The Tragedy of Penn Station

Once again, my apologies for no post yesterday. Couldn’t find enough time to be effectively witty and I wouldn’t want my name associated with a shoddy product. The blog post today is going to keep with my eclectic topic selection and enter the realm of architecture and planning. As a former student and still current lover of all things city planning, you should expect some such posts from time to time. So I bet most of you are looking at this picture to the left and thinking, oh what is that an old tyme picture of Grand Central Station? Some fancypants railroad station in Luxembourg!? My friend, you are so very wrong. This 1962 photo is of the interior of old Pennsylvania Station, just a year before it was demolished in a frenzy of “out with the old, in with the new” urban renewal projects in New York City.

I, like the majority of you, knew nothing about the former Penn Station. It wasn’t until New York: A Documentary Film, a 14 hour PBS mini series directed by Ric Burns (brother of documentarian Ken Burns) and chronicling the history of the world’s greatest city, changed all that. This 1999 documentary, coupled with my love for maps and SimCity, was one of the driving forces behind my initial desitre to go into city planning. But thanks to this Ric Burns masterpiece and the chilling, tempered, masterful narration by David Ogden Stiers, I now know about the tragic destruction of Penn Station, the fiery personalities of progressivists like Al Smith and Fiorello LaGuardia, and Robert Moses’ dictator-esque rise to power through various NYC agencies. If you love New York City, you have to watch this documentary (also if you love baseball, you have to watch Ken Burns’ Baseball). Ric Burns also added another episode after September 11th.

Penn Station, 1911

Built in 1910, the original Pennsylvania Station occupied two city blocks between Seventh and Eighth Avenues and from 31st to 33rd Streets. In the style of grandiose European  rail stations, with high sky-lit ceilings and Greek columns, Penn Station was a gorgeous specimen, and faithfully served Midtown Manhattan with regional and local rail service for 53 years. Then…urban renewal happened. For awhile, “urban renewal” and “urban revitalization” were mistakenly used interchangeably, but after the full impact of urban renewal was made apparent, it often meant a death knell for historic landmarks and neighborhoods. 1960s urban renewal projects, especially in New York, were supposed to bring the city and it’s outdated infrastructure into the modern age. And while there were a number of very important infrastructure projects undertaken in the period between 1950-1980, it usually meant out with the old and in with the new, often with no respect for the history or architectural beauty of the buildings that were being replaced.

One such project almost saw the demise of Grand Central Station, but instead saw the construction of the 60-story Pan Am building (now the MetLife building) atop the architectural wonder. I honestly don’t know which would have been worse, since a skyscraper being built on top of Grand Central is already an insult to its history. But the 1950s were all about construction. In the years following WWII, you couldn’t put up skyscrapers fast enough. Real estate was being eaten up by the day, and to developers at the time, Grand Central was just taking up valuable space.

I guess that in the era of Robert Moses (read about him, he was a world class asshole, though he started out with good intentions) and urban renewal, this was a minor victory, since in the end the beautiful Grand Central Station was preserved. However, Penn Station’s fate was much different. Despite outcry from historians, architects, the public, and like-minded planners trying to preserve the landmark, the powers that be had made up their minds and went through with it’s demolition in 1963. Until I watched New York: A Documentary Film, I had no idea that there had been a previous Penn Station, and I feel as though it wouldn’t have been quite as big of a tragedy, if what replaced it wasn’t one of the ugliest buildings I’ve ever laid eyes on (New Brunswick Gateway Center included). Of course I’m talking about Madison Square Garden, home to the New York Rangers, Knicks, as well as copious concert and event spaces. My apologies to any Rangers or Knicks fans reading this, since I know all you know is MSG, and it must be quite beloved like an ugly duckling, but now that you know what was in it’s place, even you have to admit it’s an absolute tragedy.

The destruction of Penn Station, 1965

Take a long look at that photo. Taken in 1965 as the original Pennsylvania Station was razed to make room for a redesigned, underground station, sports arena and office complex, all designed in the beautiful International style of the 1960s….. Completely torn down, with it’s ornate decorations shipped out to rot in some scrapyard in the Meadowlands.  Home to the Rangers, Knicks, and St. Johns NCAA basketball since it’s completion in 1968, it’s design has led it to be known as one of the loudest arenas in both the NHL and NBA. It’s also been home to a cavalcade of other sports, events, and teams throughout its 44 year tenue (I still need to get my WNBA season tickets!). Below, is the atrocity that now sits atop the new Penn Station. This is what replaced the gorgeous New York landmark.

