The real food comparison for New York/Philly bragging rights

Now while I’m a born-and-bred New Yorker, I’ve been in and around Philly pretty much since 1997.  While I used to hate the place when I first got down here, and left twice only to be pulled back in (hell, you go to where the jobs are), I’ve gotten used to the place.  It has its quirks, and some good qualities about it, but it’s no New York.  It’s no comparison. 

There’s a whole lot of shtick in the newspapers on how New York can try to improve cheesesteaks (My answer: they can’t.  If you want one, hope in your car or take a train ride.), or how Philly can improve pizza (My answer: again, they can’t.  It’s the local water that makes the dough perfect.).  And still, there’s two things down here that don’t improve the two locality’s mainstays, just something different: (cheese)steak as a topping on pizza is one thing I haven’t seen in New York, and it’s pretty fucking good.  And I’ve once had (down here) a shop that made a reuben cheesesteak.  Yes, corned beef on the griddle, chopped, with Swiss.  It’s not a cheesesteak by any stretch, but a good gutbuster.

So there’s no point in putting pizza and cheesesteaks head-to-head.  New York makes the best pizza, and I wouldn’t dare buy a cheesesteak outside a 25-mile radius of the Liberty Bell.  It’s comparing apples to oranges.  There needs to be an apples-to-apples comparison.  Hoagies vs. heroes?  They’re both sandwiches, and it’s just semantics.  Philadelphia cream cheese is something you put on New York bagels, and goes into New York cheesecake. 

There is one thing that both cities love, and can brag about: soft pretzels.  They’re quintiessential New York, and quintiessential Philly.  They’re the same, but different.

philly.com

The shape of the Philly pretzel is what throws the out-of-towners for a loop.  They look like soft pretzels, but were squished together.  I joke that they look like they didn’t have enough baking pans and too much dough, so they squished them together.  What they really resemble are Philly row-homes.  What happens is when you break them apart, the long edges don’t get a full dousing with lye, and don’t get the crust.  It’s not quite like when you pull the knot apart, and it’s all soft inside; it’s somewhere in between.  They’re usually sold in multiples, or you can buy the whole office a box of them.  And now chains of pretzel bakeries are springing up all over Philly and the surrounding burbs.

Now the New York pretzel is very New York.  They have a traditional pretzel shape, and are BIG, just like everything in New York.  Where are they made?  It’s none of your business.  How long ago?  Why are you asking so many questions.  But what makes them good is them they’re heated on a street cart over charcoal.  They take on a little of that lighter fluid and Kingsford flavor…a little bit disgusting when you put it in black-and-white, but it’s that warmth that gives it that little extra umph.  You can find them at your favorite dirty-water-dog street vendor.  So, life’s full of risks, and who knows when’s the last time that guy washed his hands, but hey, it’s New York!

Found on Dreamer7112's flickr

Oh, I’m really scared! Your hurt my feelings! As IF!!!

Well, in case you’ve been living under a rock (and according to a former classmate on facebook, she has been), the New York Yankees are playing the Philadelphia Phillies in the World Series.  Now if anybody knows me, I’m a die-hard Yankees fan.  I’ve been through the good and the bad.  I’ve been to probably 100 games at the old Stadium.  I watch just about every game on TV, or catch it on the radio.  When it comes to baseball, I’m no bandwagon fan.  I can’t say the same about hockey or football, but that’s not the point here. 

Anybody who knows me knows there’s hardly a time I don’t wear a ball cap.  More often than not, it a Yankee cap.  Each year, because I’m a superstitious asshole, I buy a new one and wear it the entire season.  This year it’s a white one commemorating the inaugural season in the new Stadium.  I got it in April, and have worn it every day since.  Pay attention…this is important. 

In addition to the hats, I have a pile of Yankee t-shirts.  I own a couple jerseys.  Oh, and the pictures on the wall.  And the flag outside.  And a couple of jackets.   My wife got me a real nice Yankee jacket.  It’s the same one the team wears in the dugout.  And now that fall has finally come around, and it’s a little chilly in the morning, I’ve been wearing it for about three weeks now.  In addition to the same hat I’ve been wearing since April. 

Picture this with a Philadelphia background, and you get my drift.

