To be cheese-jected

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Of course, Pizza Hut has been putting cheese into pizza crusts — where it manifestly does not belong — for decades now. What makes their new endeavor different is that they’re now jamming either pepperoni or what I’m pretty sure the TV ads refer to as “meaty” (full stop), which is a short way of describing a pizza crust crammed with shards of sausage, bacon and “beef.” Pigs and cows, in other words, but only the parts of which are choice enough to be cheese-jected into pizza crust.

– David Roth.

Roth, whom I was prepared to call one of my favorite writers on the Internet even before he complimented my sandwich reviews, just tears Pizza Hut apart here — and not in the way Pizza Hut wants to be torn apart (at the perforated crust). I’ve been saying this since the stuffed-crust pizza came out: How about instead of coming up with new pizza gimmicks, you put some of that research and development into making better pizza?

Fun fact: Sophomore year of college my roommate Will won a year’s supply of Pizza Hut by winning some dumb contest at Midnight Madness. “A year’s supply” amounted to something like 30 coupons for free pizzas, of which we used, I am pretty certain, one. We ate one Pizza Hut pizza and realized we never wanted any more ever. We thought about ordering all our remaining pizzas in one shot for some sort of craft project, but we never got around to it, what with all the video games there were to play.

Fun fact, pt. 2: I ate Pizza Hut once again, about five years after the sophomore-year order. After a couple of weeks in China, I confessed to a friend and fellow traveler that, though I appreciated the Chinese food we had enjoyed and didn’t want to seem uncouth, I was desperate to eat something I could identify. Turned out she felt the same way, so we hit the Hut. There are Pizza Huts everywhere in China, and they’re reasonably fancy restaurants, like as if they won the fast-food wars. Problem is, they still serve godawful Pizza Hut pizza. About three bites deep I was ready to go back to delicious Chinese unidentifiable-meat-in-goo.

What they’re building in Little Havana

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The Florida Marlins’ new ballpark is right off I-95. Currently known as Miami Ballpark, it sits a few miles north of downtown Miami and about a dozen miles south of their current home, Sun Life Stadium nee Land Shark Stadium nee Dolphins Stadium nee Dolphin Stadium nee Pro Player Stadium nee Joe Robbie Stadium.

The new place is at the old Orange Bowl site, nestled into a residential neighborhood called Little Havana. One side faces 7th St, a local thoroughfare: pharmacies, gas stations, barber shops, nail salons.

The ballpark in progress is taking shape, a massive oval of glass and off-white concrete. It makes no effort toward nostalgia; parts of it look at least vaguely like a UFO, the massive supports for the retractable roof bracketing one side like some sort of fueling dock.

Around back, a chain-link fence separates the construction site from blocks and blocks of single and multi-family homes. A few — nearest the huge concrete parking garages — are boarded up or decorated with “FOR RENT” signs.

Most aren’t. The neighborhood shows all the familiar signs of people being people: Cars and bicycles, barbecues smoking on front patios, televisions glowing in windows. From a driveway, a remote control car speeds out into the street, kicking up dirt and gravel.

Six kids, ranging in age from about six to 12, play around a neon orange construction pylon separating the part of the street that’s still paved from the part that has been dug up. One boy holds an orange-painted stake, another drags some sort of thin metal bracket, scraping and rattling against the pavement. Up against the fence, construction junk deemed unworthy for play sits on a pile of rubble, alongside, for some reason, abandoned shoes.

By my count, there are 11 old shoes strewn among the detritus — only four total that are paired. Two pairs of shoes and seven strays. They are of all sorts and sizes: sneakers, pumps, loafers, sandals, Crocs.

A few blocks away, Morro Castle serves delicious Fritas Cubanas – a Cuban-style seasoned hamburger buried in crisp shoestring potatoes. The waitress speaks only Spanish, communicating with some customers (including this one) in a universal language of finger-points, gestures and smiles. A couple of teenagers in Miami Heat t-shirts rattle off their orders in Spanish, then converse in English.

