I woke up early this morning and caught the replay of MLB Network’s “Hot Stove” program to see if there was any new off-season moves that I didn’t catch earlier in the day. What I got, instead, was Harold Reynolds about 3 days behind in the news cycle. As the other panelists, including Mitch Williams and Matt Vasgersian spoke of the pending John Lackey and Mike Cameron signings by the Red Sox, Reynolds was a little slow in catching up. He wondered aloud where that left Jason Bay in the mix, noting that “the window may be closing for Bay to sign with the Red Sox.”
Ummm…have you been paying attention, Mr. Reynolds? Bay’s agent himself said over the WEEKEND (mind you, this was a Tuesday night broadcast) that Bay was prepared to move on. Toss in an imminent signing for 2 years at $15.5 million to play the same position, and you’re STILL wondering where Bay fits in? It was funny to watch Wild Thing deadpanning his expression in letting Weird Harold (Fat Albert is one of the most underrated cartoons of the 1970s, by the way) know that he probably doesn’t. I won’t speak for anyone but odds are that Mitch was wondering at that exact moment what was in Reynolds’ coffee, and also wondering if he could get some.
The moral of the story: Peter Gammons can’t get to that desk soon enough. I tired of just about everything ESPN over the last few years so I haven’t been able to catch Gammons on TV much at all, so it’ll be good to see him on MLB Network and NESN in the coming months. Sure, he uses his Twitter account to express his political views on an unsolicited basis (@pgammo, I get it. You don’t like Sarah Palin. You live in Massachusetts. That fact alone puts the smart money, sight unseen, on you leaning a little towards the left), but there’s nothing wrong with expressing your opinion. He’ll be a great add to both sets.
Regarding the signings of Cameron and Lackey, as a Sox fan, I don’t really care for them. Unlike many, I am OK with the “bridge year” concept if it involves creating payroll flexibility. A LF manned by a platoon of Jeremy Hermida, Josh Reddick and a non-tender would work fine. Paying almost $8 million/year for TWO years for an aging outfielder seems to be a bit much for the organization. Paying $16.5 million/year for an over-30 pitcher with durability issues and a less-than-stellar record in his new home park seems steep as well. Lackey was the only solid option of the barren free agent starting pitcher class of the 2009-2010 offseason. He was the best house in a bad neighborhood, if you will, and of course he was going to be overpaid. That doesn’t mean Theo Epstein has to be the one overpaying. If I have to guess, this was more Larry Lucchino’s call in a gut reaction to keep pace with The Empire rather than the emergence of Bizarro Theo. I can’t see them keeping Josh Beckett now. Really, I couldn’t see them keeping him before this; the last two years haven’t been stellar for him; he seems to be reverting to fighting himself and trying to Nuke LaLoosh everyone with his heat. That’s not going to work now, and it sure won’t work as age and loss of velocity set in while he toils well into his 30s.
Not sure what’s going on with the Sox tripping over themselves to eat $9 of $12 million for Mike Lowell in 2010. Sure…he was defensively a shell of himself at 3B, displaying range almost as bad as a previous Sox aging infielder (Mark Loretta at 2B c. 2006). He can still hit, though. It’s well-documented that he was annoyed with the ramifications of the Sox pursuit of Mark Teixeira last year. Do his declining range and ill temper over being dangled as bait for 2 years add up to a salary dump? I guess they do. Still, Adrian Beltre is NOT the answer, unless you want to overpay a Scott Boras client for declining production and advanced age, regardless of how solid the glove is, all the while further hampering payroll flexibility. If that’s the case, be my guest…y’all just go on with your bad self. It’s much cheaper to sign a 1B or go with Kotchman and move Kevin Youkilis to 3B than to find a 3B option on the open market. I don’t really like Theo’s track record with free agent signs on the left side of the infield, either. Not since Bill Mueller, anyway.
As for Harold Reynolds, as Marty McFly said in “Back to the Future,” “watch for the changes, and try to keep up, okay?”