Now I take the train in every day from the suburbs into Center City Philadelphia.  As I strive to be on time to work, and as a creature of habit, I take the same trains, sit in the same cars, and essentially run into the same people.  But now that the Yanks are playing the Phils in the World Series, they’re approaching me, and telling me how brave I am for wearing a Yankee jacket in Philadelphia.  Brave?  BRAVE???  Brave is running into a burning building.  Brave fighting in Iraq.  Brave would be wearing a klan robe in North Philly.  But I’m wearing a fucking Yankee jacket!!! Do these people really think that there’s a 90% chance that the crowd would beat the shit out of me if I actually went to Citizens Bank Park?  Are Philly fans really that dumb?

Do you really want me to answer that question?

 I’ve spent over five years in Boston back before they broke the so-called Curse of the Bambino, and in all that time, I’ve taken my fair share of heckling both inside and out of Fenway Park.  I’ve gotten in heated exchanges, but it’s never gotten into fisticuffs.  Good for me for knowing where to draw the line.  But I’ve been in situations, seen the line drawn, and know where to zip it if necessary.  Again, I still have a pretty face. 

Bottom line, the Philly fans still don’t know how to heckle.  While Sox fans will yell at you from across the street that “Yankees suck”, the only thing Phillies fans know how to do is mutter “Phil-ees!”  This is also the same crowd where the largest word they know how to spell is Eagles, but again, another topic for another time. I guess all these years playing in the National League with the Mets hasn’t prepared Phillies fans for a good verbal heckle.  (Damn, I never did write about my trip to Shitty Field!  I should get on that in the next couple of months!) 

Bottom line, Sox fans will tell you to your face that you suck, while Phils fans will just be obnoxious, but without the personal attack.  I guess there is some truth to the slogan “City of Brotherly Love”.

Blog Psychic, Episode 3

There’s a lot of chatter regarding the predictions for the World Series, especially down here in enemy territory.  Rare is it when the Post and the Daily News have the same back cover…SHUT ROLLINS UP!!! 

My evil plan would be that the New York Football Giants would play the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday, and win.  And the twin-bill nightcap of Philly/New York, the Yanks would win Game 4 of the World Series for a sweep.  Now while I’m pretty confident the G-men will beat the Iggles convincingly, especially coming off a loss to the Cardinals, I wouldn’t expect the Yanks to sweep.  I say they do it at home in Game 6, which means they’ll do it in five.

But don’t count out the sweep just yet.  Go Girardi wouldn’t pitch CC Sabathia on Games 1 and 4 if he didn’t think he’d have a very good chance of winning them.  So let’s assume he does win both.  Game 2 is AJ Burnett vs. Pedro “Who’s your Daddy?” Martinez.  Pedro is older, and will have to work very hard against a Yankee lineup that will look at a lot of pitches.  I say he’s doesn’t make four innings.  The Yanks pounce on the underbelly of the the Phillies bullpen and win Game 2.  Game 3, Andy “Mr. Most Wins in Postseason History” Pettitte vs. a shaky Cole Hamels.  Get in Cole’s head, he’ll cough up runs, throw a hissy fit, and the game.  And look at that…a four-game sweep.

Game 2, 2004 ALCS

So you heard it here…book a flight to Vegas, and you can thank me later.  Hell, if the NFL didn’t dick over Delaware, you could have driven here instead.  Well, you could bet on the Giants, but you need two more games for the parlay (sucker) bet.

There's always room on the shelf for one more.

Nobody would be saying anything if it wasn’t the Yankees playing…

Oh my God!  The world’s coming to an end!  The sky is falling!  A major-league umpire made a bad call.

Game 4 of the 2009 ALCS had more “bad calls” than a usual game.  I’m not going into detail about Swisher and the pick-off attempt, Swisher and the tag-up, or Cano/Posada on third.  Or at least I don’t want to.

Let me first squash the conspiracy theorists.  The Yankees have not paid off the umpire squad.  They have not bought the World Series (yet, but they’re no different than the Red Sox…again another argument for another time). 

So-called “bad calls” are bad because we, in the confines of our living rooms, enjoy a view the umpires do not have.  There’s all kinds of cameras covering a typical baseball game.  I believe the YES Network employs no less than 17 at a typical Yankees game.  Hence, we, the viewing public, can enjoy MULTIPLE camera angles showing the action from different points of view, in super-slow-motion, and if you have it, in high definition. 

