Chipper Jones’ retirement tour hit San Diego this week, where the third baseman received a surfboard from the Padres organization. Here’s his stupid grin:
Over at Big League Stew, Kevin Kaduk ranks Larry’s retirement gifts so far. Which brings up the question:
I have seen a lot of baseball. So, so much baseball. And I’ve never seen anything like this before.
Not just Tuesday, Taco Bell Tuesday.
Taco Bell is on fire: Nancy Luna of the OC Register, the nation’s foremost fast-food blogger, reports that Taco Bell has sold over 200 million Doritos Locos Tacos since the product’s launch in March. The Doritoed taco is the brand’s most successful new product ever, and with its success came a 13-percent jump in same-store sales at Taco Bells in the second financial quarter, which sounds impressive but really I have no idea.
Luna sampled two new Doritos Locos Tacos flavors at the Taco Bell test kitchen in Irvine, the Happiest Place on Earth. Click through for her review, or wait for whenever they launch for mine. Taco Bell hasn’t promised a second or third Doritos Locos Taco flavor, but it’s pretty clearly a matter of time. They’ll probably wait until we recover from the Nacho Cheese hook to hit us with the Cool Ranch cross.
With success comes legacy: Not surprisingly given Taco Bell’s growth, this week brings symbols of Mexican-inspired fast-food’s growing global influence. First: In Southern California, the Ventura County star brings word of a handsome longhaired cat named Taco Bell that’s available for adoption. And my, that’s a handsome cat. Taco Bell is 6 years old and he’s a cuddler. He likes to be petted and to have his belly rubbed. Presumably he also likes Taco Bell, but don’t quote me on that. I’ve never owned a cat and have no idea if they should be eating Taco Bell. Do adopt Taco Bell, but do not feed Taco Bell to Taco Bell without first consulting your veterinarian. It might destroy both Taco Bells, Timecop-style.
Second: In the Northern Mariana Islands — easily the most frequently overlooked organized U.S. Territory — a basketball team named KFC/Taco Bell (presumably for a sponsor, but hopefully in loving tribute) exploded for 84 points to dominate Wushin Express, 84-65, in Gualo Rai Invitational Basketball League play. KFC/Taco Bell benefited from 21 points from Ralph Francisco, and from sweet jerseys that I’m pretty sure I could pull off and that would make for a great story, especially if the story were, “Yeah, I write this blog about Taco Bell and this awesome basketball guy from the Northern Mariana Islands found it and sent me his jersey.” Check these out:
Finally: Congrats to Southeastern Missouri Taco Bell employee Tina Bell on the birth of her sun Gunner. As far as I know, neither Glen Bell nor Yum! Foods ever required Taco Bell employees to change their last names to Bell, but they probably should, and this site commends Ms. Bell for pioneering the trend.
Is this woman too pretty for Bethel, Alaska?: At the New York Times, advertising columnist Stuart Elliott investigates a reader’s claim that the following woman looks out of place in Bethel, Alaska:
That is undoubtedly an attractive woman who appears to be enjoying the hell out of her Doritos Locos Taco, and as both the reader and Elliott point out, it’d be pretty bad if the ad agency behind the campaign were employing nefarious tactics in a campaign that came in response to a hoax.
But alas, Elliott reaches out to the agency to learn that “everyone who appeared in the ad were real people in Bethel.” And, really, you knew this: There are beautiful people everywhere, and many of them are reasonable enough to enjoy Taco Bell.
NASA has announced plans for a new song by will.i.am to make its debut from the surface of Mars via the Curiosity rover.
The single, “Reach for the Stars,” will be transmitted on Tuesday to Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., as part of an educational event to share findings about Mars with students.
Wait, seriously? We’re beaming music back from Mars and we can’t do better than the man responsible for “My Humps”? Isn’t Paul McCartney still alive? Could no one convince Kanye West that having the first song BROADCAST FROM MARS was a worthwhile enough pursuit to muscle his way in there?
And for heaven’s sake, did everyone just up and forget about David Bowie?
It is Aug. 27 and, as far as I know, I have yet to troll a newspaper column about the Mets in this space this season. That used to be a regular and somewhat popular part of this blog’s constitution, but after a couple of petty but informative email exchanges with ranking members of the local media, I decided that to react to sensational or needlessly needling material is to indulge it, and I should aspire to loftier things. Like, you know, writing about Taco Bell and stuff.
I made the same resolution last season but only made it to early May before I blew it. The big difference this season is that I mostly stopped reading anything that’s going to annoy me. I’m still exposed to it via Twitter and occasional reader email, so I know most of the general themes in contemporary LOLMetsing. But if I click on something now and find myself getting frustrated, I can usually click away without ever thinking about it again. Maybe that’s maturity or professionalism, but I’ve never been very mature or professional. I suspect it’s more apathy than anything else — not for the actual on-field Mets or their roster, but for the bizarre, antagonistic culture surrounding them in some parts of the media and fanbase. Blame Beltran, I guess.