THIS is what replaced old Penn Station.

I don’t care how big of Rangers/Knicks/Liberty (ha.) fan you are. This is a travesty. Vincent Scully (not to be confused with Vin Scully, the voice of the Dodgers), one of the most vocal critics of the 1963 destruction of old Penn Station said of it’s incarnation: “One entered the city like a god. One scuttles in now like a rat.” So, like my rant about Batman Begins, this is sort of a public service announcement. My attempt to drop some knowledge about a topic that I think everyone needs to know about. I can only hope that when it comes time for a new Madison Square Garden, or a new Pennsylvania Station, that the designers pay homage to the beautiful landmark that came before it.

The Greatest App You Aren’t Using

My apologies for no blog post yesterday. The Coug was out and about in the big city. Anywhosits, this post is going to be for some of the less tech/app-savvy readers, since if you own a smart phone and love apps, you better already have this installed (if you don’t, what are you doing with your life?). For the rest of you, there is an app out there that is probably the greatest app you aren’t using. No Kevin Durant, I’m not talking about Doodle Jump…

Man, that’s messed up.

I’m talking about foursquare (have you checked into this post yet?). Founded in 2009, foursquare revolutionized the idea of mobile “check-ins.” Originally, the app was designed for you to check into various venues around town to earn badges, mayorships, and to allow your broskis to see where you were at in the hopes that they might meet up with you/stalk your every move. But since it’s evolution to the newest re-design, released earlier this month, the app has become much more than simply a way to over share. 

Before foursquare most people relied on Zagat or Yelp! to find reviews of new restaurants and businesses. But now, with v5.0 of foursquare you can find reviews of venues regardless of whether they’re right in your backyard or in a strange far off land. And while it works great for restaurants, users can leave reviews anywhere, from bars, to dry cleaners, to art museums, to dentist offices, to strip clubs. With the new “Explore” feature, the app will give you recommendations of places nearby based on your check-in history or what you’ve added to your to-do list. For instance, I used foursquare last week to find The Garden Gourmet right in my own backyard. It, like thousands of venues on foursquare, had two awesome “specials” that are linked to your check-ins. One being the “Friends Special,” which is unlocked by checking in for lunch or dinner with a total of three people in order to get free desserts (awesome!), and the other being a free coffee refill every time you check in there (not as awesome…). But come on, who doesn’t love getting free stuff for doing basically nothing? What’s also great about the “check-in specials” is that if you link your American Express card to your foursquare account, you unlock even more awesome deals. During American Express Small Business Saturdays, almost every small business on foursquare has deals from Amex. All it takes is a check-in, and upon seeing how much you spent on your next statement, Amex will refund a portion of your bill just for checking into a small business. Dopeness.

While that’s an awesome example of finding a great place in my own town, I also just used foursquare to find a place to wet my whistle after a job interview in NYC yesterday. I was over on West 13th Street and simply searched “bar” in the explore tab to find The Brass Monkey on Little West 12th Street. Just from reading some reviews from Bravo, I learned that it was pretty inexpensive, had a rooftop bar, and had an awesome happy hour. So thanks to foursquare I was able to find a bar with an awesome happy hour where I could catch the end of the Spain – Portugal match with some crazy fútbol fans. All of this in an area I knew nothing about.

In addition to finding great places and checking in with your pals, foursquare, like a lot of check-in based apps nowadays, has incentives for checking in at both new places and your regular haunts. You can become the “Mayor” of a venue by checking in the most times over a period of sixty days. Additionally you can usurp the mayorship in a bloodless coup by checking in more times than the current mayor. Often times, if the place is cool enough, it’ll have special deals for the mayor, like free appetizers or drinks, or even a certain percentage off the total purchase. This is a great way to reward customer loyalty.