Umpires, on the other hand have a very different point of view of the action.  They’re at field-level, not tens of feet above the action like the cameras up on the middle deck or the outfield, up on the backstop, or even on top of the stadium.  Sometimes where they be may not be the best angle to see what really happened.  Take Nick Swisher tagging up on third.  The instant replay showed Tim McClelland looking down the line into left field.  He’s looking for the catch, not if Swisher left the bag early or not.  It’s impossible to be looking at two things at once.  Now I know some of you will say that umpires have “blue” eyes…one blew this way, one blew that way.  But seriously…

Or here’s an every-game example.  The batter hits a ground ball to short, he fields, and fires to first.  Where’s the umpire?  He’d behind the first baseman in foul territory.  He doesn’t have the best point of view to see when the ball hits the glove.  That would be somewhere inbetween the pitcher and the first baseman.  So the umpire looks at the bag to see when the batter hits it, and listens for the snap of the ball hitting the glove, and makes the call from there.  Bottom line, he doesn’t have a clear view of the ball.  But one of the TV cameras sure does.

I challenge anybody to come off the street and do what the umpires do.  They’re pretty much on the road for the entire season, unlike the players who are home for 81 games.  The umpires are standing the entire game in the heat or the cold.  And they’re expected to be the pope.

But for the most part, we wouldn’t even know if the umpires were even making bad calls if it weren’t for all the instant replays on TV.  Now I’m not saying all these camera angles are bad for watching the game at home.  But if Major League Baseball wants to expand the instant replay beyond the current home run call, there needs to be some serious structure in place, and it needs to be used sparingly.  While the guys in the TV control trucks do an excellent job getting the replays up, many times they’re being shown while the next guy is up to bat.  While I hate limiting the number of challenges the NFL has (so the coach can’t be right a third time?), games in the playoffs are long enough as it is.  Adding an extra two or three minutes here and there can really drag things out.  It’s bad enough when they add an extra 30 second commercial after every half inning for the national games as it is.

But what we really need, not right now in the playoffs, but say next year on some random game, is the umpire cam.  Fos has buried cameras in the pitchers mound, and we’ve even had “catcher cam”.  Why not make the umpire wear that mask, so we, the great unwashed, can see exactly what the umpire sees as he’s hunching OVER the catcher so he can see the plate to call balls and strikes. 

And to further the point, how many times do you see grainy black-and-white footage from decades back, and see umpires making “bad calls”?  They had, what no more than three cameras back then?  And none of them were in the outfield.

Sure umpires have a job that people love to hate, but it’s all part of the game we all know and love, that is baseball.

Got this on twitter last night...

Hey, Steve Buckley! This is why Yankee fans hate Sox fans…

I spent many a painful year going to school and working in Boston, starting back when the Sox couldn’t suck enough, and they couldn’t even sell out Fenway, even against the Yanks…long before all these bandwagon fans came out of the woodwork.  But through my astute observation (basically it was as plain as the nose on my face), Sox fans had a huge inferiority complex when it came to the Yanks.  And they blamed everything on the Curse of the Bambino.  Sox aren’t winning?  Curse of the Bambino.  Train broke down?  Curse of the Bambino.  Girlfriend dumped me?  Must be that damn curse.  But what it came down to was that the average Sox fan was one-dimensional, only knew one thing, and clung on to the past, reluctant to change, and only spit out the company line when confronted by out-of-towners.

And it’s this one-dimensional character flaw where they lead that battle cry, “Yankees suck!”  So the Yanks are playing the Sox?  Sure thing, yell your face off.  But Cleveland’s in town and you’re still chanting “Yankees suck!” and Cleveland is going to the playoffs and the Sox aren’t?  Sad.  10-year-old kids getting into my face in Fenway?  Pathetic. 

Now that doesn’t mean that there aren’t intelligent baseball fans in and around New England.  They’re just few and far between.  I used to hang out and drink at bars with a bunch  of old townies, but once they saw that even though I’m a die-hard, I can have an intelligent baseball discussion, they took me in. 

Now while living/working up there, I used to take the T all the time.  And since this was before the days that any jackass with a computer could come up with a blog/news source, I’d read this thing called a newspaper.  Now like most large cities in this country, there were two big dailies…the Globe and the Herald.  The Globe was a broadsheet format, and catered to the upper crust.  I’d get the Herald, because I’m a sucker for a tabloid format.  It’s just easier to read on the train.  And I didn’t mind the Herald.  Three pages of comics, and decent (albeit slanted) sports coverage.  Remember this was the paper the still dedicated two full pages to each of Clemens’ starts in Toronto, as if he still played in Boston…kind of how Green Bay still loved Favre when he went to the Jets. 

