Seriously, I feared he’d hurt himself on that play. Looked like a broken wrist waiting to happen. But Jeff Francoeur is resilience personified.
No one will ever accuse Jeff Francoeur of half-assing it
5
Sandwich week? Sandwich week.
It’s Sandwich Week here on TedQuarters. Why? Several reasons:
1) There’s no real baseball for the next three days, and I generally find the All-Star Game pretty boring. (Notable exception: When Pedro Martinez struck out Barry Larkin, Larry Walker, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire and Jeff Bagwell over two innings in 1999.)
2) The last several posts about sandwiches have been popular, and I give the people what they want.
3) I’m already certain I’m eating a sandwich for dinner tonight, so, you know, one post in the bag.
4) Why do I need to give you so many reasons why it’s Sandwich Week? Sandwiches are awesome. Leave me alone.
Anyway, basically the format of Sandwich Week is as follows: I eat a bunch of sandwiches and then write about them here.
I’m partly using the New York Magazine list of Top 101 Sandwiches in New York as a guide, even though I’m certain that list is a bit pretentious. I’m also seeking recommendations — Alex Belth provided tomorrow’s sandwich destination already — so if you know of any notably awesome sandwiches please say so. The only qualification is that it has to be somewhere reasonably accessible to Midtown Manhattan or Central Westchester. I don’t have all day to travel for great sandwiches. That is my dream, though. Someday…
Anywho, here goes nothing:
The Sandwich: Chacarero Completo from Barros Luco, 300 1/2 E. 52nd St. in Manhattan.
The Construction: Thinly sliced steak with string beans, mayo, white cheese, avocado and a banana-pepper/cilantro sauce on fresh-baked Chilean bread. The sandwich comes with tomatoes, too, but I ordered mine without them because they’re not my cup of tea.
Important background information: Barros Luco the eatery is named for the “Barros Luco,” a popular Chilean sandwich that is in turn named for former Chilean president and mustache hero Ramon Barros Luco. The Wikipedia doesn’t make his presidency sound particularly notable, but obviously the man should be celebrated for popularizing steak-and-cheese sandwiches in Chile.
While he doesn’t deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence as the great John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich and inventor of the sandwich, clearly Ramon Barros Luco was a smart dude and venerable statesman.
What it looks like:
I pulled off a half a slice of bread for the purposes of the photo. It was a complete sandwich, obviously.
How it tastes: This was a good sandwich, but not a great one.
The big innovation the Chacarero Completo offers is the use of string beans on a sandwich, which I’m not sure I’ve ever encountered before. But while I like string beans on their own, they were a bit overpowering on the sandwich, which didn’t have a ton of flavor otherwise. In fact, the hot, fresh-baked bread should have been the best part of the sandwich, but even on its own it just tasted like all the string-bean flavor it soaked up.
Still, the sandwich was moist throughout, the smashed avocados were creamy and delicious, and the melted cheese was, well, melted cheese. The steak was a bit tough and entirely lacked seasoning, which wouldn’t have mattered, I don’t think, if I tasted more of the aji verde (banana pepper and cilantro sauce). A closer look at the menu revealed that I could have ordered the sandwich with the slightly spicier aji rojo sauce, and if I find my way to Barros Luco again, I probably will.
There was a bottle ketchup on the table, so I tried dipping the sandwich in some. That helped a lot; it added a little sweetness to what was a pretty salty sandwich. Maybe the tomato would have balanced out the sandwich a bit, but like I said, I’m no fan of that fruit/vegetable/whatever. I like tomato-based products but not the thing itself. Weird texture, I think.
What it’s worth: I haven’t decided exactly how to rate sandwiches in Sandwich Week, and I may come up with something better, but I figure a good way to measure a sandwich’s excellence is to compare it with the cost. For the Chacarero Completo, I walked about a half a mile and spent $8.
