Why Brian Roberts Should Retire

Posted on by
Image courtesy of the Baltimore Sun.

Image courtesy of the Baltimore Sun.

Just in case you haven’t been following the Orioles closely this season, Brian Roberts has so far spent the entirety of it sitting in the dugout next to Buck Showalter, wearing his dumb beanie hat and chewing his stupid bubble gum and playing old hoss. Roberts finally reported for a rehab assignment to the Bowie Baysox on Wednesday, meaning that at the end of 20 days he’ll be forced to return to the Orioles unless he re-injures himself (which is a distinct possibility).

Earlier this week one of our favorite Orioles bloggers Neal Shaffer asked a question on MASNsports.com that no one else has had the temerity to state publicly, namely Do You Want Brian Roberts Back? Our answer in no. A resounding no. Hell no. We do not want Brian Roberts back.

As Neal rightly points out in a separate post, Brian Roberts was one of the Top Five Orioles of the Losing Era. He’s been a great Oriole for a long time, and while he’s still a great Oriole and always will be, it’s our feeling that he’s no longer a great player. He’s probably not even a good player at this point.

Roberts has been suffering concussion symptoms, and hasn’t made a major league appearance in more than a year now. Even before that, he’s had a racked-up back and made limited appearances in 2010. Anyone else in his position likely would have been a distant memory long ago, but B-Rob is not only a great Oriole, he’s also signed to make $10 Million a year through 2013, which is the main reason the club is sticking with him in our opinion. However, in baseball as in the stock market past performance is not indicative of future results. We think he’s done performing at his old level, and probably at any level acceptable to fans.

Fans desperately want an end to the losing era, and that won’t truly happen until all of our excess ballast is jettisoned. People felt sentimental about seeing Melvin Mora go. They held hats in hand to think of the loss of Luke Scott’s 25+ homeruns a year. They wrung their hands and beat their breasts when Jeremy Guthrie was traded. But you know what? Those guys were fucking losers and we can lose without them. Turns out, we can win without them too.

We understand why veteran athletes are so reluctant to retire. Anyone who makes it to the Majors is seeing their lifelong dream come true, and to be a big leaguer is to live out that dream every day. That’s a hard thing to give up, and most people don’t do it willingly. To our mind though, the best way that Roberts can serve his club and himself is not on the field.

Last year we lost a great Oriole with the death of Mike Flanagan. He was not only a great Oriole, but a great broadcaster as well. His loss is felt every day and the Orioles desperately need someone who can fill his shoes in the television booth. Mike Bordick was a solid everyday major leaguer, but he wasn’t a great Oriole and he hasn’t got a natural talent for broadcasting.

It is this blog’s opinion that Brian Roberts should transition to TV color commentary as soon as possible. Roberts has always had a great relationship with the media and comes across as natural and charming on camera. As the best Oriole of his era, he knows the team and the game better than anyone. At 34 he’s young enough to retain the interest of fans who don’t remember ’83, and to draw in new fans at the same time. It’s entirely conceivable that his broadcast career could last 20-30 years or more.

For your own good Brian, and for the good of your team we implore you- hang up your spikes and pick up a microphone before Jeremy Guthrie beats you to it..

The Chop Joins Tumblr

Posted on by

Once upon a time, we mocked and derided Twitter mercilessly. Then we got a blog and joined Twitter and realized that OH! this is actually pretty awesome. Not only does it drive blog traffic, but it lets us know about almost everything way before everyone else- from a simple traffic jam to the death of Osama bin Laden.

There’s still a lot of tweeting to make fun of. Justin Bieber is still a thing. Rhianna and Chris Brown and Ashton Kutcher are still the emblematic faces of that website. The thing about Twitter though is that people use it in many different ways. The way that we use it focuses almost exclusively on real people in Baltimore. It’s been very satifying to us to use “social media” to actually be social, not to track sports and celebrities or be marketed to by everyone from international brands to corner cafes. Our Twitter feed has become a part of our daily life, and we wouldn’t want to go back to a time before we had it.

