Jewish Fantasy Baseball 2010 - Anyone Got A Jewish Shortstop???



This season hasn't started off well for my All-Jewish Fantasy Baseball Team. Brad Ausmus and Ian Kinsler started the season on the DL, weakening an already thin squad. And with Khalil Greene (Jew in Name only) washing out of the majors, I've struggled to find a suitable SS replacement (Willie Bloomquist... c'mon man!). The Major League Jews find themselves 1-5, last place in the West Division of MLB League 25184.

Yes, we did win a game.

Here's the current roster:

C- Chris Snyder, ARI. Yes, I know what you're thinking. Chris? But with Brad Ausmus on the DL, the Jew Crew needed a catcher, and "Snyder" is Jewish enough for me.

1B - Kevin Youkilis, BOS. A long-time Kee-pa Kids veteran, The Youk has started out this season in fine fashion, batting .324 with 8 HRs.

2B - Ian Kinsler, TEX. Back from injury and hitting balls like they were Nazis, Kinsler's batting .319 with a HR and 2 SB.

3B - Ryan Zimmerman, WAS. Jewish in name only, but perhaps his teammate Jason Marquis has taught him a barucha or two. That could be the reason he's hitting .311 with 8 HRs.

SS - Uh. Willie Bloomquist, KC. I wish I could tell you there was some stud Jewish shortstop on his way to the majors. Willie's batting .114. Someone get Derek Jeter to convert already.

OF - Ryan Braun, MIL. The prophecies were nearly correct. The messiah has arrived, but instead of walking through the gate at the Temple Mount, he's walked through the gate at Miller Park. And, you know, instead of world peace, he's brought five-categories of fantasy perfection. .333 average, 7 HRs, 9 SBs, 34 runs and 30 RBI.

OF - Gabe Kapler, TB. He's got the best Star of David tattoo in all of baseball. Unfortunately, he doesn't play that much. But his .250 AVG and 1 HR make Willie Bloomquist as jealous as one of Joseph's brothers.

OF - Nate Schierholtz, SF. Nate the great has been hitting .298 with 1 HR and 4 SB. Not lighting any fires, but enough to light the Shabbos candles at least.

UTIL - Ike Davis, NYM. His full name is Isaac Benjamin Davis. Yes, that's right, the New York Mets savior is a Jewish Boy, through his mother. He's already hit 4 Matzo balls out of the park.

Pitching Staff - Texas Rangers. Scott Feldman is the reason I chose the Texas Rangers as my pitching staff. He's had a rough year so far, 2-4 with a 5.90 ERA, but the Texas staff has been solid otherwise.

Bench:

1B - Lance Berkman, HOU. A mainstay of the Hebrew Hammers lineup, this Jew In Name Only is first off the bench if Davis, Youkilis, or Zimmerman struggles. Berkman is struggling himself however, batting .227.

OF - Adam Stern, MIL. A recent call-up, Stern could stick around if injuries to Milwaukee starter Jim Edmonds persist. Stern's been around a while, so maybe this is his chance to be invited to the Major League seder for good.

2B - David Eckstein, SD. He's not Jewish, but with a name like that, he might as well be. He's batting .287 with 1 HR. Now if he only played shortstop...

C - Brad Ausmus, LAD. On the DL, Ausmus probably won't get much playing time even when he does get back. But he's performed many a mitzvah for the Pais Players over the years, and his veteran presence is much needed.

OF - Travis Snider, TOR. I tried to get Adam Lind, who has a more Jewishy sounding name. But the Boston Red Dogs have so far refused to do business, despite my offers of James Loney, Nick Markakis, and Michael Bourn. Snider, however, may be the better player this year. He's on the DL now, but was hot before that, clocking 6 HRs with 3 SBs.

Overall, the Matzo Mashers are not as strong as we've been in the past, but they should hold their own and win some games. And who knows, maybe Jeter will convert after all.

Goodbye Stuyvesant Deli, Goodbye Stuyvesant Town



In New York City, every resident has their own favorite neighborhood bodega, a small grocery store where vital supplies (beer, lottery tickets, candy and the occasional sandwich) can be purchased 24 hours a day. Mine was the Stuyvesant Grocery Deli. That's it in the picture above, at shortly after 11 AM this morning.

Blogger EV Grieve has more on the devastating scene. I won't get there until after work today.

My heart goes out to the guys that run the place. They always asked me how my day was, or where I'd been if I hadn't stopped by in a while. If I find out any way to help them, I'll post it on this blog.

In a way, it's fitting that a place that helped sustain me for the past 6 years just now went up in flames. In a few weeks, I'll be leaving Stuyvesant Town and the East Village behind, moving to a place on 32nd and 2nd, in Kips Bay.

Yeah yeah. I know. Murray Hill. Does that mean I'll suddenly become a douchebag?

Maybe that's unfair to Murray Hill. Not everyone there is a douchebag. But if you're a New Yorker, you know the reputation. I'm leaving a place known for beatniks, punk rock and its rough and tumble character, for a place known for... well, the hair-gelled fist-pumping crowd at Joshua Tree and Brother Jimmy's. My New Haircut wasn't a joke in Murray Hill. It was a docudrama.