But what if you’re a fearless explorer? What if you love finding new and exciting places every time you’re out? Don’t fear, the folks at foursquare have you covered. An equally, if not more rewarding aspect of foursquare is unlocking badges. Badges cover a wide array of topics, from checking into 100 different venues, to holding down ten mayorships at once, to sponsored badges like the Starbucks Barista Badge, which you can get from checking into enough unique Starbucks locations. You can also unlock varying levels of badges like the Pizzaiolo badge. You unlock level one by checking into three different pizza joints, level two after five different pizza joints, level three after ten and so on. Some of the badges are easy to unlock and some are much more obscure, with foursquare adding their own unique brand of tongue-in-cheek humor to each one. Yesterday, I earned the “Bravo Newbie” badge by checking into the High Line Park, which was on Bravo’s NYC Must-Visit List on their foursquare. It was also on my foursquare to-do list so…double win.

Plus this was my view, so…triple win.

While it’s nice that foursquare added these cool extra incentives, the point is to actually get out and visit new places. Do new things. In addition to badges and mayorships, there’s also a weekly points leaderboard. Each check-in awards you with a certain number of points based on if you’re the mayor, if it’s your first time there, the venue category, and if you’re checking in with a bunch of friends. What I’ve noticed is that a lot of people are using foursquare for the completely wrong reasons. Even though the weekly leaderboard is absolutely pointless (and actually kind of hard to navigate to), it seems to be the only thing most casual users care about. I see my foursquare friends checking into ridiculous locations like intersections, parking lots, stop lights, and interstates just to bump their weekly points totals. I’ve brought this up with them and their argument is, “If there’s a venue for it, why shouldn’t I check in?” Because you’re not going anywhere new! There’s nothing interesting about checking into a freaking highway! If all you care about is being atop a leaderboard, go buy an Xbox and Modern Warfare and have at it. I’ve actually been unfollowing people on foursquare because I was tired of their inane check-ins cluttering up my feed. In the recent re-design, foursquare made it so your Friends tab displays more like a Facebook news feed, instead of just the most recent check-ins, which I like a lot better, but it made it so annoying check-ins such as those dominate your foursquare feed. To anyone who uses foursquare like that (you know who you are): You’re doing it wrong!

I was recently appointed a foursquare SuperUser, which may be the closest I’ll ever come to actually working for them (still waiting on that Community Support application I sent in dudes!), but it was probably the culmination of my social media existence so far (well, maybe my twitter appearance on Baseball Tonight). It might also be the happiest moment of my OCD lifestyle, since I would often refuse to check into venues that were uncategorized/mis-categorized or had no address. Now, if I want to check into a venue that looks like someone created it while tripping on bath salts, I can open up the foursquare SuperUser app, “Hopscotch” (ha!), search for the wonky venue, and edit it to my heart’s content! If you’re friends with me on foursquare and noticed that all your check-ins are magically fixed with correct categories and information, yup that was Coug. But if you see a venue that you want me to fix for you, I’d be happy to do so. With great power comes great responsibility. I am sworn to uphold the integrity of foursquare support personnel, and have vowed never to use this for evil!

So yeah, if you have a smartphone (even a BlackBerry!) and you love app culture, you have to be using this app. Even if you aren’t an app-fiend like me and you love discovering new places, you should give foursquare a try. Also, if you’re still relying on Yelp! for business and restaurant reviews, you have to make the switch to foursquare. The design is so much cleaner and free of clutter. I would go so far as to say that foursquare is a beautiful app. And if your hang up is not wanting people to know where you are, simply don’t share your check-ins on Twitter or Facebook. Plus, unless someone is actually friends with you on foursquare, they can’t see any of your check-ins or location information. Hey who knows, maybe you’ll get to usurp someone’s mayorship in glorious fashion. Happy check-ins! Oh and friend me up on foursquare!

Marvel’s The Avengers: First Reaction + Batman Rant

Captain America and…those other guys. Captain Falcon or something? They’re in the Avengers right?

