Phillies Foil Dodgers’ Strategy in Opener
LOS ANGELES — The how-to guide to beat the Philadelphia Phillies is shrinking by the day. It says to attack them with left-handed pitchers, so that was what the Los Angeles Dodgers did. It recommends knocking out their starter early, turning the game over to the bullpen, the underbelly of their pitching staff. The Dodgers did that, too.
All they have to show for their strategy is an 8-6 loss Thursday night, a game that burnished the Phillies’ reputation as one dangerous, if delightfully unpredictable, team. In Game 1 of this National League Championship Series, Philadelphia scored all its runs, including two three-run homers, off left-handed pitching; relied on Chan Ho Park, pitching for the first time in a month, to flummox the heart of the Dodgers’ lineup in a pivotal seventh inning; and sweated through a shaky eighth and ninth that Ryan Madson and Brad Lidge nevertheless completed without ceding the lead. Replaced as closer only two weeks ago, Lidge has saved the Phillies’ last three victories, all on the road.
“I think we had a rough season, I had a rough season, but once the postseason rolls around it’s all different,” said Lidge, who induced a double-play grounder from Casey Blake. “I just know how good we could be when everyone’s right and we’re doing what we’re doing. I think last year we were the best bullpen in baseball, and I think this year’s the same thing.”
For all of the Phillies’ perceived flaws, they have now won three straight road games — all against stingy N.L. West teams — and have captured the opener of a postseason series five consecutive times.
With reports surfacing that the Dodgers’ owner and chief operating officer, Frank and Jamie McCourt, have separated, the organization is already in flux. Things could get much worse Friday for the Dodgers, who never recovered after falling behind by 2-0 during last year’s N.L.C.S., if Pedro Martinez can outshine Vicente Padilla.
“It gives us a chance to really go home looking good,” Phillies Manager Charlie Manuel said.
Even better than Thursday, when they blasted the Dodgers’ precocious left-hander, Clayton Kershaw, in a five-run fifth. They were silenced by three relievers until the left-hander George Sherrill’s aura of invincibility wore off in the eighth. Two straight walks, and a three-run homer by Raul Ibanez diluted Sherrill’s success this season against left-handers (.128 average, no home runs) and since joining the Dodgers in a July trade (two runs in 27 2/3 innings). It prompted Dodgers Manager Joe Torre to say, “I think that was a shock for everybody.”
Slightly less so was how Kershaw, the youngest pitcher (21 years 211 days old) to start an L.C.S. opener, fell apart in a 35-pitch fifth inning, uncorking three wild pitches. As much confidence as Kershaw inspired within the Dodgers, and as much as a left-handed starter seemed the prudent move against the Phillies’ dangerous lineup, he still has erratic tendencies that, once they appear, do not disappear. Even as Kershaw mowed through the Phillies, displaying little evidence of the pitcher who averaged an inefficient 17.7 pitches per inning, there was still a sense that one pitch or one hit could topple him.
And then it happened: a leadoff single in the fifth by Ibanez preceded a walk to Pedro Feliz, which gave way to a mammoth three-run homer by the No. 8 hitter, catcher Carlos Ruiz. After Ruiz’s blow, Kershaw issued a four-pitch walk to Cole Hamels, the Phillies’ starter. Torre showed enough faith to let Kershaw start, and he seemed determined to let him continue. With two outs, two on and another left-hander, Scott Elbert, warming up, Torre left Kershaw in for a batter too long. Ryan Howard clubbed a fastball down the right-field line for a two-run double, and the Phillies led, 5-1.
“I can’t put my finger on it,” Kershaw said. “When you get out of the strike zone, you should be able to make an adjustment in a pitch or two, but I wasn’t able to do it.”
If anyone could identify with Kershaw’s burden, it would be Hamels. He was thrust into the same role in Game 1 last year — a young left-hander counted on to anchor a decent, if unstable, rotation — and handled it with aplomb, guiding the Phillies to victory that night, and again in the clinching Game 5, exactly a year ago Thursday.
Hamels has always fared well at Dodger Stadium — “I love pitching in California,” said Hamels, a San Diego native — but he is a different pitcher now from the one he was then, encumbered by an uneven season, heightened expectations and, especially recently, diminished control. Turmoil engulfed his life over the last week — a poor division series outing against the Rockies, the birth of his son, working out alone in Philadelphia while his teammates gutted out comeback wins in Colorado. On Thursday, starting in the fifth inning, he once again faced a mountain of difficulties.
The deadly changeup and fastball command that ushered him through four splendid innings vanished without warning. He surrendered a double, then a one-out single, then a run-scoring groundout that, if not for Rafael Furcal’s hard slide into second, could have been an inning-ending double play. Instead, Hamels had to deal once more with Ramirez, who stared at two changeups — the pitch he flailed at his first time up — before golfing a third one beyond the fence in left-center field, and the Dodgers trailed by 5-4.