Now what I liked to do was read it cover-to-cover and scream in my head back at the columnists, sports or otherwise.  The only one that called a straight shot was Michael Gee, but he has other unrelated issues.  Now I know journalism is supposed to be impartial to an extent, but these guys were delusional borderline insane.  Oh, wait…it’s just the inferiority complex coming through again. 

Fast forward a couple of years.  The so-called curse has been broken, they won two World Series, and the Sox fans are as miserable as ever.  The more things change, the more they stay the same.

This past September, Boston came to the Bronx to play one last three-game series against the Yanks.  What started as a lop-sided 0-8 season series, the Yanks were on the precipice of tying it up at 9-9 with a three game sweep.  On the Friday night pregame (September 25), Yankee announcer Suzy Waldbaums interviews Boston Herald sports columnist Steve Buckley.  (Go onto itunes and download it yourself.)He give her the usual fluff, that the Sox don’t care that the Yanks are in first and the wild card is just fine (I don’t buy it one bit).  He does make the point that it’s not like the Yanks get a first round bye like they would in football, but like he said out of one side of his mouth, and then out of his other, if you don’t have home-field advantage, you have to play that fifth game on the road. 

So things go swimmingly for the better part of the three-plus minute interview, and she wraps things up by saying, “It’s my guess that we’ll be doing this back again in a couple of weeks,” referring to the fact that the way things were lining up, there was a very good chance that the two teams would meet up in the ALCS.  The Yanks were going to face the Tigers (or the Twins if they were to face a monumental collapse) whom they only lost once to this season, and the Sox always do well against the Angels.  It was a hey, who knows kind of moment.  And those writers and announcers all run into each other before and after games, so even if he doesn’t go on the pregame again, she was sure to run into him in the hallways at some point. 

But then he pulls the ultimate dick move if there ever was one.  He thanks her, and then says, “Oh, by the way, I’m going with the Tigers in the first round over the Yankees.”  This throws her off for a second, because she’d expect this from some guy in the Fenway grandstands named Sully, not a supposed professional journalist.   But she then throws it back at him, saying that if the Angels beat the Sox, then they won’t be having this discussion in a couple of weeks, which of course he didn’t like, so he tried to reiterate his original point, by saying “I love the Yankees but I love Verlander more.” 

BULLSHIT.  You hate the Yankees, Steve. 

And then Suzyn Waldman makes the asute point, that “Verlander has to pitch all three games according to Steve Buckley.”  Nice.  Call him an asshole right there on the carpet, but in a subtle way, so that his pea brain doesn’t realize you’ve just shown everybody listening that his logic is not only flawed, but on the same level as a 10-year-old.  You, know, the ones that think they’re cool heckling a guy wearing Yankee cap in Fenway. 

I get it.  I know you’re a homer.  I know you’re rooting for the Yankees to lose each and every solitary game for some unknown reason.  What happened?  Were the nuns mean to you in school?  Somebody run over your dog?  Did you get touched as a kid?  So WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?  GROW THE FUCK UP AND ACT LIKE A FUCKING ADULT, DOUCHEBAG!!!

You see kids, they typical Sox fan is so insecure, that he trysto play dirty, and thinks he’s all cool in doing so.  And what’s worse, they’re all over the place now like cockroaches ever since they won a World Series or two.  But we all know they’re  nothing but a bunch of babies.  Today’s they’re all backpedaling.  They’ll try to say that the Yanks have done nothing the past couple of years, going out in the first round of the playoffs.  But when they it happens to them, oh, no, they were robbed.  It was this excuse or that excuse.  Blah, blah, blah.

As we all know, Steve Buckley’s predictions were wrong on so many levels.  First, the Twins beat the Tigers for the division.  Second, the Yankees took care of the Twins in the LDS.  Besides, the Yanks could have beaten the Tigers if they had played them.  Third, the Sox got their asses handed to them, and couldn’t keep up their end of the bargain.  So Friday night, poor Suzyn Waldman will have to talk to somebody from the Angels media corps.  Oh well…

This is perhaps one of my favorite t-shirts I own:

Three Strikes, and Yer Out!