A visual approximation of the Chop Tumbling.

Since we quit Facebook recently, we’ve had a little more time on our hands. You might think that we’d set out to do something noble like read more books or do some volunteer work or something. Instead, we’ve joined Tumblr.

Without Facebook, our sense of internet fatigue has dropped dramatically in the last few weeks, so now is as good a time as ever to jump feet first into the Reblogging Society. We’ve given Tumblr a couple of chances in the past and hated it, but it could be that we’ve finally figured out how, exactly, to use it.

The main way we plan to use Tumblr is not as a blogging service. It’s a piss poor blogging service. It’s also a piss poor social network, and there’s no chance we’ll be able to engage with people there the same way we do on Twitter. What Tumblr is really, really good at though, is being a discovery engine for established media. We don’t RSS the Atlantic and Mother Jones and Vice and the Fader, but now we’ll follow them on Tumblr, and when they post an interesting headline we’ll be a lot more likely to catch it than if we were waiting for someone else to share it on Facebook or Twitter.

On the other hand, we produce content on this blog. We’ve been looking for a way to get that content in front of some new eyeballs, and Tumblr may end up being a good way to do that, without investing all too much time and energy. It can be hard to get a link retweeted, but make that link a black and white vintage Tumblr photo and people are all too happy to re-blog it.

If you’re on Tumblr, feel free to follow us at thebaltimorechop.tumblr.com. We’re not quite up to speed yet, but soon we’ll be posting each day’s photo, along with a link to that day’s post. If you’ve got any sage Tumblr advice or words of wisdom for us, let us know about it in the comments.

What is Private Equity? Our Bi-Weekly Political Roundup

Posted on by

Political news has been pretty slow lately, believe it or not. After King Romney was finally awarded the nomination which was his sacred and inalienable birthright everybody kind of took a nice little breather for a while. Luckily for those of us who enjoy politics-as-bloodsport that all ended when Joe the Biden went on Press the Meat and said what the whole administration had been thinking all along: that gay people should be able to get married and that Barack Obama thinks that’s okey-dokey-artichokey.

Even though that in and of itself is a “BFD,” it was still only about a one week story. And it was last week’s story. The thing that everyone is talking about this week basically comes down to “What the fuck actually is private equity anyway?”

No internet meme can make this picture more bizarre or disturbing than it already is.

Basically, private equity is the money that really really extraordinarily rich people use to buy whole companies or large shares of stock and then flip what they just bought for as much profit as possible. Think of it like this:

    You just bought an old classic Mustang because your neighbor lost his job and is selling it dirt cheap, not because you like cars or have any particular interest in Mustangs, least of all this shitty old one. So you have three options. You can:

  • Strip the car, sell it for parts and scrap the frame because parts + scrap value will be greater than the purchase price.
  • List the the car for sale straightaway, because you believe you underpaid and there are suckers out there.
  • Take out a loan and restore the car, if the value will ultimately exceed purchase price + loan + interest.

Private equity firms buy companies, and then they basically do one of those three things to them. The reason why normal, decent, hardworking people are disgusted by private equity firms is because that’s really a reprehensible way to behave.

If we stick with our Mustang example we can imagine that your neighbor probably had some pretty high hopes for that car. He might have had one like it in high school. He was probably planning on doing the restoration himself, getting his son to help out on the weekends, father/son time in the garage and all of that. He was probably constantly daydreaming about taking his wife out to the drive-in after it was finished, maybe even driving in a parade or entering a car show. He was probably hoping he could get a modest return on the investment after all that, or possibly even hand it down to that same son.

But he lost his job and he had to sell the car to make the mortgage. Now when he comes home he sees it in your driveway instead of his. He knows damn well that you don’t care about it, and it hurts every time he sees a part sold off, and even more when he hears over the fence that you flipped it for twice as much as you bought it for, just because you could place an ad and wait and didn’t have to sweat for your mortgage this month.