“That type of pitch, I would say, 9 out of 10 times gets a rollover, especially where that was,” Hamels said. “Who’s looking for a 2-0 changeup? Not too many guys. I think he was, though.”
Hamels escaped the fifth, but not the sixth. Consecutive one-out singles knocked him out, and the Dodgers ultimately loaded the bases and exhausted one reliever before J. A. Happ quelled the threat by inducing an inning-ending groundout from Furcal. As the game evolved into a bullpen duel, Manuel tried exploiting matchups.
So he turned to Park after the rookie left-hander Antonio Bastardo opened the seventh by allowing a double to Andre Ethier. A hamstring strain slowed Park over the final three weeks of the season and prevented him from pitching in the division series. He felt terrible, he said, while warming up in the bullpen, then pounded sinker after sinker to Ramirez, Matt Kemp and Blake. Three batters, two groundouts and one strikeout equaled one very happy Park. Asked when was the last time he pitched that well, Park quipped, “An hour and 20 minutes ago.”
But as a capacity crowd roared — the loudest Howard has ever heard it here, he said — the Dodgers, who defeated Cardinals aces Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright last round, had one final rally in them. They lashed three consecutive singles off Madson for one run, and a sacrifice fly by Furcal drew them within 8-6. Another single put the tying runs on base for Ramirez, who grounded out feebly to third. For three straight games, a Phillies reliever has faced the opponents’ best hitter in a crucial spot and won. Lidge prevailed twice against Colorado’s Troy Tulowitzki, and now Madson.
“It definitely breeds confidence,” Manuel said. “Anytime they can get somebody like that out, I think that’s really good.”
The Phillies’ karma has changed. They batter left-handed pitching. Their bullpen protects leads. And now, the Dodgers must figure out a different way to win.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Frustration Keeps Rising for Jacobs, Not Giants
Frustration Keeps Rising for Jacobs, Not Giants
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — The only person in the Giants’ camp who seems to be at all concerned with Brandon Jacobs’s slipping productivity is Brandon Jacobs.
Jacobs, the Giants’ starting running back, has repeatedly expressed frustration with his season so far, even amid the team’s first 5-0 start since 1990. With 355 yards rushing, he is only 92 yards short of his mark at this point last season, which he ended with 1,089 yards and a four-year, $25 million contract extension.
The way his coaches see it, they are not being shortchanged in the least.
A day after Coach Tom Coughlin gave Jacobs a vote of confidence after practice, the offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride echoed the sentiment. Jacobs’s value, he said, goes far beyond what shows up in a statistics line. Because of his size and physical presence, Jacobs is useful as a blocker and can simply wear down a defense, Gilbride said.
“Just keep playing,” Gilbride said he told Jacobs. “We aren’t disappointed at all. You’re a big part of what we do. You can express your contributions as a runner and also as a pass protector.”
What may be making this season more difficult for Jacobs to deal with is the relative success of the second running back on the depth chart, Ahmad Bradshaw. He leads the team with 375 yards rushing and has averaged 6.5 yards a carry, compared with Jacobs’s 3.6.
Jacobs is clearly irked by this year’s constant comparisons to Bradshaw by the news media. On Thursday, he insisted again that such comparisons did not make much sense because he played a radically different style from Bradshaw’s fleet-footed bob-and-weave.
“Me, I am 6-4, 265 pounds,” Jacobs said. “I am supposed to run into people. I am supposed to take somebody on. That’s me. If I don’t do that, I am terrible.”
Then in no uncertain terms, Jacobs instructed the cluster of reporters around his locker that he would keep talking only if they wanted to discuss the Giants’ success or their matchup Sunday against the 4-0 New Orleans Saints. If not, he added sharply, they should get away from his locker.
No one did. Instead, he was asked whether he saw himself as a player who could set the tone for the team. After initially dismissing the question, Jacobs answered it, although he seemed upset, then ended the interview.
“Yes, I do,” he said. “I am going out and just running into people. I’m 6-4 and 265 pounds, doing what I am supposed to do, running into people to get a 2-yard loss. Happy?”
Facing the Saints’ stifling run defense — it has allowed only 333 yards all season and 83.2 a game — may not be the best thing for Jacobs’s morale. But the Giants are hoping he will embrace his first trip to New Orleans as a professional, a chance to leave another mark near where he grew up.
Jacobs was raised in Napoleonville, La., population 700, about 60 miles west of New Orleans, and has spent a lifetime trying to prove people wrong. When he was little more than a hot-headed youngster, a network of relatives and educators banded together to set him back on the straight and narrow. He expects 45 of them to be in the Superdome on Sunday.