But maybe it's time to move on up. My favorite East Village bar, Musical Box, just closed a few weeks ago. Before that, my favorite hidden tiki bar, Waikiki Wally's closed. Before that, my favorite dancing and drinking place, Uncle Ming's closed. When your three favorite neighborhood bars shut down, maybe your neighborhood's trying to tell you something.

And now Stuyvesant Grocery Deli. I better move out soon, before the whole neighborhood closes down and goes up in flames.

Guinea Pig Wins $10,000



Showing either that no skill is involved in picking a winning NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament bracket, or that he's one smart guinea pig, Buttons won $10,000 from this year's Yahoo! bracket contest, picking Duke over Butler in the final.

Congratulations you smelly, smelly furball.

Pettitte Threw A Knuckleball?



In an interview with Yahoo!'s Tim Brown, Jorge Posada reveals that Andy Pettitte was quite the accomplished knuckleballer:

"Andy Pettitte had a knuckleball when he started in the minor leagues. Nasty, too. That was his two-strike pitch in the minor leagues."

(Yes, Pettitte threw a knuckleball for one professional summer – 1991 – in rookie ball and Class-A Oneonta. Posada caught Pettitte in Oneonta. Or, tried. “When I got to two strikes, I was going to throw a knuckler as hard as I could,” Pettitte said. “I struck everybody out with it.” His coaches ordered him to scrap it. One of the coaches was Hoyt Wilhelm, a Hall of Fame knuckleballer. They promised him when he was in the major leagues for 10 years, he could start throwing it again. So? “I can’t,” Pettitte said. “I lost it.” As he recalled, he threw two to Posada. One hit him in the shin, the next in the foot. Posada took off his mitt and warned, “I’m not catching you again if you throw it.” Pettitte: “My nickname was ‘Knucksie.’ I’m not kidding.”)

Knucksie! They do say if it ain't broke, don't fix it, but who wouldn't want to see Pettitte go a little Wakefield on someone's ass? That would be sweet.

Thoughts On Last Night's Lost

Note: only for those who follow the best show in history, Lost.


-So Smokey was ghost Christian Shepherd on the island. Fake Locke/MIB helpfully reminds Jack that, posing as Christian, he led Jack to water back in Season 1. However, he kind of neglects to mention that time when, you know, he tried to lead Jack off a cliff to his death:


Locke, Real Locke, Saved Jack From Falling.

This is in keeping with what the MIB usually does. He saves your life and all, but not before endangering it in the first place. He's all like, "Remember that time I saved your life?" while at the same time he's all, "Hey, lets go look at this really cool well I found."

Clearly, the MIB/Smokey/Fake Locke only saves people when he needs them to do something for him. The question is... why does he save Jack from Widmore's missiles? Wouldn't he rather have Jack dead? Or is the MIB not being completely honest about everybody needing to leave the island? Maybe... he needs a replacement just like Jacob does.

One thing though. We saw ghost Christian off the island in Jack's flash forward. So... was that Smokey? How'd he get off the island? Or are there multiple entities capable of appearing as anyone?

-If Widmore can't kill Fake Locke, he's content with killing everybody else. My hunch is that Widmore knows Fake Locke can't be killed with conventional weapons. The missiles aimed at Fake Locke aren't designed to kill him. They're designed to kill his followers, who are necessary for him to leave the island. This could be why Widmore is so quick to order the executions of the Losties. If he can't kill the MIB, he can at least destroy his means of escape.

Of course, if Widmore was really concerned about only keeping Smokey on the island, he wouldn't have brought a submarine that could potentially be used as Smokey's escape, and he would have destroyed the Ajira jet episodes ago. Clearly, he has an interest in the island that is being thwarted by Smokey's presence. What could that interest be?

Remember, the first time we heard of the smoke monster, he was referred to as "the security system" for the island (by Rousseau and others). Perhaps Smokey is security of sorts, a being that will prevent Widmore from exploiting the island for its special properties.

-Desmond knows everything. This was clear in his ultra-creepy stalking of Claire. He brought her exactly where she needed to be in the sideways world, the law offices of Ilana Radzinsky, otherwise known as "Blown To Pieces By Dynamite Last Episode". There she met Jack, her half brother. It got me thinking about the connections in Lost that we all found so important in the first few seasons. We now know for sure that it wasn't a coincidence that Sawyer met Jack's father, or that Jack's father met Ana Lucia, or that Sayid was on the TV when Kate visited her father, etc, etc. This was the island's doing. Perhaps the "reality" we saw for the first few seasons of Lost was really the sideways world, a world messed up by Widmore, by the Dharma Initiative, by whoever else. Maybe Jacob's touches, or pushes, were attempts early on to correct the timeline. Maybe Desmond, who seems to have taken over Jacob's role, is trying to do the same.

And who thinks Sayid didn't kill Desmond? Hopefully everybody. You should know Lost by now. No dead body = not dead.

That's all I got, for now. I thought it was a pretty awesome episode. Really fast paced, a lot happened, and I didn't feel cheated when the episode was over.

I am however, irate that next week is a repeat. I need more, NOW.