Mitt Romney and Bain Capital have done this not to single neighbors, but to entire towns and companies. Separating Romney from Bain is as impossible as separating Dick Cheney from Halliburton, or the whole Bush family from the Carlyle Group. Romney is Bain.

One distinct but closely related point we want to make before we end this post is this: Nobody ever created a job as a favor. Employers hire when they are forced to hire, and not a minute sooner. This is an idea that we’ve told to anyone who will listen for years now. It’s why corporate boards and shareholders are so intensely focused on productivity numbers, and why they would rather run every employee ragged on mandatory overtime than hire new ones, and prefer to hire part-timers, temps and contract employees whenever possible. Creating real jobs is an investment. It’s especially an investment if they’re going to train their own employees, which no one wants to do anymore. It can be an expensive investment for a company to make, and while the benefits are real, they are seldom immediate.

We’ve finally started to hear this idea given slight attention in the news: that in a consumer driven economy, it’s consumer spending that is the root cause of job creation. We highly doubt that Romney ever created any jobs, let alone the 100,000 he claims, but one thing is certain- any jobs that he created, he did it because there was an absolute need to hire and not as a favor to the working man.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The Baltimore chapter of Drinking Liberally meets at Liam Flynn’s Ale House tonight at 7 pm. Meeting is free and open to Liberals and Progressives of all stripes. Just look for the red, white and blue bottle on the table. 22 W. North Avenue in Station North.

Baltimore’s Best International Grocers, Part 2

Posted on by

Potung Trading. Image via Yelp.

Beyond the almighty blue crab, Baltimore cuisine often gets a bad rap- and it’s not entirely undeserved. Traditional dishes like shad roe and terrapin soup are little more than relics from 100 years ago, and the typical supermarket cart here is chock full of Esskay meats, Utz BBQ chips and H&S potato rolls. Sometimes it feels like the Land of Pleasant Living is fairly overflowing with unpleasant food.

It’s not all bad though. Our farmers’ markets are growing fast and putting out more produce every year. Our restaurant chefs are constantly innovating, opening new kitchens and commanding attention and respect, and believe it or not we’re even home to some of the best ethnic markets you’ll find anywhere.

In yesterday’s post we highlighted five of the city’s best European grocers, and today we’re rounding out the top ten and taking on the rest of the world. Check out some of these genuine gourmet gems, and all of a sudden Harris Teeter and Whole Foods may seem somehow less appealing.

Potung Trading Chinese, 321 Park Ave. Downtown: For those of you who don’t feel like making the trek to H-Mart, Potung packs almost as much selection into a much smaller space. Featuring a large selection of dry goods as well as decent produce and tofu selections, Potung is a great place to do a full week’s shopping or just to swing by and pick up dinner on the way home. Don’t feel like making dinner? Check out Zhong Shan restaurant next door, which is easily one of the city’s most authentic Chinese restaurants. You’ll hear Cantonese spoken here, and can expect something else besides the typical sweet and sour pork and General Tso’s chicken.

Must Try- Potung’s noodle selection is out of this world. this is the place to stock up on any and all types of noodles including our favorite: Pancit Canton.

Punjab Groceries and Halal Meat Indian, 345 E. 33rd St. Waverly: Punjab Groceries doesn’t look like much from the outside, but the building stretches back a lot father than it appears to from the street, and they do a great job of keeping it packed full from floor to ceiling. For anyone who’s been intimidated to attempt Indian cooking at home, the best way to do it may be to jump right in headfirst, and here you can get everything you’d need to make any dish for $10 or less. The prices are incredibly low, and between that and the good selection of produce you’ll be tempted to do all your weekly shopping here.

Must Try- There’s so much good stuff here and so much value it’s truly difficult to pick a favorite, so we’re just going to go with a personal favorite and suggest you try some of their exotic varieties of pickled garlic, at a tiny fraction of the price you’d pay at Whole Foods.