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Monday, November 2, 2009
Chowhounds: A simple way to mix it up a little bit
If you’re like me (and on several levels, I strongly advise you to pause at least a moment to thank your personal God that you’re not), you enjoy food a great deal. That’s easy enough. For some, cooking is intuitive and easy. Me, not so much. I was blessed by having two excellent cooks for parents, but I don’t think the genes carried over too well. I am a spastic mess in the kitchen. Klutziness, sloppiness and general ill temper mark my periodic kitchen disasters. Well, at the ripe old age of “a lot more than I feel like I am,” I’m fixin’ to fix all of that. For those of you that share the same gastronome and kitchenphobe profile, here’s what we can do:
New Cookbook Sunday
OK, I know damn well that I’m not the first one to think of something like this; New [blank] Sunday concepts are just about everywhere. But screw it…give it a shot. Enjoying food in the age of information overload means that we have an infinite number of recipes at our disposal via the Internet, cookbooks assembled by an ever-increasing cast of celebrity chefs and more traditional sources indigenous to the 20th century. Maybe you have a slew of cookbooks that you’ve looked at but never really got much out of. We may have 30 or 40 such tomes on our dining room bookshelf, yet only a select few have the true mark of honor – pages that are waterlogged or crusty from ingredients and other friendly fire from use of a few select recipes repeatedly. Let’s tap a different one of these once a week to strengthen our chops and rid us of the kitchen anxiety, no? Every week, reach for a cookbook or similar source that you think has been relatively untapped. Pick out a recipe you’re at least a little comfortable with, discuss with your Beautiful Bride or other significant other, shop for the ingredients and let it rip. Start off slow – I picked out a wicked easy shrimp dish myself – but who cares…we all learned the basics on how to ski on the bunny hill, didn’t we? Next week I’ll go for something a little more challenging. While you’re at it, try working out pairings of wine and/or beer with each of your dishes to complete the experience. You can always spend an extra 15-30 minutes in the gym on Monday to work off your newfound culinary success. Good luck and enjoy!
New Cookbook Sunday
OK, I know damn well that I’m not the first one to think of something like this; New [blank] Sunday concepts are just about everywhere. But screw it…give it a shot. Enjoying food in the age of information overload means that we have an infinite number of recipes at our disposal via the Internet, cookbooks assembled by an ever-increasing cast of celebrity chefs and more traditional sources indigenous to the 20th century. Maybe you have a slew of cookbooks that you’ve looked at but never really got much out of. We may have 30 or 40 such tomes on our dining room bookshelf, yet only a select few have the true mark of honor – pages that are waterlogged or crusty from ingredients and other friendly fire from use of a few select recipes repeatedly. Let’s tap a different one of these once a week to strengthen our chops and rid us of the kitchen anxiety, no? Every week, reach for a cookbook or similar source that you think has been relatively untapped. Pick out a recipe you’re at least a little comfortable with, discuss with your Beautiful Bride or other significant other, shop for the ingredients and let it rip. Start off slow – I picked out a wicked easy shrimp dish myself – but who cares…we all learned the basics on how to ski on the bunny hill, didn’t we? Next week I’ll go for something a little more challenging. While you’re at it, try working out pairings of wine and/or beer with each of your dishes to complete the experience. You can always spend an extra 15-30 minutes in the gym on Monday to work off your newfound culinary success. Good luck and enjoy!
Monday, September 14, 2009
Memo to Dick Jauron from the days of common sense
Dick:
Sure...Leodis McKelvin decided to fight momentum and come out of the end zone. Twice. Once with a tide-changing fumble and again with a time-wasting saunter to the 21 when Standing Hampton would keep you at the 20 with a few extra seconds. Bad. Wicked bad. But Leodis isn't the no-talent-ass-clown that called the D that allowed the Best of the Best to saunter down the field to knock your nostalgic lead from 11 to 5. It's all on you, Yale boy. Your team hit all game and all of a sudden you turn turtle and play prevent. Is this what Ralph's paying for? Crash Davis says, "don't think...it can only hurt the ball club...
Sure...Leodis McKelvin decided to fight momentum and come out of the end zone. Twice. Once with a tide-changing fumble and again with a time-wasting saunter to the 21 when Standing Hampton would keep you at the 20 with a few extra seconds. Bad. Wicked bad. But Leodis isn't the no-talent-ass-clown that called the D that allowed the Best of the Best to saunter down the field to knock your nostalgic lead from 11 to 5. It's all on you, Yale boy. Your team hit all game and all of a sudden you turn turtle and play prevent. Is this what Ralph's paying for? Crash Davis says, "don't think...it can only hurt the ball club...