Last night I finally saw Marvel’s The Avengers and it was pretty much exactly what I thought it was going to be, nothing more. But maybe a little less. When it first came out people were freaking out, and calling it the greatest superhero movie ever. I mean how could a movie with Tony Stark, Thor (come on, even I have a little crush on Chris Hemsworth), Captain America, and Mace Windu disappoint? Well aside from the first Iron Man, none of the individual Avengers movies were anything spectacular. Truth be told I haven’t watched the newest Hulk with Edward Norton, but since they recast him I can only assume it wasn’t that great. But Thor, Captain America, and Iron Man 2 were all very entertaining, plus I really enjoyed the Avengers tie-ins. In fact I had pretty low expectations for Thor and CA, so they were both pleasant surprises. The Avengers was just that: fun. But I’m still glad I didn’t get all amped up to see this at midnight on opening night like I did for the abomination that was Spiderman 3.

WARNING! | THERE BE SPOILERS AHEAD!

Now before anyone jumps down my throat, I’m a big Batman/DC Universe guy. I read the comics and watched the Batman cartoon religiously when I was a kid, and have even been watching some of the newer Batman animated shorts. I have zero prior knowledge regarding The Avengers or any of their members. The extent of my Marvel Universe knowledge other than recent movies lies solely with the X-Men.

One issue I had with this 2 hour and 45 minute epic was that it took way too long re-introducing all of the characters. A prerequisite to seeing The Avengers should have been to see each member’s individual movie. Especially Captain America and Thor, since they included the introduction of the the Tesseract and Loki. However I feel as though these were the two that most people didn’t actually see. I was seeing this movie with someone who had only seen Iron Man 1&2, so I had to give him a long rundown of back story before the movie. By the time they had reintroduced all the characters and given unnecessary flashbacks to remind people who they were, I was already losing interest. This may have been coupled with the fact that I saw it at an AMC Fork & Screen, so after two 23 oz beers I was struggling to not break the seal.

The banter in this movie was top notch. Maybe my favorite part, since I can pretty much get the same over the top action from The Expendables 2. You have Tony Stark the wise-cracking, billionaire, playboy, smartass, coupled with a demigod from another world, a super soldier who’s been frozen and in isolation since World War 2, and a suspiciously soft spoken and laid back Bruce Banner, recast for the third time in eight years by the always talented Mark Ruffalo (Wild Wings). The nerd love between Stark and Banner is great, since they both seem to be in awe of each other’s research. I also really loved that when he’s not in Hulk mode, Banner is portrayed as the exact opposite;  calm, cool and collected. Almost as if he has The Hulk so under control that nothing could phase him. Excellent contrast. One criticism I had was that when he first shifts from Bruce Banner to The Hulk on the SHIELD ship, he goes nuts, attacking anything and anyone in his path, but when he turns into The Hulk in New York, he carefully targets only Loki and the Chitauri. I assumed that when he shifts on the ship, it was his first transformation in some time and he was having a hard time controlling it, or maybe he was pissed at SHIELD and Nick Fury for having that cell for him on the ship. Regardless, I was a little miffed about that.

Now to HawkEye and Black Widow. This is where Marvel fanboys are going to jump all over me. Actually let me look up who the actual Avengers are so I kind of know what I’m talking about….okay. It seems to me like there have been almost 100 different members of the Avengers since it’s creation in the 1960s (the original members being Iron Man, Thor, Ant-Man, The Wasp, and The Hulk, with Captain America joining shortly after). Now you’re telling me that out of these nearly 100 members, which includes Spider-Man, Venom, and FREAKING WOLVERINE (my second favorite superhero after Batman), the best secondary Avengers members Marvel could muster up were HawkEye and Black Widow? While listed as “a pair of killer assassins,” they’re really a dude with a crossbow and a flexible chick. How exactly did they get thrown into the mix to fight alongside actual super heroes? Chewbacca would have been a better Avenger than HawkEye. At least he had a bowcaster, HawkEye doesn’t even have a gun. He even runs out of arrows during the movie. What is he going to do then? Deadlift some dudes? Flex at them? At least Black Widow realized she was basically a secondary character and tried to utilize her super spy skills. Every scene HawkEye was in, he seemed to be trying way too hard to fit in with Thor, Iron Man, Hulk, and Captain America. There were honestly scenes that I couldn’t stop myself from laughing over how ridiculous HawkEye and Black Widow looked next to them. A friend of mine reminded me that they didn’t have the rights to any of these other characters, and thus couldn’t use them in the movie, which makes perfect sense. But I still think they could have picked some better secondary Avengers.

