Vic Sage

i was GOING to say "totonno's" but my fingers slipped. Actually, i've always preferred the more egalitarian L&B, where you could order a slice (Sicilian, natch) , to the more condescending "we don't need a sign, we don't need to be open very often, and we don't need to sell by the slice, and we don't need to have tables, so go fuck yourself" attitude of Totonno's. It's great pizza, granted, much better than L&B sure, but who needs their "soup nazi" bullshit? Plus they don't have spumoni.

i've gone to at least 1 Cyclones game every season; in their first few years, i went to multiple games because an old friend had season tickets. I even had some of you guys join me there on my 40th birthday all those long years ago. Shinjo was playing! It's a great place to see a game. The quality of the play is irrelevant, because they are playing equally low-level teams, so games are competitive. Tickets are ridiculously cheap, and the park has no bad seats (its too small for bad seats), and has a nice range of ballpark food and Brooklyn Lager on tap. They also do a nice job of small-town/between-innings entertainment and activities, to keep the kiddies engaged. The boardwalk and the ocean are past the outfield, with the parachute jump towering in the RF corner, and in leftfield, a faux rollercoaster on the scoreboard barely obscures the actual Cyclone in the distance. The stadium sits in the midst of an amusement park, with miles of beaches edging the Atlantic Ocean right next door. There is an outdoor patio bar adjoining the park for pre-game potables, and Nathans 1 block further, with L&B Spumoni gardens a short drive away (for great pizza before or after the game), not to mention the arcades and food stands all up and down the boardwalk. There is parking everywhere in the area, with a major highway exit and lots of mass transit. Is the area a little dicey? yeah, but so is the iron triangle in which CitiField sits, and anyway I've never had a problem (...well, at least not since i was a kid, when i was regularly beaten up in the schoolyards of Coney Island, and that one time i was chased home by a pack of wild feral dogs). There's not too many ballparks i know of where you can go and spend the day on the beach, swim, go on rides, play skeeball, go to the aquarium, eat some of the best cheap fun food in Brooklyn, and THEN go see a ballgame. I'm just sad sometimes that my dad didn't see it all happen. My mom got to see it and it made her real happy her last few years.

Nymr83 wrote: seawolf17 wrote: I don't know that Tejada's the answer either, but spending good money and a draft pick on a guy who's going to strike out 140 times and hit .250 and is eight years older isn't the answer either. I still pass. A 3rd round draft pick really shouldnt be stopping a team from signing a guy. THANK you. Without overstating the value of Drew, he is a better option than any other we currently have. And I don't think we're talking about signing him to a big$/long term deal that can hamstring an organization; it's not like he's the last piece of a 2014 championship run so there's no point in overpaying in years and dollars (in my view, if he won't take less than 3+yrs, at $10m+/yr or more, Sandy should walk away). But assuming he can be had for 1-2 years at under $10m/yr, he's a valuable upgrade. And Tejada would still be a backup plan, if Drew goes down again. But money aside, the notion that we would choose not to improve immediately because it'll cost us a THIRD round pick, a pick whose chances are remote of ever one day becoming as good a major league ballplayer as Drew is now, seems absurd to me.

Endy Chavez goes back to Seattle on a minor-league deal with a ST invite.

Ceetar wrote: Mets ticket price average is probably what, $30? if they drew 3 million fans again that's 90 million dollars. First of all, you have no idea what their "avg tkt price" is. They have corporate boxes and luxury seats purchased as business expenses that are pre-sold at obscene rates, and your averaging that against $15 day-of tickets in the corners of the upper deck? Overall attendance can fall and they could still make more, depending on the sales of the high-end seats. similarly, attendance can rise dramatically and likewise have little impact on the bottom line, if increase is based on low-price seats. second of all, so what? Do you think for a second that if the Mets were able to drop their payroll even further but still drew 3M, that ticket prices would go DOWN? In this industry, price is based on demand, not production cost.

current Yankee lineup: CF - Ellsbury (30/$22m) SS - Jeter (40/$12m) / Ryan (32/$2m) RF - Beltran (37/$15m) / Ichiro (40/$6.5m) 1b - Texiera (34/$22.5m) DH - Soriano (38/$5m) C - McCann (30/$17m) / Cervelli (28/$0.7m) LF - Gardner (32/$5.6m) 3b - Nunez (27/~$1m) / [? ] 2b - Roberts (36/$2m) / Johnson (32/$3m) SP - Sabathia (33/$22m) SP - Kuroda (39/$16M) SP - Tanaka (25/$22m) SP - Nova (27/$3.3m) SP - [Pineda] (25/~$1m) RP - Robertson (29/$5.2m) RP - Thornton (37/$3.5m) RP - Kelley (30/$1.75m) RP - [Eppley] (28/~$1m) RP/SP - [Phelps] (27/~$.5m) RP/SP - [warren] (26/~$.5m) additional 2014 payroll: *A-Rod ($3.15m)

