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Abby Ross
Communications Director
Deputy Majority Leader Jeff Klein
New York State Senate
3612 E. Tremont Ave.
Bronx, NY 10465
718-822-2049
479-283-3505 (cell) abbynews@gmail.com
This has to happen. Pedro Martinez has to take the ball in the Bronx tonight and cut and curve and quick-pitch the overhyped Yankees hitters into knots. He has to lick those long fingers and throw those 76 mph high changeups and put the entire tri-state region into a palpable state of panic.
He has to beat the Yankees tonight, force a Game 7 and hand some smart tabloid editor the chance to make backpage history. Pedro has to glare in at Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez after punching them out in a big spot, and his photo has to appear tomorrow with the obvious headline:
The Man Who Stares At Goats.
This just has to happen. Pedro has to knock them out with his sheer force of will, just like George Clooney does to the real goats in those incessant TV commercials. This whole thing has unfolded like some kind of corny baseball movie. Only we don’t know how this one will turn out. You can go to the movies tonight, but I have news for you: Michael Jackson dies in the end. Pedro vs. the Yanks? We don’t know what’s going to happen.
All we know is that, for drama, for fun, for pure entertainment value, the Phillies have the perfect guy on the mound. Pedro has been called a lot of things in his brilliant career, but how about this for a first: best bargain in baseball. Commissioner Bud Selig ought to hand Martinez a bonus for all the eyeballs he will attract tonight. The Phillies signed Martinez for $2 million. For the record, the Red Sox [team stats] paid about 10 TIMES THAT for the worthless pitching trio of Brad Penny, John Smoltz and Takashi Saito. Read more..
Billionaire Michael Bloomberg won a third term as New York mayor Tuesday in a closer-than-expected race against a Democratic challenger who stoked voter resentment over the way Bloomberg changed the city’s term-limits law so he could stay in office.
Bloomberg, the richest man in New York and founder of the financial information company Bloomberg LP, defeated William Thompson Jr. 51 percent to 46 percent — a difference of less than 51,000 votes.
The mayor called it a “hard-fought victory in a very difficult year,” and promised that New Yorkers “ain’t seen nothing yet” from him.
“I’m committed to working twice as hard in the next four years as I did in the past eight,” Bloomberg said.
In the days leading up to the election, polls showed Bloomberg with as much as an 18-point lead, an edge so big that critics accused the mayor of overkill in his strategy of bombarding the city with campaign ads.
His actual margin of victory was far smaller than the nearly 20-point blowout he pulled off in 2005.
When all the bills are paid, Bloomberg will probably have spent more than $100 million on his campaign, the most expensive self-financed campaign in U.S. history. Thompson, the city’s comptroller, relied on donations and matching funds for his mayoral bid, and was on track to spend about a tenth of Bloomberg’s staggering total. Read more..
It’s officially a meme: The New York Times, following in the footsteps of WNYC and WCBS-TV, has an article today on how business at stores on 161st Street has cratered after the new Yankee Steakhouse and Baseball Stadium opened this year. A sample of the Times’ contribution to the genre:
While working in his father’s souvenir shop up the block, [Saeed Alawy of Pin Stripe Collectibles] recalled, there was no time to fold the T-shirts before selling them. Customers were lined up three and four deep at the counter yelling out orders and tossing wads of bills.
“They were throwing the money,” Mr. Alawy, 47, said.
Over the course of an hour on Monday, just 13 shoppers wandered into Pin Stripe Collectibles and Mr. Alawy made only four sales, for a total of $107.
One could nitpick that there wasn’t actually a game in the Bronx on Monday, but the other reports indicate that it’s a problem even on game days: The Yankee Tavern’s owner told WCBS that his business is off 20 percent this season, while the Concourse Card Shop’s is down by half. “This playoff is totally different,” Jeans Plus manager Abdul Traore told WNYC. “Saturday, I stayed here from the time the game start until 2 o’clock in the morning, I don’t even make a thousand dollars” — compared to $5,000 on a typical game night at the old stadium. Read more..
Some 50 gang members affiliated with the Bloods were busted today for allegedly terrorizing two Bronx housing projects and are responsible for at least 20 unsolved murders, officials said.
Federal officials said the suspects are charged with dealing cocaine and crack and believe the gang members are behind at least 20 unsolved murders and more than 40 shootings over the past few years, according to the indictment unsealed today.
READ THE INDICTMENT
ATF agents recovered four guns and $18,000 cash during raids at the Jackson and Melrose Housing Projects on Cortland and Park Avenues in the Morrisania section in a bust dubbed “Operation Rotten Apples.”
During the course of the investigation, NYPD officers made more than 30 undercover purchases of heroin from members of the Courtland Avenue Organization at various locations throughout the Melrose Houses, officials said.
Drug Enforcement Agents said the gangs are affiliated with the Bloods — but had their own names like the “Get Money Crew” and “Bronx Gun Slingers.”
The suspects are expected to be arraigned this afternoon in Manhattan federal court. Read more..
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