Jacobs said the most important skill they taught him was the one that changed his life — how to channel his aggressive energy into football. From special education classes, he made it to community college. From community college, he made it to Auburn and Southern Illinois, his springboard to the N.F.L. Gilbride said it was the same steely temperament that would allow him to overcome his slow start to the season. Or at least his perception of it.
“He is frustrated, he is disappointed, and rather than give in and surrender, I think he is going to dig down deeper,” Gilbride said. “That is his makeup, particularly when you talk about him going home.”
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — The only person in the Giants’ camp who seems to be at all concerned with Brandon Jacobs’s slipping productivity is Brandon Jacobs.
Jacobs, the Giants’ starting running back, has repeatedly expressed frustration with his season so far, even amid the team’s first 5-0 start since 1990. With 355 yards rushing, he is only 92 yards short of his mark at this point last season, which he ended with 1,089 yards and a four-year, $25 million contract extension.
The way his coaches see it, they are not being shortchanged in the least.
A day after Coach Tom Coughlin gave Jacobs a vote of confidence after practice, the offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride echoed the sentiment. Jacobs’s value, he said, goes far beyond what shows up in a statistics line. Because of his size and physical presence, Jacobs is useful as a blocker and can simply wear down a defense, Gilbride said.
“Just keep playing,” Gilbride said he told Jacobs. “We aren’t disappointed at all. You’re a big part of what we do. You can express your contributions as a runner and also as a pass protector.”
What may be making this season more difficult for Jacobs to deal with is the relative success of the second running back on the depth chart, Ahmad Bradshaw. He leads the team with 375 yards rushing and has averaged 6.5 yards a carry, compared with Jacobs’s 3.6.
Jacobs is clearly irked by this year’s constant comparisons to Bradshaw by the news media. On Thursday, he insisted again that such comparisons did not make much sense because he played a radically different style from Bradshaw’s fleet-footed bob-and-weave.
“Me, I am 6-4, 265 pounds,” Jacobs said. “I am supposed to run into people. I am supposed to take somebody on. That’s me. If I don’t do that, I am terrible.”
Then in no uncertain terms, Jacobs instructed the cluster of reporters around his locker that he would keep talking only if they wanted to discuss the Giants’ success or their matchup Sunday against the 4-0 New Orleans Saints. If not, he added sharply, they should get away from his locker.
No one did. Instead, he was asked whether he saw himself as a player who could set the tone for the team. After initially dismissing the question, Jacobs answered it, although he seemed upset, then ended the interview.
“Yes, I do,” he said. “I am going out and just running into people. I’m 6-4 and 265 pounds, doing what I am supposed to do, running into people to get a 2-yard loss. Happy?”
Facing the Saints’ stifling run defense — it has allowed only 333 yards all season and 83.2 a game — may not be the best thing for Jacobs’s morale. But the Giants are hoping he will embrace his first trip to New Orleans as a professional, a chance to leave another mark near where he grew up.
Jacobs was raised in Napoleonville, La., population 700, about 60 miles west of New Orleans, and has spent a lifetime trying to prove people wrong. When he was little more than a hot-headed youngster, a network of relatives and educators banded together to set him back on the straight and narrow. He expects 45 of them to be in the Superdome on Sunday.
Jacobs said the most important skill they taught him was the one that changed his life — how to channel his aggressive energy into football. From special education classes, he made it to community college. From community college, he made it to Auburn and Southern Illinois, his springboard to the N.F.L. Gilbride said it was the same steely temperament that would allow him to overcome his slow start to the season. Or at least his perception of it.
“He is frustrated, he is disappointed, and rather than give in and surrender, I think he is going to dig down deeper,” Gilbride said. “That is his makeup, particularly when you talk about him going home.”
Yankees and Angels Get Ready for the Rain
Yankees and Angels Get Ready for the Rain
There are starting pitchers who scowl on the days they pitch, oblivious to the world around them, focused only on scouting reports and the music pumping through their headphones. Then there is C. C. Sabathia, who will start the American League Championship Series opener against the Los Angeles Angels on Friday at Yankee Stadium. If the game is delayed by rain, Sabathia will not mind.
“I’m pretty relaxed, hanging out,” Sabathia said. “It just gives me a lot of time to play R.B.I.”
In R.B.I. Baseball, the 1980s video game that is popular in the Yankees’ clubhouse, Sabathia’s favorite player is Bert Blyleven of the 1987 Minnesota Twins. If he can channel the real Blyleven on the mound, the Yankees will be thrilled: Blyleven won twice in the A.L.C.S. that season to lead his team to the World Series.