Thursday, September 10, 2009
It's bottling day for Flying Taco BrewVentures!
While I contemplate the waning of my latest momentum trade in the 3rd month of the quarter (it's still actually doing well; just not as well as it was a couple of weeks ago), I'm finally getting around to bottling a Saison that I have anticipated since the Beautiful Bride bought me the homebrew setup for the holidays. The latest Flying Taco BrewVentures creation has a working title of "Rye Not? 'Tis the Saison" or a recent title of "Saison du Beavis," in honor of our 15-year old cat Beavis who was found cozying up next to the brew barrel during the final days of dry-hopping. It's definitely not been the same for Beavis since we had to say goodbye to his closest companion Butt-Head right before the new year; hell, they've basically been partners in crime since birth. But Beavis soldiers on...and I digress...
I was supposed to brew this deal in June. But Saison yeast requires higher fermentation temperatures, and anyone familiar with Boston weather patterns this summer remembers that we basically got shafted out of the first 6 weeks of summer. Additionally, we had a kitchen project and a few other things pushing the schedule back, so I finally had a chance to brew on July 16. In addition to using the lightest extract I could find (hey, after all it's only my 4th batch), I steeped some Belgian Pale and Pils and about a pound of Rye malt. Toss in some candied ginger, a bunch of candi sugar and a little coriander with Styrian Goldings and Saaz hops and away we go. In addition to needing higher temperatures, Saison yeast also has a habit of setting the world on fire early and petering out for a while before it finishes the job. This was the case with my batch; with an original gravity of 1.062 it worked down to 1.020 but needed a fair amount of time in August to get down to 1.006; of course, cooler temperatures in the back end of July didn't help. It wasn't cold enough to safely put a BrewBelt on the fermenter but wasn't warm enough for the yeast to clear out the remaining fermentables. So I let it take its sweet time and when we hit below 1.010 I dry-hopped with a little Saaz and Styrian Goldings. And now is the fateful day, a day to rejoice, taste the final sample before bottling, and be exceptionally stoked about the project. Right?
Not exactly.
Bottling day is all of that. But from a tactical perspective, bottling day sucks. Royally. For a homebrewer, bottling day is chock full of cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, sanitizing, sanitizing, sanitizing and a whole bunch of stuff that can easily go wrong (not enough bottles, caps or cleansing equipment; broken cappers, broken bottles, earthquake, a terrible flood, locusts, "it wasn't my fault I SWEAR TO GOD!!!"). Two quotes come to mind that are extremely relevant to a homebrewer when thinking about bottling:
I was supposed to brew this deal in June. But Saison yeast requires higher fermentation temperatures, and anyone familiar with Boston weather patterns this summer remembers that we basically got shafted out of the first 6 weeks of summer. Additionally, we had a kitchen project and a few other things pushing the schedule back, so I finally had a chance to brew on July 16. In addition to using the lightest extract I could find (hey, after all it's only my 4th batch), I steeped some Belgian Pale and Pils and about a pound of Rye malt. Toss in some candied ginger, a bunch of candi sugar and a little coriander with Styrian Goldings and Saaz hops and away we go. In addition to needing higher temperatures, Saison yeast also has a habit of setting the world on fire early and petering out for a while before it finishes the job. This was the case with my batch; with an original gravity of 1.062 it worked down to 1.020 but needed a fair amount of time in August to get down to 1.006; of course, cooler temperatures in the back end of July didn't help. It wasn't cold enough to safely put a BrewBelt on the fermenter but wasn't warm enough for the yeast to clear out the remaining fermentables. So I let it take its sweet time and when we hit below 1.010 I dry-hopped with a little Saaz and Styrian Goldings. And now is the fateful day, a day to rejoice, taste the final sample before bottling, and be exceptionally stoked about the project. Right?
Not exactly.
Bottling day is all of that. But from a tactical perspective, bottling day sucks. Royally. For a homebrewer, bottling day is chock full of cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, sanitizing, sanitizing, sanitizing and a whole bunch of stuff that can easily go wrong (not enough bottles, caps or cleansing equipment; broken cappers, broken bottles, earthquake, a terrible flood, locusts, "it wasn't my fault I SWEAR TO GOD!!!"). Two quotes come to mind that are extremely relevant to a homebrewer when thinking about bottling:
- On football when the forward pass was a new, exciting and somewhat scary wrinkle to the "three yards and a cloud of dust" game of yore: "three things can happen when you put the ball in the air, and two of them are bad."