Asia Food 5224 York Rd. Govans: Much like Punjab and Potung are surprisingly large, Asia Food is actually smaller than it looks. They’ve got a very large building, and barely fill it. Even so, there’s plenty of pan-Asian selection here with cuisine from Karachi to Kyoto. If you hang around long enough you start to get the impression that their customer base is as much Chinese restaurant owners as home cooks, and they stock a very large quantity of commercial grade woks as well as dishes, platters, bulk chopsticks and rice by the ton. (No, not literally.)

Must Try- Although they’ve got a decent selection of bean curds and exotic vegetables, the real highlight of an Asia Food visit is the freezer case. There’s a long wall of freezers lined up and stocked with appetizers like spring rolls and wontons, frozen mochi and other desserts and everything in between.

Cinco de Mayo 417 S. Highland Ave. Highlandtown: With two locations along Eastern Ave (also at 1312 Eastern) Cinco de Mayo is poised to become a Latin version of Eddie’s. In fact, the market itself is reminiscent of Eddies, being about the same size and with everything laid out along neat and orderly shelves. They’ve got the largest produce selection of any store on this listalong with their own pastelilleria, and long aisle shelves of everything else, there’s the beans shelf, the rice shelf, the salsa shelf, the beverage shelf, the tortillas shelf, etc.

Must Try- The butcher shop here is not your average grocery store meat counter, featuring exotic cuts you won’t find elsewhere and low prices on more standard cuts. They also offer several pre-marinated selections which makes Cinco de Mayo a must for your Summer cook-outs on the patio or roof deck.

Seven Mile Market 201 Reisterstown Rd. Pikesville: Just a mere two blocks outside the city line, Seven Mile Market is by far the largest store on this list and the only one that actually qualifies as a supermarket. One thing we noticed on our trip to Israel was that of all the Middle Eastern countries we’ve been to, Israel is the one with Western style supermarkets. So Seven Mile is entirely authentic in that you walk in and say “Huh. this is just like any other supermarket except with a lot of Jewish people in it.” It’s definitely not short on pickled fish and reminders of what is and isn’t kosher, but other than that it feels more or less like a Safeway.

Must Try- The deli here makes several kinds of knishes, so go ahead and buy them by the dozen. That may seem like a lot of knishes, but watch how quickly they disappear.

Baltimore’s Best International Grocers, Part 1

Posted on by

One of the problems with traditional supermarket shopping is that no matter how big the stores get, no matter how many products they offer, it’s too easy to fall into the supermarket rut. The typical shopper will buy staples like bread, milk, eggs and peanut butter, and beyond that stick to certain brands and products out of habit, or let the store’s sales and loyalty cards dictate their shopping habits.

For as big as they are, most supermarkets really don’t offer too much in the way of actual variety. You get your Goya and Old El Paso in the ‘Mexican aisle,’ your Kikkoman and La Choy in the ‘Asian aisle,’ and some matzoh crackers and candles in the ‘Kosher section.’ While this is all fine for the busy-soccer-mom and lazy-bachelor set, those among us with a higher grade of culinary skill sometimes require more in the way of sourcing authentic, gourmet ingredients. With that in mind, this week we’re taking you on a tour of ten of Baltimore’s best ethnic grocery stores.

This is meant to be more of a top ten than a comprehensive list. We strove to choose grocers that are good enough to be a destination all on their own, and not an afterthought to a supermarket visit. While other lists of this type are out of date or feature stores as far away as Columbia and Laurel, or include bakeries and cafes and such, we’ve focused exclusively on the best ethnic grocers in Baltimore City. Buon appetito.

The Deli case at DiPasquale's. Image via yelp.

The Deli case at DiPasquale’s. Image via yelp.