Which is all a long lead up to say that I have no idea why I allowed myself to read all the way through this column from Joel Sherman in the New York Post, which asserts that somehow the Mets were the losers of the recent, giant Dodgers-Red Sox trade. It’s not all incorrect: Sherman points out that six months ago, the Mets and Dodgers appeared in similar financial straits and now the Dodgers, under new owners, are spending like mad. That’s definitely true, and it’s true that the Mets could benefit from the type of short-term financial flexibility that the Red Sox earned through the trade and the long-term wealth that the Dodgers can now apparently boast.
The arguments break down in the particulars, though.
Sherman suggests that if Johan Santana had performed better this season, the Dodgers would be willing to take on the $31 million left on his contract, as evidenced by their willingness to put a waiver claim on Cliff Lee and to accept Beckett in the trade. He writes Santana’s contract “probably would not have deterred the money-is-no-object Dodgers,” and maybe he’s got some inside info to back that up.
But check it out: Sherman doesn’t note that Santana is owed $31 million for next year alone, while the $31.5 million remaining on Beckett’s contract covers 2013 and 2014. Beckett, like Santana, has both struggled and missed some time with injury this season. But Beckett was one of the best pitchers in baseball in 2011 while Santana sat out the entire season following shoulder surgery. And Beckett, moving to an easier division and a more pitcher-friendly park, can be expected to improve in Dodger Blue. The same can not be said for Santana. How much better would Santana have had to pitch in 2012 to convince another club to take on $31 million for one year of one pitcher with a surgically repaired throwing shoulder?
Also: Cliff Lee is awesome. He was awesome last year, he was awesome the year before that and the year before that, and he was still pretty awesome when he was 2-6 and the Dodgers claimed him. Lee averaged 225 innings the past four seasons. I’m not sure taking on an aging pitcher at $87.5 million for three years seems like smart baseball business, but then that he was claimed and not traded appears to imply the Phillies think Lee will be worth it. And to their credit, he hasn’t provided much evidence yet to suggest he won’t be.
The column goes on to argue that the Mets are the losers in the deal because they do not have an ownership group dedicated to energizing a fanbase by signing and taking on a bunch of potential albatross contracts, because nothing energizes a fanbase like gutting your farm system and committing over $100 million through 2017 to Carl Crawford — who was, by OPS+, worse with the Red Sox than Jason Bay has been with the Mets. Bringing on Adrian Gonzalez, Beckett and Hanley Ramirez definitely gives the Dodgers a better chance of winning it all in 2012 and 2013, and flags fly forever. But things will seem pretty different by 2015, when they’ve got over $80 million locked up in four players, with only one of them — awesome, awesome Matt Kemp — likely to still be in his prime.
The crux of the argument, I guess, is that the Mets are losers because they were not able to get rid of or take on bad contracts, and implicitly that they’re losers for having another big-spending team in the National League with which to compete for free agents. Some of that makes sense. The Mets could become on-field winners sooner if they could part with their 2013 contractual obligations to Santana and Jason Bay and spend that money (or even more money) elsewhere. But unstated is that the Mets have spent their last four years weighed down by big contracts, and that the struggles of the Red Sox and Phillies and Marlins this year should help show why dishing out a bunch of massive, long-term contracts doesn’t guarantee victories.
Bay and Santana are on the books through the end of next season. Crawford is signed through 2017 and Beckett through 2014. If the Sox didn’t force the issue by including Gonzalez (and the estimable Nick Punto, of course), it would be years before they could clear up that cash. The Mets should gain financial flexibility after next year’s campaign.
Which is to say, I guess, that none of the pieces involved are comparable and it’s just a totally different situation, so it seems like piling on the currently awful Mets to label them losers in a deal they had nothing to do with. Then, as a kicker, Sherman adds:
The Dodgers, playing Luis Cruz at third, needed an upgrade at that position as badly as they do first base. So why exactly couldn’t the Mets have been bold with David Wright, as long as they could attach a bad contract or two with it to gain a total financial reset along with prospects?
That implies, I think, that Sherman believes the Mets could have sent Wright along with Bay and/or Santana to the Dodgers for prospects — that they had that option. But as you know and I know and Sherman certainly knows, Wright’s 2013 option only belongs to the Mets, so trading him this season would mean the acquiring team gets him for only the rest of this season. Would the Dodgers really take on $21 to $51 million’s worth of 2013 obligation and trade away prospects for a month and a half of David Wright? That’s not a rhetorical question. Again, maybe Sherman’s privy to some information I don’t have, like that the Dodgers’ new ownership group consists entirely of WFAN callers that somehow stumbled their way into billions of dollars and are currently pounding their fists on the boardroom table yelling,”TRADE! TRADE! TRADE!”