Zvon wrote: Well..at least money is replaceable lol... If certain major league teams are worth a billion or more why don't they spend more on payroll? It is supposed to be an investment.. I mean the Mets are being outspent by the Royals this season..so far anyway...Never would have guessed that could happen five years ago... What are the Royals ticket prices? I used to think: hey, it's only money. But unfortunately I've come to think its more like: Hey, its our freakin' ticket prices. I really don't care what they pay players. Sometimes I find it funny, like with this Tanaka guy. I am very concerned about ticket prices. An average family should be able to afford a night at the ballpark. A team's payroll has no direct relationship to its ticket prices, just like the price of crack and crystal meth isn't determined by its production costs. Prices are determined by demand, and continually float up to the highest level that the team can sell them at. If a team is losing regularly, the lesser demand causes downward pressure on price, but they don't cut ticket prices just because they cut payroll. Less attractive games cost less, not because the payroll is cheaper those days but because tix are harder to sell to such games. But ticket sales are an increasingly less important revenue source for most franchises anyway; they make more from concessions, merchandising and parking, but mostly from their share of media licenses (some even having their own networks), and revenue sharing from other teams, than they do from ticket prices. I think teams like it when we blame their high prices on how much they have to pay those "overpriced ballplayers"; it displaces their responsibility.

themetfairy wrote: FWIW, Cate Blanchett was incredible in the titular role. I figure if I use the word titular that Vic won't rip me quite as much of a new one for not hating the film. just another pretty girl hiding behind her titulars. you know what we need here? a decent Woody Allen Filmog.... never mind.

saw ONLY THE LONELY again on cable last night. Not a great film, but a sweet one, and an effective romantic comedy, more poignant than funny. Maybe the only film directed by Chris Columbus i ever liked (he wrote GREMLINS, but didn't direct it). Whatever happened to Ally Sheedy? She was a big star through the 80's, but this was probably her last decent role (except for HIGH ART in `98). She was never a great actress, but she had a kind of quirky appeal. I've seen worse actresses with better careers.

What about brass balls? Will it keep Alec Baldwin out?

what's been a neat benefit of new technologies is the development of actual distribution channels for shorts in recent years. in ye olden tymes, there was never a way to see these films, except sometimes movie theaters showed pre-feature shorts and cartoons. Later, the animated shorts would get compiled and released briefly in art houses. then video evolved, and more access. then cable tv and their specialty channels came along, hungry for interstitial programming, so more access. Now, VOD and digital downloads on all different platforms make these films available to everybody.

metsguyinmichigan wrote: metsguyinmichigan wrote: I think the real issue is not the Wilpon's finances, but the challenge of trying to get something of value for an under-performing firstbaseman, of which there are many in the league. But trying to get something for him wouldn't be an issue if not for the Wilpon financial woes. How so? We'd still have three first basemen who kinda sorta do -- or could do -- the same thing. Seems like one would be going away whether we added a new shortstop or not. My point was just that they wouldn't necessarily be looking to move Ike if he wasn't going to make $3.5m this year. Yes, they have other 1bmen that are similarly unproductive, but those guys have minor league options and don't have to take up space on the major league roster. Nobody is pushing Ike for the spot, and trading him now would definitely be a "sell low" proposition on a guy with 30+hr upside. The only reason Sandy might've considered trading him is either to cut the budget and give the spot to one of the other unproductive 1bmen who are making much less, or try to turn Ike around for a better prospect than he's worth. Apparently, Sandy tried the latter. He may yet try the former, depending on the Wilpons' cash flow at the time.

...a longshot relative unknown... Unknown? Michael Fassbender was Magneto!

Hell, I don't blame her... even JACKASS got 1 nomination! They couldn't find something to nominate in this self-congratulatory self-flagellation of feel-good middle-brow liberalism? That's not the Hollywood i remember.

[u:1emw1h6e]Multiple nominees:[/u:1emw1h6e] AMERICAN HUSTLE - 10 GRAVITY - 10 12 YEARS A SLAVE - 9 CAPTAIN PHILLIPS -6 DALLAS BUYERS CLUB - 6 NEBRASKA - 6 HER - 5 WOLF OF WALL ST - 5 PHILOMENA - 4 --------------------- BLUE JASMINE - 3 HOBBIT - 3 AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY - 2 DESPICABLE ME 2 - 2 FROZEN - 2 GRANDMASTER - 2 GREAT GATSBY - 2 INSIDE LlEWYN DAVIS -2 LONE RANGER - 2 LONE SURVIVOR - 2

Blanchett is always fabulous; she's one of the best around. But i hated JASMINE with a white hot passion. Woody has always had an inclination to populate his films with awful people, but this one may have set a new standard.

i used to play Strat as a kid... my brothers had the game and, like everything else, i got their broken or forgotten hand-me-downs. I remember having the `71 Mets, and Seaver's card was INSANE! I would love to play it again but, alas, i have no one to play it with... this is a problem for me in a wide range of activities. I'm still able to use my son as company for some (not all) films my wife won't see, or to watch ARCHER, BOB'S BURGERS, etc., or go to COMIC-CON with, but he has no interest in sports at all. I can't even interest him in SF/Fantasy-based tabletop games like FIREFLY (which is awesome, by the way). So i have nobody to play it with... all the friends i once had who would have been interested in that kind of activity are all far away, with families of their own, and with whom i occasionally share an email but am otherwise unconnected to. Now I'm getting depressed. thanks a lot.