    Di Pasquale’s Italian, 3700 Gough St. Highlandtown: Di Pasquale’s might be the best-known place in this list, and for good reason. They earned their sterling reputation over almost 100 years in Baltimore, and there’s not a better place to grab lunch on the whole east side of town. Their Italian deli is the the kind that makes it hard to decide, because you just want to try a bit of everything, and with a large seating area and carryout options, can try your best to do just that. What we love about Di Pasquale’s is that It’s a pretty fancy place, with gourmet foods, fresh produce, Italian coffees and a full wine shop laid out quite elegantly- but it’s fancy without trying too hard, and always maintains a friendly, neighborhood feeling.

    Must Try- One thing that sets Di Pasquale’s apart is that they not only focus on Italian wines, but on Italian liquors as well. They seem to have a bottle of everything Italy is producing today, and you can’t leave without picking out one of several types of limoncello for Summer afternoons.

    Prima Foods Greek, 51 Kane St. Eastwood(ish): You would think that the city’s best Greek grocer would be in Greektown, but you’d be wrong. Just east of Patterson High School, Prima’s industrial locale reflects its wholesale focus. Even in their retail store, everything is scaled up. The marinated olives are in bulk barrels, the olive oil is in tanks, the cheese comes in wheel form, and the lamb is more leg than chop. They’ve got everything you’d need for a big fat Greek dinner, including a good selection of Greek wines.

    Must Try-Take advantage of Prima’s scale and stock up on standard Greek favorites like large quantities of feta and 1 gallon packages of stuffed grape leaves and tzatziki.

    My Polish Food Market 6208 Eastern Ave. Joseph Lee (Bayview): If we’re being honest here, My Polish Food Market isn’t terribly impressive. It’s very small and doesn’t feature anything in the way of fresh produce or baked goods, instead concentrating on Polish specialties and delicacies. The reason we’re including it here is because it’s the pierogi hook-up. They’ve got all of the traditional varieties, and they price out around fifty cents apiece. We bought a package of potato and mushroom ones and topped them with a garlic and rosemary brown butter and it was some of the best pierogi we’ve ever had.

    Must Try- Pierogis, of course. Find some filled with kraut or mushrooms or something besides plain potato. You won’t be sorry.

    International Food Market 7004 Reisterstown Rd. Falstaff: This may be the most authentic grocer on this list. Most of the shelf labels are in Russian, and this place carries goods from all over the post-Soviet region and beyond. It’s packed full of pickled things and jams and delicacies, and nothing here is tamed to the tastes of American palates. As impressive as the store itself is the integrated deli featuring tons of exotic salamis, bacon and sausages as well as a large selection of hot and cold prepared foods and make-ahead/cook-at-home items like stuffed cabbages. With a produce section and an on-site bakery, this shop is suitable for a gourmet meal or for a week’s worth of shopping. As a bonus, there’s also an organic health food market next door.

    Must Try- A large section of the deli here is comprised of a smoked fish case. They’ve smoked more fish than you can probably name. Even if you’re not too adventurous they offer a few different varieties of smoked salmon, and where else are you going to get good, authentic smoked salmon?

    Trinacria Italian, 406 N. Paca St. Downtown: Being an Italian market, Trinacria’s got all of the pastas and sauces and whatnot you’d expect, but the real attraction is things like homemade ravioli, freshly baked foccacio, and an outstanding deli that can do everything from a single sandwich to full-on catering. The somewhat uninviting exterior belies the sensory charms right behind the door. Being equal parts market, deli, and wine shop, You hardly know where to look next. But don’t take our word for it, check out the awesome 360° tour on their website.

    Must Try- Come for the food, stay for the wine. The wine shop here boasts $10 Prosecco and has several other bottles priced at $3.99. They’ll even give you boxes to buy by the case. They even have our beloved Bota Box.

Our shopping basket is pretty full already, but that’s only the first half of our top ten list. Check out part two for our other five picks featuring Indian specialties, a Hebrew supermarket, the city’s best mercado Latino and more.