- On golf from the neighbor of the real Beavis & Butt-head, the immortal Tom Anderson, after our two favorite unruly teenagers spent the afternoon following him around the course and bogarting all his golf balls: "Boy, I tell ya what, Dusty...I felt like a one-legged cat tryin' to bury turds on a frozen pond out there today."
- Soak bottles in water and cleansing (I use PBW = Professional Brewers' Wash) solution
- Soak bottling bucket and equipment (hydrometer, beer thief, auto siphon, racking cane, tubing) in water and PBW solution
- Rinse bottles
- Wash bottling tree
- Wash bottling spigot
- Rinse bottling bucket, equipment and spigot
- Sanitize bottling bucket and equipment
- Sanitize and rinse bottling tree
- Sanitize and rinse bottles
- Sanitize and rinse pan for priming solution (the priming solution of water and sugar gives the remaining yeast just enough to feed on in the bottle to generate natural carbonation)
- Sanitize caps
- Prepare priming solution
- Cool priming solution
- Sanitize bottling spigot
- Rinse bottling bucket, equipment and spigot
- Prepare bottling bucket and auto siphon
- Pour priming solution into bottling bucket
- Take final gravity measurement of beer and sample for taste
- Siphon beer from fermenter/carboy into bottling bucket
- Bottle and cap
- Optional per Bluto: "My advice to you is to start drinking heavily."
OK, it's a little more than a 12-step plan but a little less than Kerry Healey's mystical 50-point plan she noted during her unsuccessful bid to become Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (leaving us with Deval Patrick, who has less soul and personality than Tiger Woods. We won't even discuss the comparison of efficacy in each of their chosen crafts/professions).
Invariably, something goes wrong. I have brewed and bottled a whopping four...count 'em...four...batches on my own this year and can name something from each batch in which I screwed the proverbial pooch. No need to bore you with the details, but prepare yourself. Have at least 24 bombers on hand (22 oz. or 650 ml bottles) and at least a 6-pack of typical 12 oz. bottles. Make sure the labels are off before Bottling Day, because not a lot is more annoying than scouring glue-y labels off bottles when you're supposed to be filling them with your luscious creation. Cleanliness and sanitation are critical to keeping unruly microscopic critters from tainting your finely-crafted beverage. Another useless metaphor: If homebrewing is a football field, then bottling is a First-and-Goal situation from the 9-yard line...those last nine yards are the most important, so they can be the toughest to get. Accordingly, they require a great deal of strength, brute force and a tremendously plodding work ethic. This, my friends...is Bottling Day. Don't fret, though...in two to three weeks you'll pop the cap on your latest (and now carbonated) elixir and enjoy it with family and friends...just like you thought when you started this crazy hobby of yours. As always, enjoy!
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Consumer Products Analysis, Volume 1
Here's my review of diet Ultraviolet Mountain Dew:
It really sucks.
Even worse than Ma Kelly said about the Lower East Side in "Johnny Dangerously."
The first day...
--
Taking Jr. to lunch @ Regina to celebrate 1st day of kindergarten. Felt like a bigger deal than we expected, but parents and son doing just fine.
Taking Jr. to lunch @ Regina to celebrate 1st day of kindergarten. Felt like a bigger deal than we expected, but parents and son doing just fine.
Monday, August 10, 2009
What's that smell?
I’m not sure when I got the whiff of 2006 wafting over to me from Fenway but it was at least a couple of weeks ago. Since then quite a few people have chimed in about the eerie similarities between this Red Sox season and that debacle from three summers ago. Well, why not me? Everyone enjoys a good piling on from time to time…and if you see any factual inaccuracies in here, well…my bad, since this was written off the cuff past midnight after an extremely long weekend. Please feel free to drop me a dime; I can take the criticism.
At least you have your health…
This is one banged up team right now - so banged up that Victor Martinez is part of it. Sure, he'll mash...but he's a defensive house of horrors. The last thing this crew needs is to play extra outs. If Varitek and Lowell weren't as hurt/banged up as they are, Justin Masterson is still eating at least a fair amount of innings for this crew in some way or another, which is exactly what the Sox lack right now. The pen is under a serious stress test right now, which almost never ends well. When you have exactly two members of your starting rotation reliably providing 6 innings of work each time out and are eagerly anticipating the second coming of Paul Byrd, you're not where you expected to be. Let's not forget the gaping crater of a roster spot that is Takashi Saito.
