular, but delicious.

The dominant texture comes from the bread, a crunchy, crusty enclosure for the hunk of meatstuff inside. The lettuce provides crispiness too, and helps give the thing a pleasant, familiar party-hero feel. But since the slipperiness of the lettuce also made the sandwich more difficult to hold together while eating, I’d quibble that its added value in texture did not compensate for the hassle of negotiating it. But that’s often the case with lettuce on sandwiches.

Though, as is typical, many of my favorite Italian deli meats are not on this particular Italian hero, the meat flavors here all blend together into a tasty, salty, greasy, porky combination, all complemented by the sweetness and tang from the roasted red peppers.

And fresh mozzarella… man. It’s a weird thing the way something so subtle on its own can so strongly improve any sandwich, but it’s undeniable. Its hint of flavor powers through, and it provides a sort of fluffy creaminess that both thickens and moistens the sandwich from the inside. Outstanding.

What it’s worth: $9.50, but it’s probably enough for two meals if you’re not hungry from sitting by your car looking at the delicious hanging meats and piled breads in the windows of Milano Market.

How it rates: 72 out of 100. Not something I’d go out of my way for and not close to the best sandwich I’ve had at the Milano Market, but a strong neighborhood Italian hero.

Jets’ march to 8-8 continues

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Even when the Jets were up 13-7 at halftime, it was hard to believe they’d pull out yesterday’s win over the Rams, given the way their offense and special teams were going. But though the game left us with plenty still worth worrying about, funny things happen when a team holds on to the ball after snaps, during sacks, on runs, and when receiving passes. And the Jets proved too much for Brian Schottenheimer’s offense yet again.

Tim Tebow’s lone highlight came on the most predictable fake punt since that one Genesis game where fake punts were by far the best offensive play (does anyone remember what game that was? When the announcer would say, “It’s second down… and I can’t believe it!” even though you faked a punt nearly every play?). But let’s not diminish the value that fake punt added to the fake fake punt they pulled off later, when Tebow deked like he was taking the snap again but it went to the punter who punted it away on an otherwise normal punt. For all we know, that netted the Jets, like, three extra yards.

Mark Sanchez benefited from improved ball security and a defense that kept the Jets ahead, and enjoys a week not looking like the worst quarterback in the NFL. My best guess is that the Sanchize is in truth way better than most Jets fans seem to think he is and still way worse than the Jets seem to think he is, but there’s really no perfect way to isolate individual performances in football and they all exist in small sample sizes anyway.

About that, and for what it’s worth: Sunday’s was the Jets’ 10th game, and their fifth in which they rushed for over 100 yards. Every time the Jets have gained over 100 yards on the ground, Sanchez has completed more than half of his passes. In those five games, he has a 63.1-percent completion rating.

Sanchez has completed less than half his passes in every game in which the Jets have rushed for under 100 yards. In those five games, he has a 43.5-percent completion rating.

There’s not really an obvious to conclusion to draw from that, as there’s a lot of chicken-and-eggery involved. Plus 100 yards is a pretty arbitrary endpoint, not some magical barometer for effective running. It could be that in some of the better offensive performances, the Jets were able to move the ball on the ground because Sanchez was throwing the ball well. In some games — the debacle in Houston stands out — the Jets’ line appeared so thoroughly manhandled by the opponents’ defensive front to render both facets of the offense hapless. But it does seem — and I figure this is true for every team and every quarterback — that the Jets have an easier time passing the ball when they can run the ball and vice versa. Not really rocket science, but it’s something to keep in mind when you’re trying to identify specific culprits.

Look at how happy they are now:

You know they’re going to beat the Patriots, right? That’s totally happening. Then they’ll beat the struggling Cardinals too, and just when we’re all sucked back in they’ll lose to the Jaguars and Titans to crush our spirits, then beat the Chargers and Bills in loving tribute to Herm Edwards. Don’t come at me with facts. This is well-researched stuff.