Many baseball fans seem convinced that Major League Baseball just won’t work in South Florida. We say the Marlins have “no fans,” even though the Marlins – like all teams – decidedly do have fans. “No fans” is a quick way of saying they can’t boast a fanbase the size of the Mets’ or Yankees’ or Phillies’ or Red Sox’, but sit in the crowd at Sun Life and you’ll hear plenty passionate cheers and jeers, celebrating Hanley Ramirez for his hitting or excoriating him for his defense.

The current stadium is among baseball’s worst. A bland, mid-80s construction, it is surrounded by parking lots, far from the city, among expanses of strip malls. Its dimensions and sightlines are clearly built for football; many seats do not properly face the action. It can boast decent wings and an arepa stand. They play baseball there so the place cannot be unpleasant, but it adds little to the experience.

I’ve hardly been following the particulars of the new ballpark’s construction, but I assume it came with all the inevitable complaints, counter-complaints, ill will and taxes. I can’t say what the park means to the people of Miami and in the neighborhood or what it’ll do to traffic and local business. But it’s hard to imagine the upgrade won’t ultimately be good for the team.

The Marlins have a great (if relatively short) history, good players locked up under team control for a long time, and a front office that appears to know what it’s doing. They play in a big market where baseball is popular. Next year, they’ll have a new baseball-only ballpark in a residential neighborhood way closer to the city’s center.

Of course, owner Jeffrey Loria has been accused of pocketing revenue-sharing money and misleading the public about the team’s funds. But if a new stream of cash from ticket sales and advertising can increase the Marlins’ operating budget, they will become more competitive financially with the heavyweights in their division.

That might not sound pleasant to Mets fans, but it’s probably a good thing in the long run. Better stadiums make for better road trips, and better competition makes for better games.

Help me help you

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I’m traveling back to New York this morning. I should have some posts up in the early afternoon, but until then, please help me by answering this seven-question survey. I’ve done one of these before but it seems like there some new readers around and I’d love your (anonymous) feedback. Just click the headline to get there. It’ll take you five minutes and it’ll help me understand what you’re looking for when you come to this site.

Also, while I’m at it: Please tell your friends about TedQuarters. The more traffic I get, the more cool stuff I’ll be able to do to benefit this site.

Are the Mets the best team ever?

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The Mets took a 9-2 laugher today, notching seven runs before the Marlins scored their first, knocking Javier Vazquez out of the game in the third, fluttering to victory on the back of R.A. Dickey’s windy-day knuckleball. Willie Harris and Ike Davis homered, Jose Reyes had two hits, Daniel Murphy smacked a double, Angel Pagan walked three times. And the Marlins sucked incredibly hard in the field, as has long been their wont.

Terry Collins said something surprising to the media in his post-game conference. “That’s my fault,” he said when asked about a play in the game — Harris stealing second — that took the bat out of David Wright’s hands. Collins got the sign in late to Chip Hale, prompting miscommunication, leading Harris to successfully steal second, causing the Marlins to intentionally walk Wright. The Mets still scored a pair of runs in the inning, but the manager felt the need to express accountability regardless.

Imagine that.

The Mets are 2-1 now, on pace to win 108 games like the 1986 team. The club, inspired by Collins’ humble leadership, is destined for greatness.

I kid, of course. Collins’ sense of responsibility for his actions is a welcome relief after the Mets’ last manager, but we have no evidence yet that it’ll help the team on the field. We have no evidence yet of anything, really. After three games, I know I’m sick of three things: 1) Jokes involving Chin-Lung Hu’s last name; 2) Constant attention to Francisco Rodriguez’s games-finished total; 3) My own silliness in tongue-in-cheekily extrapolating small samples to project the whole season. No more of that.