…or your depth? Try again…
Major-league-almost-ready position player depth is sorely lacking in Pawtucket and Portland. Really don't have any bench to speak of, either. And there's that shortstop deal. Hurt or not, Jed Lowrie looked like a heaping dessert helping of cowpie at the plate across the board when on the 25-man roster and there's more than enough film on Nick Green to pitch to him and it shows. He looks wretched at the plate...sort of like the AAA/AAAA player that he is.
Bullpen in a china shop
Papelbon will be rusty the next time he throws 'cause they haven't been able to get to the guy a whole lot lately. More extra pitches for him. Bard, for all his heat, doesn't have a whole lot of movement on it. Straight 99mph gas is still straight. He's got that nasty breaking ball but needs to set it up a little better. A 2-seamer or a cutter would be something I'd like to see more of, but that'll take some time.
Meeting expectations
So you basically have 5 or 6 members of your 25-man roster performing in pretty much good health and at the level they need to: Youk, Beckett, Lester, Pedroia (more or less, probably a little less), Ellsbury (sort of) and Bard (tonight's outing excepted). Pretty much any excuse you can use to sit Big Papup right now (lefty starter and even righties with poor history) and DH Martinez, you go for it.
Oh, that would be me…I’ve been swimming in raw sewage…I LOVE IT!
One of my favorite quotes from the Naked Gun series (2½)…almost right up there with “The truth hurts, doesn't it, Hapsburg? Oh sure, maybe not as much as landing on a bicycle with the seat missing, but it hurts!” It may not be as bad as 2006…or raw sewage even…but it's definitely getting a vaguely familiar stench. Sort of like beef fat tossed in the garbage can that sits in the hot sun for 4 days.
At least you have your health…
This is one banged up team right now - so banged up that Victor Martinez is part of it. Sure, he'll mash...but he's a defensive house of horrors. The last thing this crew needs is to play extra outs. If Varitek and Lowell weren't as hurt/banged up as they are, Justin Masterson is still eating at least a fair amount of innings for this crew in some way or another, which is exactly what the Sox lack right now. The pen is under a serious stress test right now, which almost never ends well. When you have exactly two members of your starting rotation reliably providing 6 innings of work each time out and are eagerly anticipating the second coming of Paul Byrd, you're not where you expected to be. Let's not forget the gaping crater of a roster spot that is Takashi Saito.
…or your depth? Try again…
Major-league-almost-ready position player depth is sorely lacking in Pawtucket and Portland. Really don't have any bench to speak of, either. And there's that shortstop deal. Hurt or not, Jed Lowrie looked like a heaping dessert helping of cowpie at the plate across the board when on the 25-man roster and there's more than enough film on Nick Green to pitch to him and it shows. He looks wretched at the plate...sort of like the AAA/AAAA player that he is.
Bullpen in a china shop
Papelbon will be rusty the next time he throws 'cause they haven't been able to get to the guy a whole lot lately. More extra pitches for him. Bard, for all his heat, doesn't have a whole lot of movement on it. Straight 99mph gas is still straight. He's got that nasty breaking ball but needs to set it up a little better. A 2-seamer or a cutter would be something I'd like to see more of, but that'll take some time.
Meeting expectations
So you basically have 5 or 6 members of your 25-man roster performing in pretty much good health and at the level they need to: Youk, Beckett, Lester, Pedroia (more or less, probably a little less), Ellsbury (sort of) and Bard (tonight's outing excepted). Pretty much any excuse you can use to sit Big Papup right now (lefty starter and even righties with poor history) and DH Martinez, you go for it.
Oh, that would be me…I’ve been swimming in raw sewage…I LOVE IT!
One of my favorite quotes from the Naked Gun series (2½)…almost right up there with “The truth hurts, doesn't it, Hapsburg? Oh sure, maybe not as much as landing on a bicycle with the seat missing, but it hurts!” It may not be as bad as 2006…or raw sewage even…but it's definitely getting a vaguely familiar stench. Sort of like beef fat tossed in the garbage can that sits in the hot sun for 4 days.
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