Another pet peeve of mine was the scene where Iron Man re-directs the warhead to the Chitauri mothership, which Joss Whedon basically ripped off from Star Wars: Episode I. Anakin destroys the Trade Federation control ship, which deactivates the droids on Naboo, rendering them useless. In The Avengers, Iron Man destroys the Chitauri mothership, causing the aliens forces to deactivate on the surface of Earth. I guess when you think about it though, George Lucas probably stole that idea from Independence Day. C’est la vie.

When all is said and done, Marvel’s The Avengers is a really fun movie. I would still choose any of Nolan’s Batman films over any of the recent Avenger films 100 times out of 100, but sometimes you just need a movie where superheroes blow stuff up. As my one friend said, it’s spectacle not substance. I guess not every superhero movie can be The Dark Knight, but the dialogue was great, all the actors did a phenomenal job, and the special effects were well done. And I take back what I said before. The banter wasn’t my favorite part of the movie, the extra extra hidden scene was. If you didn’t stay til the very end of the credits you missed out. Mmmm…shawarma. All in all I give Marvel’s The Avengers a respectable 7 out of 10.

 END SPOILERS

Alright now it’s time for me to go on a Batman rant. I apologize for this post being monstrously long. While at the movies for The Avengers last night, I told my friend that I bought tickets for the AMC Theaters Dark Knight Trilogy, where you’ll be able to watch Batman Begins and The Dark Knight at the theater prior to the midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises. I’m really looking forward to this since it should be the ultimate Batman experience, and if you’re as big of a Nolan Batman fanboy as I am, the trilogy showing is a must. Needless to say I expected him to call me crazy, since nine hours of Batman is a little nuts, but instead he was dumbfounded since he had no idea that Batman Begins was even a movie, let alone that TDK and TDKR were both part of a trilogy.

Is this notion commonplace? Do people not know that Batman Begins is the first film in Nolan’s Batman trilogy? If this idea is more widespread, people desperately need to be schooled. This is unacceptable. I understand that most people hadn’t seen Begins prior to seeing TDK, but how can you watch it in a vacuum? It can’t be watched without realizing that there are clearly connections to a previous movie. Not only does TDK need Batman Begins to set up Batman’s eventual fall from Gotham’s good graces, the movie would be severely lacking in character development without the ability to reference Begins. That should cause some people to have almost no idea who the characters are or what is going on. Inside jokes are lost. There should be confusion on a massive scale.

Another troubling fact is the idea that people did know about Batman Begins, either before or after The Dark Knight’s release, and still haven’t seen it. In the name of all that’s holy, how could you watch the masterpiece that is The Dark Knight and not want to see the movie that led up to it. I’ve spoken with a number of people, including friends that are as big of movie buffs/Batman fans as myself and many argue that Begins is even better than TDK. For me it’s a close one, but I still have to go with The Dark Knight. While I love the soundtrack, the rise of Batman and his motivations, and the R’as al Ghul backstory, Begins can get a little campy and I think TDK is the single best superhero movie ever made. R.I.P. Heath Ledger.

If you plan on seeing The Dark Knight Rises next month, you have to watch Batman Begins (and The Dark Knight if you somehow haven’t seen it). From what I can gather, there are going to be a lot of allusions to Begins, as well as a story arc that ends where Begins started. If I could, I would personally screen Batman Begins for everyone who hasn’t seen it (I’m forcing my one friend whether he likes it or not), and make it mandatory to have seen the previous two trilogy pieces before you’re allowed to enter the theater for TDKR. I’m the kind of person who wants to educate people about amazing films they haven’t seen, both for their own benefit, and to put my mind at ease. Batman Begins is one of those movies.

And before you go all like “Wait! Coug! I never said thank you.” I’ll turn around and be all like “…and you’ll never have to.”

Stranger In a Strange Land

First off, Merry Half-Christmas to all you Workaholics fans! I hope the egg nog is flowing and your sweater is nice and festive.