The price was more than reasonable — I am still very full and I ate the sandwich nearly two hours ago. Worth the walk, though? I’m not sure. Like I said, this was a solid sandwich, but I don’t think it was a destination sandwich. If you happen upon Barros Luco, by all means, check it out. But I wouldn’t go too far out of my way for a Chacarero Completo. It was certainly interesting, with the string beans and all, but not outstanding.
Wrapping up the first half with Alex Belth
Your thoughts on the Mets’ and Yanks’ first-half MVPs? Biggest disappointments? Biggest surprises?
Taco Bell All-Star Legends and Celebrity Softball Game features terrifying lack of legendary tacos
This was just for fun, after all, and the way MC Hammer hacked his way through batting practice before the Taco Bell All-Star Legends & Celebrity Softball Game made you wonder whether his obliques would hold up. Thankfully, they did, and Hammer, the one-time Oakland A’s batboy and San Francisco Giants tryout hopeful, had his opportunity to play on a Major League Baseball diamond. He even got to trot around the bases after a first-inning home run.
The article lists a slew of celebrities and former baseball players that participated in the Taco Bell All-Star Legends & Celebrity Softball Game, but not a single Taco Bell Legend or Taco Bell Celebrity. Obviously the foremost Taco Bell Legend, Glen Bell, is not around to bat cleanup (RIP), but what about Joey Porter or Charles Barkley? What about Denise, the all-time greatest Taco Bell employee? The Chihuahua? Anyone?
I hereby declare shenanigans.
Wait a minute: What?
Knicks Prez Donnie Walsh told me today that Isiah Thomas will be among Knicks GM candidates if they make a hire.
– ESPN’s Chris Broussard, Twitter.
Wait a minute: What?
Look, I don’t know much about operating an NBA basketball team. In fact, there’s really only thing I’m downright certain of: Never, ever let Isiah Thomas anywhere near the controls.
And it’s not about the sexual-harassment lawsuit that cost the Knicks $11.6 million or even the time he overdosed on sleeping pills and then threw his 17-year-old daughter under the bus. I mean, yeah, those are two reasons I’d probably be leery of hiring the guy, but I’m not one for sweeping moral judgments.
I mean, holy crap, they JUST unburied themselves from all the damage the guy did while he was in charge.
Carlos Beltran saying stuff
After a rough homestand with the Reds and Braves, the Mets’ first-half ended with a flurry of good news: Beltran showed up, three Mets pitchers shut down the braves, Jerry Manuel confirmed that Angel Pagan will get the lion’s share of playing time in right field, and Jeff Francoeur was cool about it.
Cool on all counts. Frenchy becomes about a billion times more lovable as a right-handed bench bat. He mashes left-handed pitching and affords the team defensive flexibility that Chris Carter does not. All but three of Francoeur’s 6849 innings in Major League outfields have come in right, but since Pagan can play all three spots and Beltran will certainly need rest, Francoeur’s arm becomes a valuable late-inning weapon whenever the team has a big enough lead to shoulder his puny on-base percentage.
Replacing Francoeur with Beltran in the lineup massively upgrades the Mets’ offense, even if Beltran is a mere shell of his former self. Assuming Jose Reyes returns to full health soon, the Mets’ lineup should be good enough to keep the team in the pennant race regardless of if they improve their pitching.
Oh, and a fun note, for what it’s worth: Since word came down that Beltran was ready to start playing rehab games on June 22, Angel Pagan has hit .412 with a .446 on-base percentage and a .686 slugging (though he missed a few games with the oblique injury). Jeff Francoeur has hit .197 with a .234 OBP and a .295 slugging.
If you’ve read this site with any regularity you know I don’t put much stock in small samples in isolation or in assuming a player’s inherent clutchness, but it’s hard not to give it up to Pagan for distinguishing himself from Francoeur once it became clear he had to. I’m certain it’s more an effect of Pagan being the better player than Pagan stepping up under pressure, but he picked a very convenient time to announce his superiority with so much authority.