The other new certainty is that the Mets will not, in fact, finish this year 0-162, despite what acrid twerps all over the Internet would have you believe. The foul finishes of the last few years, the complications in ownership and the whole general not-being-the-Yankees thing color our perception of the team but have little to do with the action on the field. Collins downplayed an “us-against-the-world” mentality, suggesting his team doesn’t need it because the players — like most professional athletes — really believe in their abilities.

The us-against-the-world thing, that’s, ahh, that’s us against the world. Faithful Mets fans with a sense that the team made real improvements this offseason against all the knee-jerk nitwits who have never learned better than to write off a well-run baseball team.

But guess what? Forget about them. If you believe the Mets are a better club and can win games this year then you can just ignore the nonsense, confident you will be absolved. Enjoy the games. Watch a team with some promising young players. Celebrate R.A. Dickey.

The negativity is pointless and often unsubstantiated, but the haters doling it out have made up their minds and will only shout “Mets-fan” — like it’s something to be ashamed of — when you try to reason with them. I say f#@$ ’em. It’s baseball. It’s supposed to be fun. The Mets are 2-1, heading to Philadelphia to face noted Twi-hard Cole Hamels. Cole Hamels, who looks like this. Laugh at this man. Savor it; we’re only months away from another long offseason.

Sandwich of the Week

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Big day of local eating for me before the ballgame yesterday. I drove up to a citrus grove in Davie and bought a bunch of fruit for the rest of the trip, plus an amazing cup of fresh-squeezed orange juice. Then out to Fort Lauderdale for conch chowder and a sandwich. The conch chowder, I should note, was awesome — reddish, peppery and more reminiscent of a very soupy chili than Manhattan clam chowder. The sandwich? Well, you’re about to find out.

The sandwich: Barbecue beef sandwich from Ernie’s BBQ and Lounge, Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

The construction: A huge pile of sliced smoked beef on thick-sliced bimini bread served with a side of barbecue sauce.

Important background information: When I pulled into the parking lot at Ernie’s I noticed something funny: My rental car, a Chrysler Sebring sedan, was by far the smallest vehicle there. The lot was near-full with SUVs and pickup trucks, mine was the only car-shaped car. No judgment, just saying: It could be that Ernie’s is for people that consume more than I do. And I consume a whole hell of a lot. The smaller size conch chowder was a meal in and of itself — I wound up taking more than half of it home. I didn’t even finish half the sandwich and still felt stuffed for several hours thereafter.

What it looks like:


How it tastes: Meh.

First off, when I get a sandwich this thick, the first thing I do is pull off about half the meat. Don’t get me wrong, I’d always rather a sandwich purveyor err on the side of too much meat. But I’m not sure how any human being could really get his mouth around this thing, plus so much meat throws off the proportions of a good sandwich. It’s why I have no real interest in eating the Carmelo Anthony sandwich from the Carnegie Deli. That’s not an artful construction; it’s just a heavy-handed meatpile. If this makes you think less of me — especially coming so closely on the heels of news that I can’t really grow a mustache — whatever. I just don’t like biting into a giant, dry brick of sliced beef.

In this case, the meatpiling is especially egregious because the meat is undoubtedly the worst element of the sandwich. It’s not terrible — it is meat, after all — and there’s a pinkish ring around the edge that suggests it has been smoked. But there’s no identifiable smoke flavor or rub or seasoning or anything at all to give the beef taste. And it’s pretty bland on its own, just kinda chewy.

The bread, however, is excellent. Really outstanding. It’s not the heartiest loaf so it has to be cut thick to withstand the weight and grease of the beef — it and hardly does — but it is sweet, fresh and delicious.

The barbecue sauce is of the very thin variety, with chunks of onions in it. It’s tangy with vinegar and spicy with black pepper and pretty tasty overall. Only issue is you can’t pour too much of it on the beef at once without destroying the bread, so you have to either dip the sandwich in the sauce or spread on a little at a time — both messy enterprises.

After the conch chowder, the sandwich was pretty disappointing. There’s just not much more to say about it, because how much can you say about a huge pile of beef on (excellent) bread?