I've only seen 3 of the best picture nominees so far (GRAVITY, HER, AMERICAN HUSTLE). Of that small group, i was most impressed with GRAVITY. While i appreciated HER (particularly Johannson's vocal performance -- when is that going to be a category?), i did find it meandering after a time, even though ultimately moving and worthwhile. I'm just not a big Joaquin Phoenix fan. But i did like Amy Adams more in this than in AMERICAN HUSTLE, which i think is entirely overrated. The performances are fun, in a cartoony, garish way, and its entertaining enough, more or less, but its mostly about hair... bad hair. I was not moved or particularly interested in any of it. And that the low-level scumbags figure out a way to get over on the high-level scumbags doesn't give me quite the uplift one might think. But Bale is certainly incredible (once again). But GRAVITY was masterful in every aspect; the beautiful cinematography and design, the stellar performances, the taut direction, the powerful themes... its all there. I definitely want to see WOLF OF WALL ST and have some interest in NEBRASKA, too, but no interest at all in CAPTAIN PHILLIPS, PHILOMENA, DALLAS BUYERS CLUB, or 12 YEARS A SLAVE, . Well, I might catch up with SLAVE on cable, but the other 3 would require a "desert island"-type situation.

i haven't seen it in a long time, but i recall it being one of his lesser efforts and a mediocre work overall. Here's the Eastwood filmography: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=14559&hilit=Eastwood

more than the quantity of pitchers at the bottom of the list, I like that 9 of the top 11 are position players; that's where we have historically been less successful.

I can see including Baxter over d'Arnaud, (though I didn't), but I'd take Black's few good innings over Marcum's many more (almost exclusively) bad ones.

i didn't hate it; i was engaged. I do hate that Jackson has padded the story out with lots of extra stuff to justify a trilogy (it doesn't), and this chapter ends in a particularly unsatisfying way, even given the usual problems a middle chapter has in its inconclusiveness. EMPIRE STRIKES BACK manages to be a middle chapter that has a relatively satisfying ending in and of itself while still leading you into the next and final (we thought) chapter. But this one just stops, right before a big battle. There are some stupendous set pieces, however... particularly the dwarf escape in barrels down a river as the elves and orcs chase them while battling each other. A spectacular sequence. And Watson & Sherlock squaring off in the guise of Bilbo and Smaug had its own additional resonance.

current Yankee lineup: CF - Ellsbury (30/$22m) SS - Jeter (40/$12m) / Ryan (32/$2m) RF - Beltran (37/$15m) / Ichiro (40/$6.5m) 1b - Texiera (34/$22.5m) 3b - A-Rod (38/$25m) / Nunez (27/~$1m) [if A-Rod suspended, they may re-sign Mark Reynolds (30/~$5m)?] C - McCann (30/$17m) / Cervelli (28/~$1m) DH - Soriano (38/$5m) LF - Gardner (32/~$5m) 2b - Roberts (36/$2m) / Johnson (32/$3m) SP - Sabathia (33/$22m) SP - Kuroda (39/$16M) SP - Nova (27/~$2m) SP - [Pineda] (25/~$1m) SP - [Phelps] (27/~$.5m)? RP - Robertson (29/~$5m) RP - Thornton (37/$3.5m) RP - Kelley (30/~$2m) RP - Eppley (28/~$1m) RP/SP -[Huff] (29/~$1m) RP - Warren (26/~)? / Claiborne (26/~)? This puts them on the hook for over $190m, even with the release of Wells. Assuming A-Rod gets suspended, they'll save $25m (putting them around $165m), but they'll still need a 3bman (assume Reyolds at $5m), and they still need a #3 starter and a decent setup man. Otherwise they're giving too many ABs to Nunez (or Johnson), and too many IP to Nova and Pineda, and are way too thin in the pen. So with Reynolds they'll be at $170m, and they can go cheap on a final reliever if they want to go all out on Tanaka. I think they will. And if they can get him for under $19m/yr or so, they'll likely stay under their $189M target budget.

no Frank Thomas? really? not even on your "if i could vote for more than 10" list?

metsguyinmichigan wrote: I think the real issue is not the Wilpon's finances, but the challenge of trying to get something of value for an under-performing firstbaseman, of which there are many in the league. But trying to get something for him wouldn't be an issue if not for the Wilpon financial woes.