But if that were by some chance the case, wouldn’t the Mets be reasonable to expect even more in return for Wright in just a couple of months, after they exercise his option and can trade away his services for all of 2013?
Once again, and for any Mets fans who have made it this far: The change you are seeking has already been made. We don’t know yet to what extent the team’s owners are willing to invest in the Mets’ payroll, but everyone should realize by now that spending money for the sake of spending money is no way to build a consistent winner. Sandy Alderson, we have seen, is dedicated to building a club from within and retaining the players worth retaining. Not all his moves have been great ones, for sure, but he has done nothing to hamstring the club for the future. Hopefully at some point soon the Mets will appear to be a piece or two away from fielding a certain contender and Alderson will have the financial flexibility to bring those pieces on via free agency. That’s the model. It’s the model everyone seemed to agree was the right one when Alderson was brought on board a couple years ago, and it’s not something they should deviate from now just because we’ve grown bored of it.
Sorry for the delay. Busy weekend of doing nothing.
The sandwich: Bacon Cheeseburger from Double Windsor, 16th St. and Prospect Park West, Brooklyn.
The construction: Ground Pat LaFrieda beef with American cheese, bacon, lettuce, tomato, pickles and onions, cooked medium rare. The standard burger at Double Windsor comes with neither bacon nor cheese, but they’re both available as add-ons. They also offered cheddar and blue cheese.
Important background information: I pretty much always want a cheeseburger. Unless I’m absolutely stuffed to the point of feeling disgusting, there’s just no situation wherein someone might offer me a cheeseburger and I would reject it. If I were wearing a white suit in the car on my way to Puff Daddy’s White Party and you were like, “hey, I got you this Big Mac but they went a little crazy with the Special Sauce,” I’d probably still eat it and show up with a big grease stain on my pants and embarrass myself in front of Tila Tequila and Nick Cannon.
In my mind, there are four primary categories of burger: There’s the basic fast-food burger, the upscale fast-food burger, the pub burger, and the fancy burger. Though typically the upscale fast-food burger (a la Five Guys, Shake Shack) are better than the basic fast-food burger (McDonald’s, Wendy’s), there’s a great variance in quality of burgers in each category. The upscale fast-food and fancy burgers probably see the greatest variety of toppings on average, but sometimes a pub will surprise you with some Canadian bacon or something. Every category of burger has its place, and every category offers some great burgers.
Before she was my wife, my wife used to judge me for frequently ordering burgers at restaurants that weren’t specifically burger places. To me, though, the burger is the best standard by which to judge a restaurant. The floor for burgers is so high that if the burger is only OK, the place is probably just so-so and I didn’t want any of that other stuff anyway. If the burger’s outstanding, I’ll return and eye something else on the menu, only to ultimately just order a burger again because the burger was so good and how can you go wrong with a burger?
What it looks like (after some instagramming):
How it tastes: Excellent. The bacon cheeseburger at Double Windsor is about as good as you can reasonably hope for a pub-style burger to be.
The meat’s so juicy, burger-juice pours out of the back of the thing like a faucet while you’re eating it and covers your mixed-green salad with a delicious burger-juice dressing. And though it’s not a massive burger, the meat is thick enough to keep the portions correct; the beef in no way gets drowned out by the toppings.
The toppings are great too. I got American cheese because I was in the mood for the burgeriest burger, and American seems like the de facto burger cheese. I typically order cheddar, but partly because I know I might get judged ordering American cheese. Time to break those shackles: American cheese is delicious. It melts better than every other cheese (because of an emulsifying salt that prevents the oil from separating under heat), and it’s creamy and salty and cheesy and great. You’re not better than anyone; stop hating on American cheese and admit that some of this country’s mass-produced staples can be pretty damn delicious in the right use.
The bacon is bacon, and there’s a lot of it. It’s good, flavorful stuff, too. One slice was cooked a little less crispy than I might prefer, but that’s nitpicking. Plus, the other slice provided plenty of crunch for the sandwich. The bun tastes sweet and fresh and mostly holds the burger together — though it withered under the grease after a while.
Lettuce, tomato, pickles, onions: All good, all perfectly proportioned. One slice of lettuce for some crunch, one bun-sized piece of tomato for sweetness and moisture, a few small pickles and a small handful of diced onions for flavor.
I ate this burger immediately after playing nine innings of baseball under an unrelenting sun on the hottest day in weeks. It was exactly what I was looking for: A big, juicy, satisfying burger to eat during a spirited postgame brodown.
When I was done, I wanted another. So it goes.
What it’s worth: My primary gripe is the price. The burger alone costs $12, but since the cheese and bacon cost extra the whole thing costs over $16 with tax. Everything’s delicious so you’re paying for what you get, but that’s a lot for any burger.