What it’s worth: I think the sandwich was about $8.

How it rates: Ernie’s is probably worth a trip if you’re in South Florida. It’s a nice place with an outdoor patio upstairs, and it’s apparently one of the best spots to get conch — important if you want your meals to have strong symbolic value when your civilization of schoolchildren stranded on an island goes awry. But next time I’d probably get the conch chowder and skip the sandwich. 55 out of 100.

Mets with beards

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Terry Collins called R.A. Dickey “one of the game’s great family men” this morning and told a funny story. Collins said the Mets had a facial-hair policy in the Minors last year. Dickey, when sent to Minor League camp, realized his kids had never seen him without a beard, so he let his kids shave him. I would ask Dickey about how that went down and how badly cut up his face was, but it’s bad form to talk to the starting pitcher before the game.

It’s hard to remember now, but when Dickey made his first start for the Mets last May 18, his face was pathetically beardless. Check out the photo.

Anyway, in honor of Dickey’s start today, I compiled an exhaustive list of Mets that currently have facial hair. Nine of the team’s 25 players, 36-percent, can boast beards, defined here as facial hair extending from ear-to-ear, i.e. not a goatee. Two guys have goatees.

Here are the bearded guys, listed in descending order of beard awesomeness:

Mets with beards

R.A. Dickey
Blaine Boyer
Angel Pagan
Ike Davis
Taylor Buchholz
Jose Reyes
Pedro Beato
Bobby Parnell
Mike Pelfrey

Parnell and Pelfrey fall to the bottom because neither seems fully committed to beardedness.

Mets with goatees

Jon Niese
Willie Harris

This site does not endorse goatees without other facial adornment. Go hard or go home, that’s what I say.

Mets coaches with fine mustaches

Mookie Wilson

Mets coaches with ridiculously awesome baseball-guy mustaches

Ken Oberkfell

No current Met has a beardless mustache. I wholeheartedly support the work done by the folks at “The Wright Stache” website, lobbying David Wright to grow a mustache since 2009.

I talk a good game, but why don’t I have a beard? Because I can’t grow a mustache, or at least not a good one. Every other part of my face and neck grows thick black hair but directly above my lip I get nothing but wispy, thin hairs, like an eighth grader who needs to start shaving but hasn’t yet. This is the great irony of my biography. No disrespect to Abe Lincoln, but I have no interest in growing a mustacheless beard. I do have a pretty sweet collection of fake mustaches, though.

Clouds clear, puppies smile, Mets win

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The Mets won a thriller tonight, 6-4. It was an exciting one too. Jon Niese allowed two runs on a series of bloops and bleeders in the first — even Hanley Ramirez’s double wasn’t struck particularly hard. He settled in from there and pitched excellently, keeping the Marlins off base and off balance and using only 87 pitches to get through seven innings. David Wright homered in the fourth, then Carlos Beltran scored from first on Ike Davis’ double in the sixth to tie it up.

The Mets took the lead in the ninth when Josh Thole singled in Chin-Lung Hu, who pinch ran for Ike Davis earlier in the inning. Francisco Rodriguez blew the save in the bottom of the frame, but the Mets put up a three spot in a tenth thanks to a Wright single and a Willie Harris double. Blaine Boyer yielded a run in the bottom of the inning, but the Mets held on to win, 6-4. Good game.

But you know all that already. Here’s what you might not know: The Mets are now 1-1, meaning they’re on pace to go 81-81. That’s math baby. And suddenly — funny how this works — the clouds over the team’s fanbase seem to be dissipating. Expect clear skies until the Mets’ next loss.

The post-game Pitbull concert is in full swing, making it difficult to concentrate on the point I was going to make about Terry Collins bunting in the top of the 10th with Jose Reyes on first and Angel Pagan batting. Pagan showed bunt but laid off the first two pitches, working the count to 2-0.