Three weeks ago I had to move back to my parents house for the first time in over two years. I had been a full time grad student with off and on employment in the planning & economic development field, but none of those jobs materialized into something full time. Unfortunately, my apartment lease was up at the end of May (Pro tip: be sure to read through your entire lease just in case your complex throws in some clause like you have to give them 60 days notice that you’re moving out. Otherwise, you’ll probably lose your entire security deposit…Not that it happened to me or anything.) and I’ve been unable to find a full time job in either social media or planning. Not for lack of trying though, since I’ve sent out over 70 applications since the end of April. Out of those seventy I’ve gotten seven phone or in-person interviews (ironically all in social media related positions, none in planning). That works out to a .100 batting average, so if I were playing baseball I’d probably be optioned to AAA, unless I was Adam Dunn. So like the Dunnkey, the idea is for one of those seven hits to be a home run. Maybe I just can’t fake enthusiasm for a planning job, since the prospect of landing a job in a field I’ve grown to dislike depresses me. Plus, I don’t have to fake anything in my social media cover letters or interviews since I’m sincerely passionate about it.

Honestly, I’m very confident in my ability to land a job soon (maybe delusionally so), and I guess you could say that I’m too proud to take any part time job in the mean time (especially if it meant crawling back to TD Bank). Needless to say money is tight. Anyway, being back home I sort of feel like a stranger. Being an only child, but never really spoiled, I have to say that my parents and I don’t always get along. The fact that our house is very small probably doesn’t help either. In addition, the majority of my friends no longer live at home. Most have moved to New York or other far off locations, and the ones that are home I don’t end up seeing all that often. Because of this I spend a lot of my time trying to stay out of my house and keep sane. It’s not easy. For instance, my mom has been teaching art classes out of our house for about ten years now. Normally she teaches several one hour classes a week, which means on any given day there are kids coming in and out of my house. Over the summer it’s even worse, since she teaches week long art camps for 3-4 hours a day. So during these camps, my house is overrun by children. It’s like Lord of the Flies up in here. I’m considering organizing some sort of Hunger Games to weed out the weak ones. To make matters worse, a couple years ago my father found out he could basically work from home, despite our house not having any sort of office. I don’t think he’s been to his actual office in over a year, and instead has taken over our dining room. Because of how small our house is, it has pretty much been monopolized by my mother’s art classes and my father and his conference calls for the majority of the day, driving me into my room or out of the house for some sort of sanctuary. Luckily my friend is letting me use his roommate’s MLB.tv, plus Wimbledon just started (Novak repeat!), so I can fill a lot of the void with sports.

On days I can’t fill with sports, I’ve been shacking up at the local coffee shop (try the Iced Matcha Green Tea) and pretending I’m writing the great American screenplay. Today I’m trying to stay out of the house until at least 4 PM. So until then I’ve been managing my social media, turntabling in the Coug Lounge and following up on some job applications. I actually followed up with some on Friday at around 4:30 PM, as if anyone would be checking their e-mail on a Friday at 4:30 PM. I’m pretty excited to finally be seeing The Avengers tonight, since I haven’t really had anyone to see it with. I might try to watch Thor, Captain America, or both before I go as a refresher. Both of which were much better than I had expected, but I went into both with pretty low expectations.

Banana & Almond Butter Stuffed French Toast

My friend Kenny and I had a delightful, totally hetero, non-bougie brunch at The Garden Gourmet in Clinton. It’s a pretty new breakfast spot/cafe that I’ve been meaning to try out, plus it’s right along the river and you can eat outside. It’s pretty much the most Brooklyn thing we have in Clinton. I ordered french toast stuffed with bananas and almond butter, which obviously I spotted on Foodspotting. It was pretty delicious, minus the fact that the french toast was a little chewier than french toast should probably be, but that might have been the bread they used. Also, the service was pretty slow for only having us and one other table. That wouldn’t have been a problem, other than the fact that my friend only had 45 minutes for his lunch. I’ll definitely be stopping by again though. The menu looked delicious.

That’ll be all for now. I guess I’ll try to get some real work done before my Avengers marathon. Have to pick up a Mike & Gian sticker from Sub Base too.

Looming Red Sox Roster Moves

In the coming weeks, the Red Sox are going to have to make some difficult decisions as a number of players are activated from the disabled list. There has already been a logjam at corner infield, forcing Gonzo to RF for the first time since his early days with the Padres. The defensive shift was to make room for the rookie phenom Will Middlebrooks (or as I call him WMB, the Weapon of Monster Bombs) at 3B and in order to get Youkilis’ bat in the lineup at 1B.