Today is a day that all New Yorkers (including displaced ones like myself) take to heart.  One of the most despecible things to happen not only in this country, but in the history of this planet.  No need to give a replay to history here.  But here’s what pisses me off. 

First of all, it’s been eight years, and the Trade Center site is still a hole in the ground.  The red tape, bickering among interest groups/designers/planners, etc., and we still have nothing to replace the Twin Towers yet.  NYC built two baseball stadiums since 2001.  The Empire State building took 406 days to build.  Clearly the terrorists have won.

But nothing worse is people that profit from 9/11 merchandise.  I’m not talking about all the American flags that were made in Taiwan.  Or the hack CD’s of bad parody songs that not even a two-bit morning zoo show would play.  What pisses me off is what I saw on TV earlier this evening.  The Yanks/O’s were in a rain delay, so we shifted over to the Phils/Mets, and since they’re playing down here, and the rain has already passed, they were actually playing.  Mets batted in the top of the first, and then the Phils came to bat.  But I got confused for a minute because the Mets were wearing red caps.  You know, the ones MLB forced ALL teams to wear (with their own logos in stars and stripes) which were red, even if your team doesn’t wear red anywhere on their uniform.  That means the Yankees, a team that hasn’t changed their uniform since the early part of last century, has to wear a dopey red cap.  It looks horrendous.  And it’s sole purpose is that dopey fans will buy one with their team’s logo.  It is purely for profit.  And that, among other reasons for another rant, is why I’m calling for Bud Selig’s head on a platter.

Something good from the All-Star game…

I’m not going to go off on MLB for starting events at a time that I can barely keep my eyes open on the East Coast.  Or the over-produced national anthem that takes sixteen minutes to belt out (shut up and sing the damn song).  Or that the only reason the game “counts” is because of World Series home-field advantage for the winner.  (It’s nothing more than a ploy to get people to watch, nothing more.)

But hat’s off to President Obama, wearing his White Sox jacket to throw out the first pitch.  Not some non-descript All-Star Game jacket, not a Cardinals jacket, but his hometown White Sox.  In a celebration of the best players in the sport, and with each and every team being represented in the game, there’s no reason for him NOT to.  And no, I don’t think he would have done it any differently if the game were at Minneapolis, or if he were a Cubs fan, I’m sure he would have worn a Cubs jacket in St. Louis. 

That’s a page out of my book.  I always wore my Yankee cap in Fenway, even if the Yanks weren’t playing.  You show your loyalty, but you don’t be an asshole about it.

Know who you’re rooting for…

So tonight’s the All-Star Game.  Anybody who knows me knows I’m a huge baseball fan.  America’s pastime.  Ballparks, beer, and brats.  I’ve travelled countless miles to attend games in numerous stadiums, some of which no longer stand.  I pay through the nose to watch my beloved Yankees on TV, since I don’t live in the home market.  I listen to games on the radio at work, in the car, etc. 

But did you ever realize that a bunch of pansy names the teams have?  Hardly any invoke an image of strength, competitiveness, or machismo.  Then again, many of them were coined in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s.  They spoke a different English back then, which probably began the tradition of naming teams after the most ridiculous stuff.

Like garments.  And by garments, I mean stockings…er…socks: the Boston Red Sox, Chicago White Sox, and the Cincinnati Reds.  No, the Reds weren’t named after the Communist party, they were the Red Stockings. 

Or birds.  Nothing says fierce like the Baltimore Oriole.  No eagles, raptors or other birds of prey in baseball.  The NFL gets the Falcons.  The NBA gets the Hawks.  Instead we get the O’s or the Toronto Blue Jays or St. Louis Cardinals.  And don’t tell me that blue jays are aggressive towards other birds of their size.  They’re still small.

One of the most non-confrontational names in MLB has to be the San Diego Padres.  And their mascot isn’t that goofy monk but rather the San Diego Chicken.  What do you fear more, poultry or a priest?  (No pedophile punchlines here, please.)  Or what about the Los Angeles Angels?  A cute fluffy Angel with wings and a halo?  Not exactly a warrior.  But really the Angels are named after…

Locations.  The City of Angels.  I’ve never been to LA, nor do I know why they’d name a city after angels.  And the Colorado Rockies.  OK, the mountains are strong, but they don’t move.  The Colorado Avalanche on the other hand is something to fear.  Who wants to get buried alive in moving snow?  The Philadelphia Phillies…are they named after the city or the bad cigar used for smoking pot?  (That one can go either way.)  Or the New York Metropolitans and the New York Yankees?  What the hell is a Met or a Yankee?  Why not just call the Mets the Cosmos (after the girly drink, not the former soccer team)?  And the Yanks are named after the good guys during the Civil War?  Wow, way to be current, especially since they didn’t adopt the name Yankees until almost 50 years after the Civil War!