Over the past two seasons, Angel Pagan has a .544 on-base percentage after a 2-0 count. It’s not a huge sample, but it’s hardly rocket science to expect hitters to be a lot more successful once they’re so far ahead in the count. Collins left the bunt on and it happened to pay off: Pagan tapped one up the third-base line, Greg Dobbs couldn’t make any play and the Mets found two runners on base with no outs.

The process — successful though the result was —  is all too familiar to Mets fans of the Jerry Manuel era, and plenty frustrating. Though the Mets only needed one run to take the lead at that point, they would wind up needing two runs to win. Collins, willing to sacrifice Pagan to move a runner to second, was playing for one. Also probably worth mentioning that basestealers are 10-for-10 against Ryan Webb in the Marlins pitcher’s career and the baserunner in this case was Jose Reyes. I’ll amount that perhaps Collins considered that Pagan had a good chance at reaching safely with Dobbs at third.

Whatever. This is not the time for quibbling about strategy. It’s time to enjoy Pitbull and bask in the Mets’ victory.

Niese said he felt sharp all night. Josh Thole said the key for Niese is getting his breaking pitches over, and the lefty broke off a handful of nasty curveballs in the game. Wright went 3-for-5, including the homer. Beltran’s knee held up on the jaunt around the bases and a couple long runs for foul balls in right. Davis hit a pair of doubles. Like I said, this was a good game.

This is a less-good concert.

Brian Cashman just keeps saying whatever the hell comes to his mind

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[Pedro Feliciano] was abused. It’s a thin market when you’re looking for lefties, and he’s one of the better ones out there. But you don’t typically go after a guy who’s been used like that. The use pattern was abusive.

– Brian Cashman.

Mets fans seem ticked off about Cashman’s comment, though I can hardly see why. I suppose it’s unprofessional to call out another organization for your mistake, but I’ve never been much one for professionalism. And to me it’s hard to see how the goat here is anyone but Cashman.

The Mets did overwork Feliciano. He led the National League in appearances three years running, and who can count how many times Jerry Manuel got Feliciano warmed up only to not use him — “dry-humping,” in the parlance of our times.

But — as Dan Warthen joked to reporters today — the Yankees probably should have known about that when they signed Until Recently Perpetual Pedro. Hard to really kill the Mets for using him so often, either: He never got hurt on their watch, so they got everything they could out of him and moved on at (apparently) the right time. That doesn’t seem very fair to Feliciano, but then he’s the one who got rewarded with a two-year $8 million deal this offseason, and the guy who reportedly asked for the ball every day.

About that: I get that Feliciano wanted to pitch every day. I’ve even read the reports that he claimed to pitch better when worked heavily. But just because a professional athlete says he can play doesn’t mean the team should always do so. The Mets probably got lucky to enjoy three full healthy seasons of Feliciano throwing in more than half their games. Next time they try that, it’ll probably catch up with them — not the Yankees.

Of course we have no evidence yet that Terry Collins will manage that way.

The most interesting part about this to me is that Cashman seems to have carried his bizarre new habit of saying all sorts of things he probably shouldn’t into the regular season.

Everybody panic

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The Mets lost tonight. They are in last place and on pace to go 0-162.

Josh Johnson is really awesome at pitching. In the clubhouse after the game, just about every Met said so. They also said they “battled” and that “you have to tip your hat to the guy.”

Presumably you saw the game. If you didn’t, you didn’t miss much: Mike Pelfrey struggled to find the strike zone and Johnson was typically excellent. Willie Harris had a pair of hits and Beltran drove a double down the line.

Tomorrow is Saturday, but since I’m still in Miami it won’t be like a normal Saturday on TedQuarters. I need to find a sandwich so there might not be much in the morning, but I’ll be here at Sun Life Stadium in the afternoon writing posts that I hope are more substantive than this one.

For now, the important thing is to read way too much into small samples and freak the hell out. WILL THE METS EVER WIN A GAME?