The rating: 85 out of 100. Five dollars cheaper and we’d be talking about the Hall of Fame.
Whoa. OK. I’ve had so many sandwiches in Nassau County. I want to say it’s my own eponymous sandwich — Berg’s Pepper Barge — from DeBono’s Deli in Rockville Centre where I worked for several years. But I’m pretty sure it’s still the Full Bird from Busco’s, the sandwich that made me love sandwiches.
In my sandwich pursuits, I’ve tried sandwiches from so many places and so many different types of places, but as far as I’m concerned there’s no place more reliable for great sandwiches than a good Long Island deli. Practically everyone from Long Island (and Westchester, for that matter) has one they rave about, but the staples are the same: plentiful Boar’s Head meat, fresh kaiser rolls and Italian hero bread, and — inevitably — some specialty sandwich including a chicken cutlet and bacon that locals rave about. In fact, I’d be willing to wager that some 75 percent of native Long Islanders reading this blog right now can identify by proper name a specialty sandwich from a local deli featuring chicken cutlet and bacon and describe in detail what distinguishes it from the chicken cutlet and bacon sandwiches at other local delis: American or cheddar cheese, Russian dressing or mayo or ranch or honey mustard, garlic bread or plain, etc.
They’re all delicious because it’s a fundamentally delicious combination. I’m partial to Busco’s version because it’s the one I grew up with and because I think they do a particularly good job of it.
https://twitter.com/vlams/status/239021825873547264
It’s the Cheesy Gordita Crunch, regardless of if it’s actually on the menu. Every decent Taco Bell will make one for you when it’s not.
It might just be you. I personally found the fire-roasted sauce a little disappointing, and I find that it doesn’t fill any obvious need in the taco-sauce repertoire. If I’m getting three tacos now, you can bet I’m dressing one with Salsa Verde, one with Hot and one with Fire: Sweet, Savory, Spicy. Not sure I ever felt I wanted to add smoky to that list.
Honestly? No. From what I understand, that lawsuit was mostly frivolous, and even if it wasn’t it probably wouldn’t have stopped me from eating Taco Bell. I eat Taco Bell because it’s delicious, not because I don’t think it’s going to destroy me from the inside. For all I write about it here, I really don’t eat it that often — especially since I’ve left the suburbs. Eating too much Taco Bell is pretty obviously dangerous no matter how they’re preparing their beef, so I try to moderate my Taco Bell consumption accordingly. And I can’t stop ordering ground-beef stuff because the ground-beef stuff is clearly the best.
https://twitter.com/TooGooden16/status/239032628446109699
I suspect Mark is partly kidding with the words per post joke, but it’s true that I’ve been missing in action for most of this week. I can’t say if my work in general has been slacking before that; I find that the things I write that I think are best are rarely the same as the ones readers think are best.
This blog now counts as some part of my responsibilities here, but it is and always has been primarily a labor of love. And most of the time, I love writing it. But in order for the blog to be good — in my eyes, at least — I do need some time away on occasion. For one thing, hunching in front of my computer wreaks havoc on my back, and sometimes when the pain gets strong enough it’s the only thing I can think about and my writing suffers. That’s kind of what happened yesterday.
For another, sometimes I just need to think about stuff and experience stuff to try to keep creating fresh content for this site. I had conversations in Binghamton that will in part inform my writing all offseason, plus time on the road to clear my head a bit.
Truth is, my typical daily obligations here force me to spend less time than I would like on posts, but that’s why they give me a paycheck and call it work. If I were to try to write any more than I already do, you wouldn’t miss it when it was gone because it would utterly suck.
Sometimes I toy with the idea of bringing on like-minded contributors to bolster the site’s content and afford me more time to work on lengthier posts and such. But though I’m pretty sure I could find willing and talented writers, I’m not sure I could in good conscience ask someone to volunteer his or her time for a site named for me.
https://twitter.com/rcooverbrooklyn/status/239026590003122179
Dude, your standards are just way too high. I mean, I don’t know you or anything but from your Twitter feed it seems like you’re a pretty funny guy. And if you’re following me I suspect you’re extremely handsome. But you need to understand that no one’s perfect, and that someone’s annoying little quirks that keep you at bay now could become the very quirks you love about that person if you’d only give them a chance. For crying out loud, Robert, you need to take some chances here.
https://twitter.com/bagelsNrahtz/status/239025720205131776
Probably not. It’s a funny joke and one I’ve mined for material plenty of times before, but it’s only one joke and you summed up the entire joke in your Tweet: The MLB Draft has something called a “sandwich round” and sandwiches are delicious. I’m not above beating jokes to death — you can blame Carlos Beltran for that — but putting in real research by looking through past drafts just seems like too much work.
Tedquarters 