Random Saturday postgame notes
Jose Reyes said David Wright knows him better than anyone else on the team. Wright saw Reyes wince while throwing, and called Jerry Manuel out to remove Reyes from the game. According to Reyes, Wright stressed how important it was to the team for Reyes to be fully healthy for the second half. Reyes maintains that he didn’t further injure his strained oblique by playing today or this week, but said that Wright expressed concern that he might.
The good news is that David Wright is around and vigilant. The bad news is that Reyes is visibly hurt but somehow it’s up to the Mets’ third baseman to keep him out of games.
Jerry Manuel said that Reyes would be sent to the All-Star Game “with a note,” which really made it sound like it’d be pinned to Jose’s shirt by the kindergarten teacher. Adam Rubin has since Tweeted that Reyes will be out of the All-Star Game entirely, but I didn’t hear that part.
Angel Pagan has a “Retire 21” sticker in his locker. He also has an .832 OPS on the season. Jeff Francoeur is at .694.
Ruben Tejada changed lockers and is now in the spot where Ryota Igarashi used to be. Tejada’s old locker is mostly empty except a few jerseys, a couple of gloves, and a label on top that says “BELTRAN 15.” This makes me unreasonably excited. I’m pretty sure it’s the same locker Beltran had last year, for whatever it’s worth.
I wonder if Igarashi’s translator went with him to St. Lucie. I assume he did.
What? No.
However, Reyes added a new twist by telling Viloria that while he would prefer to stay at short, he “hasn’t ruled out” changing positions. More specifically, Reyes mentions that “I played several games at second base for the Mets,” referring to the 43 games he logged at the keystone in 2004.
Reyes’ preferences aside, there is an argument to be made for bumping the 27-year-old one slot to the right. First of all, one of the team’s top position prospects (along with Fernando Martinez and others) is 18-year-old shortstop Wilmer Flores, who has been showing promise at the lower levels of the Mets system—though some see his future outside of the infield. In any event, once the Mets are free of their commitment to Luis Castillo at the end of 2011 (or sooner by trade), there is no ready replacement within the upper levels of the system save Ruben Tejada, a natural shortstop like Reyes but without his speed or offensive ceiling.
– Nick Collias, MLBTradeRumos.com.
No disrespect to Collias, but there really isn’t any argument for it at all. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s cool that Reyes is willing to do whatever the team asks. But there’s just no reason the team should ask him to switch positions as long as he’s an above-average defensive shortstop.
I just don’t understand the logic here, even a little bit. Am I missing something?
Just a friendly reminder
If anyone asks, remember: Tonight’s Braves starter, Tulsa-born Tommy Hanson, is first cousins with the pride of Tulsa, the band Hanson.
Commenter Brad Gates, whom former roommate Ted reports to be the nephew of Bill Gates, will tell you otherwise. But even though he claims to know the pitching Hanson personally, he is just deceiving you on behalf of his friend. Tommy Hanson doesn’t want to be known as the first cousin of the band Hanson because Tommy Hanson has set out to make it on his own, without the type of favoritism generally bestowed upon relatives of pop icons.
But look, there’s evidence. Here are all the Hansons at a recent family reunion:
Jayson Werth brings shame to great beards
Look, truth be told, if a player on any other team did the same thing I’d say, “Meh, he was obviously in the heat of the moment and ballplayers are intense competitors, he probably regretted it later.”
But Werth’s a Phillie, so the Eck thing applies again. Plus the fan in question was also in the heat of the moment, and was probably too busy looking at the ball to have any idea that Werth was charging at him. And I’m sure after he got yelled at in front of his kid by a member of their favorite sports team, he was intentionally vomited on by some drunk guy in the row behind him. He’d almost be a sympathetic figure if he weren’t a Phillies fan, deserving of the public humiliation and inevitable vomit bath. Plus you gotta assume he’ll pay it forward anyway.
Tedquarters 