OK, let’s get the so-called racism out of the way.  Everybody thinks the Indians and the Braves are derogatory names.  But both team names in my opinion invoke a tough, sparring people.  Nobody is saying they can’t handle the firewater.  Or they’re making up for years of racism by opening casinos.  OK, Chief Wahoo straggles the line a little bit.  And I’m getting a little sick of the hillbilly tomahawk chop.  So we have two teams that may qualify for tough status, but they’ll get proverbial asterisks. 

There’s a whole bunch of ambiguous names.  The San Francisco Giants are giant whats?  Kittens?  Cotton Balls?  They’re not the Jolly Green Giant, since it’s the cross-town A’s that are green.  The Oakland A’s have an elephant mascot, but when I hear the name Athletic, the image that comes to mind is early 1900’s circus strongman with the handlebar moustache and knee-high boots, the big trapezoidal hunk of iron with the ring on top that they pick up with one finger, and it says 1000 lbs. on the front of it.  The Washington Nationals kept the wimpy name tradition since they wanted to shed the Senators name.  And the Minnesota Twins…what can I say?

The Los Angeles Dodgers used to be the Brooklyn Trolley-Dodgers.  There aren’t any trolleys in Brooklyn any more, and neither are the Dodgers.  The name just doesn’t make sense for LA, just like the Lakers, named after what, the Hollywood Reservoir?

Until I did the research for this piece, I never knew the Kansas City Royals were named after the annual rodeo held there.  Again, clueless as to why…

There’s a bunch of occupations.  The Seattle Mariners.  We all know the fellows on the Deadliest Catch are the real tough guys.  So who exactly are the Seattle Mariners named after, ferryboat operators?  The Texas Rangers?  I’d only be scared if they were the Walker, Texas Rangers, with a picture of Chuck Norris on the caps.  Now the Houston Colt .45s had a cool name.  It was the gun that won the west.  But it didn’t matter as they were named after the Astrodome, which was named after the importance of the space industry in Houston.  I only think of space and Houston in the same sentence when I hear  “Houston, we have a problem.”  They couldn’t come up with Oil Rigger?  Oh, that rhymes with a bad word, so that’s why the NFL team probably used the name Oilers. 

Then there’s the Milwaukee Brewers.  Bernie Brewer can’t slide into a mug any more.  Ooooo…scary beer.  If he can’t slide into a mug any more just go ahead and change the team name already to the Two-Faces (not to be confused with the Twins), named after Bud Selig. 

The Florida Marlins are named after a fish.  And while the Tampa Bay Rays used to be named after deadly sting rays, they’re now opting for the more tranquil sunshine rays. 

The Arizona Diamondbacks are named after deadly rattlesnakes.  But for those of us who don’t live in the desert, why not just call them Rattlesnakes?

The Cubs are named after bears, but not Da Bears.  They’re cute cuddly cubs, which puts them on the level of teddy bears.  That leaves one team.

The Detroit Tigers.  It’s obvious.  Pretty to look at, but they’re maul you to death.  The command respect.  And you have to respect any team that played that long at the corner of Michigan and Trumball. Good thing they didn’t name the team after the auto industry.

I’m not about advocating for changing names of teams, because they’ve been ingrained into our culture.  I don’t want to root for the New York Toughguys.  And I’ll never root for the Boston Can’t-Pronounce-The-Letter-R’s. 

And it’s just a silly team name, and nothing more.

Go West, Young Man!

So to my delight, waiting on my DVR this morning was Joe Torre on the Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien.  Some people will say that anybody, not just Torre, could have managed the Yanks to all those World Series.  I say no, because if that were the case, why haven’t they won any since 2000?

So I like Torre, and I like Conan.  This looked like perfect early morning viewing while I had my first cup of coffee for the day…quiet time on the couch, coffee and boxers, and everybody else still asleep, and something I actually want to watch. 