Since WMB’s call up, there has been constant talk of the Sox trying to trade the underperforming and oft injured Youkilis to secure his permanent spot at 3B. Unfortunately Youk hasn’t been able to duplicate his 2010 numbers, when he batted .307/.411/.564 with 19 HR, 62 RBI, and drew 58 BB in only 102 games. Through 41 games in 2012, Youk is hitting a dismal .225/.311/.359 and has only drawn 14 walks. Ironically this means that the Greek God of Walks will have to prove to be a much more valuable asset if the Sox hope to trade him, thus making his bat even more difficult to take out of the lineup. I’ve been a big fan of Youk since he was a September call up in 2004, and since I just bought his jersey last year, I’m holding out hope that he doesn’t get traded and the Sox figure out some sort of arrangement for him, WMB and Gonzo (who truth be told hasn’t really been contributing too much this season either). Welp, from the looks of it, Youkilis just got traded in the middle of this game after being replaced by a pinch runner to a standing ovation. Say it ain’t so, Youk 😦

Speaking of Red Sox jerseys, allow me to go off on a tangent here. I feel like every time I buy a jersey or tee, said player gets traded, signs with a different team, or retires. My ex-gf bought me my first jersey, Johnny Damon, in 2005 and as you all well know, Mr. Damon is persona-non-grata after signing with the Evil Empire in 2006. I thought about burning it or having “Damon” taken off the back, but honestly who the hell wants a Matsuzaka jersey either? I’ve just been hanging it up on my wall so the number is concealed. After that debacle I bought myself an Ellsbury tee in his rookie season when he was still #46 (he’s since changed it to #2), and a Papelbon tee (signed with the Phillies in the offseason, and I still love ya Pap, even after game #162). Another ex bought me an official Varitek jersey, who promptly retired, but I can still wear #33 with pride. Finally, my most recent purchase was a sexy Majestic Official Postseason Youkilis jersey, but like the Madden curse, I seem to doom each player who’s jersey I buy. I’m considering a Middlebrooks tee, but I’d hate to involve the kid in this twisted affair. End tangent.

“Fortunately” for the Red Sox, Scott Podsednik was placed on the 15-day DL with a groin issue, since Cody Ross was due to come off it. This move allowed them to activate Ross without having to send anyone down. I titled this post “Looming Red Sox Roster Moves” because in the coming weeks both Jacoby Ellsbury and Carl Crawford are due to come off the DL, and boy do we have a lot of outfielders. At the moment we have Cody Ross, Darnell McDonald, Daniel Nava, and Ryan Kalish. We desperately need Jacoby Ellsbury back in the lineup, but the man with the monster contract, Carl Crawford dictates that we’ll have to send someone much more deserving down. After signing a 7-year $142 million deal in 2010, the former (Devil) Ray has contributed a total of 130 games, since the start of the 2011 season. In these 130 games he’s batted .255/.289/.405 and stolen only 18 bases after stealing 47 and 60(!) in the previous two seasons. Not only is he not staying healthy, when he is healthy he’s not getting on base, and when he does get on base, he’s not stealing bases. So far this $142 million boondoggle has become the 2012 version of J.D. Drew (no insult to Mr. Drew, at least he helped us win a World Series).

The fact of the matter is, his massive contract will dictate that he start in LF the majority of the time, and when Ellsbury joins the fray, the outfield will end up being Crawford in LF, Ellsbury in CF, and Ross in RF. Darnell McDonald will no doubt be sent down, but then it’s a matter of sending a down a reliever (or two relievers when Andrew Bailey comes back) or one of Daniel Nava or Ryan Kalish. Now I’ve been a huge Cody Ross fan since his 2010 World Series MVP campaign for the Giants, and I was thrilled when the Sox signed him. But Kalish and Nava have proven themselves valuable members of the club and both taken their licks in the minors. My vote is for Kalish and Scotty Pods to be sent down, since Nava has been up for longer, had more time to mesh and contribute with the club, plus I have him on my fantasy team.

And I’m still Saltalamacchia (salty) about not re-signing Jason Bay. Just sayin’.