So Torre and Conan are going to play off each other, both having made monumental recent moves from the Center of the Universe, aka New York, to the Twilight Zone, aka Los Angeles.  Torre came out with a Dodgers coffee mug, cap, and jersey with Ted Williams’ number 9, and Conan across the back.  Can I just say how much I hate that?  I don’t wear Yankee jerseys with my name across the back not just because the Yankees stick to tradition and don’t put names on the, but because I DON’T PLAY FOR THEM!!!  And Conan didn’t play for the Dodgers. Now if it were an actual name/number combination of an actual Dodgers player (past or present), I could care less. 

But then came the west coast shtick.  Two shots of wheat grass, because “that’s what they do out there.”  I wanted to see the two of them pop the shots, but no.  This was a direct play on the State Farm commercial from last year, talking about Torre moving to LA from New York. 

Click here to watch the commercial so you know what the hell I’m talking about.

Now I’ve never been to California.  Hell, with the exception of a single trip to Vegas, I can count the number of times I’ve been west of the Mississippi.  So I can’t say I’ve experience the So Cal vibe.  So if I move there, that would be a big deal.

Now here’s where I get to call bullshit.  Any astute student of the game of baseball would know that before Joe Torre managed the Yanks, from 1985 to 1990, he was a TV analyst for the CALIFORNIA FUCKING ANGELS!!!  Now I think there’s an inferiority complex Anaheim has with Los Angeles, but last time I checked, THEY’RE BOTH IN CALIFORNIA!!!

And Conan, I’d never give you crap for being a die-hard Sox fan, since you’re from Brookline.  But your wikipedia page says that not only did you write for The Simpsons (which I knew), you also wrote for Not Necessarily the News (which I didn’t know).  Both jobs were separated by writing for Saturday Night Live.  So this is your THIRD stint in LA, is it not?

Another reason people don’t take you seriously…

Manny  Ramirez has been one of the most dangerous hitters in baseball.  He can do what’s very difficult to do in baseball…single-handedly change a outcome of a game.  He’s a very talented hitter, and he has over 500 home runs to show for it.  He’s been very dangerous, especially when he’s motivated.  Just look how he carried the Dodgers into the playoffs last year. 

Now I’m not about to defend how he acted in Boston and got himself traded.  But at the same time, Boston let him get away with childish behavior for way too long.  Guess they learned Manny being Manny was only good when they were winning.  And that hair is just ridiculous.

So all the off-season tabloid fodder has surrounded baseball players and whether or not they’re on steroids.  Who’s juicing?  Who’s not?  Are records legit?  Now one of the great things about baseball is that over the course of history, the game itself has evolved from the introduction of non-white players, to the 162-game season, to division play, to the designated hitter, to the wild card and expansion teams.  Records one year may not necessarily have the same set of scenarios as the next season.  They’re being played in different stadiums with different dimensions.  And different players.  So what? 

So now the question is whether or not steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs really do give players a competitive advantage.  Some can quantify it, others say the jury is still out.  But we do know one thing…they’re not proverbial cans of spinach.  I’m the sam age as Derek Jeter, and you can shoot a gallon of the stuff in my ass, I’m not about to start fielding like Jeter or swinging the bat like Reggie Jackson any time soon.  Or even a single-A player. 

So it’s old news that Manny Ramirez got caught.  He denies it.  OK, what else is he going to do.  He’s trying to land one more big contract.  Per wikipedia, “According to an ESPN report, the drug used by Ramirez is human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), a women’s fertility drug typically used by steroid users to restart their body’s natural testosterone production as they come off a steroid cycle. It is similar to Clomid, the drug Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi and others used as clients of BALCO.”  If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, well, any idiot can draw their own conclusions. 

Now come out the clowns at Peta issuing a press release.  http://www.peta.org/mc/NewsItem.asp?id=13036 “We want to turn Manny on to the wonders of ‘veggie Viagra’–a healthy vegetarian diet–so that he can get his ‘big stick’ back in the game without having to use any weird ‘performance-enhancing’ drugs,” says PETA Assistant Director Dan Shannon. “Guys who stuff their bellies full of dead animals in the kitchen are often unable to score in the bedroom.” 

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME??? Manny Ramirez makes an excuse that’s as hollow as can be to maybe he can get another $50 million dollar contract.  If I were him, I’d say anything short of being Jesus to get that kind of coin.  And the dopes at Peta are taking him at face-value to push their vegan agenda?  It’s no wonder this diddy din’t get much press coverage.

For the record, I have no problems grilling up some veggies next to my steaks.