The weather could be raw Friday, but it should not keep Sabathia from making the start. According to the Penn State Department of Meteorology, there will be light showers during the game and temperatures in the low to mid-40s, with a breeze of 10 to 15 miles an hour that will make it feel colder. Saturday’s forecast is more threatening: heavier rain and a stronger wind.
“This is Yankee weather,” catcher Jorge Posada said. “We’ve been playing like this all year. It seems like every time we come home, it’s been raining. We’ll deal with it and they’ll have to deal with it, too.”
In theory, mushy basepaths could hinder the Angels’ celebrated running game, but the Yankees cannot count on that. In Game 5 of last year’s World Series, with rain engulfing Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, Tampa Bay’s B. J. Upton managed to steal second and score on a single to left field, tying the game just before it was suspended.
For the Angels, the running game starts with the leadoff man Chone Figgins, who led the league in walks, with 101, and had 42 stolen bases. His teammates Erick Aybar, Maicer Izturis and Bobby Abreu also like to run, making things tougher for Sabathia.
“If we get on, we’re going to try to create some havoc,” Figgins said. “But he’s one of the best pitchers in the league. That’s not always a simple thing to do. It’s a tough battle. He knows we’re trying to get on base and we know he’s going to try to keep us off base. It’s a toss-up what’s going to happen.”
Sabathia lost twice to the Angels this season. A double steal was a factor in a run in his first loss, but otherwise he gave up no stolen bases. Sabathia learned a slide-step delivery from Terry Mulholland, his teammate with the Cleveland Indians, and effectively controls the running game.
“He’s got a slide step, and he pays really good attention,” Posada said. “So he’s very, very good.”
The Yankees actually had a better success rate on steals than the Angels this season. But the threat of running — and their skill at churning for extra bases — might be the Angels’ best weapon. They attempted so many steals that they could distract a pitcher, increasing the chance of a mistake to a power hitter like Kendry Morales, Torii Hunter or Vladimir Guerrero.
“They’ve got great balance to their lineup, so the biggest thing for me is just try to keep those guys off the bases: Figgins and Izturis and Aybar,” Sabathia said. “Try to concentrate on Vlady and make good pitches to Torii and those guys. They’ve gotten the best of me so far in my career, but I look to go out and just try to pound the strike zone, command both sides of the plate and see what happens.”
Sabathia is 5-7 with a 4.72 earned run average against the Angels in his career. Howie Kendrick is 8 for 12 against him, and Hunter is 20 for 68 (.294) with three homers. He said the Angels shortened their swings against Sabathia, an effective tactic against a power pitcher.
That is clearly the Angels’ image: they slap, they scrap, they scamper. Yankees Manager Joe Girardi compared them Thursday to the St. Louis Cardinals of the mid-1980s featuring Vince Coleman and Willie McGee. Mike Scioscia, the Angels’ manager, had a different view, and that was why he was not worried about sloppy weather slowing his team.
“I don’t think our offense was as dependent on what we did on the basepaths this year as it had been in previous years for us to reach our goals,” Scioscia said. “Our batter’s-box offense this year was much better. Our situational hitting was much better. We didn’t drive the ball as well as the Yankees did, but we certainly scored on par with them. So if it slows down our running game, I think we have some things that we can still do.”
However they do it, the Angels usually present matchup problems for the Yankees. Including the postseason, the Angels are 56-44 against the Yankees since Scioscia took over as manager in 2000.
Yet the Yankees won 3 of 4 in September from the Angels, who just swept the Red Sox, the team that had knocked them from the playoffs in three of the previous five seasons. History is instructive, but it might be meaningless.
“Obviously, we struggled against Boston and here we are,” said John Lackey, who starts for the Angels in Game 1. “So that doesn’t really matter right now. We have to continue to play well, because they’re a great team.”
The series has the makings of compelling baseball theater. The only question now is when the weather will let it happen.
There are starting pitchers who scowl on the days they pitch, oblivious to the world around them, focused only on scouting reports and the music pumping through their headphones. Then there is C. C. Sabathia, who will start the American League Championship Series opener against the Los Angeles Angels on Friday at Yankee Stadium. If the game is delayed by rain, Sabathia will not mind.
“I’m pretty relaxed, hanging out,” Sabathia said. “It just gives me a lot of time to play R.B.I.”
In R.B.I. Baseball, the 1980s video game that is popular in the Yankees’ clubhouse, Sabathia’s favorite player is Bert Blyleven of the 1987 Minnesota Twins. If he can channel the real Blyleven on the mound, the Yankees will be thrilled: Blyleven won twice in the A.L.C.S. that season to lead his team to the World Series.
The weather could be raw Friday, but it should not keep Sabathia from making the start. According to the Penn State Department of Meteorology, there will be light showers during the game and temperatures in the low to mid-40s, with a breeze of 10 to 15 miles an hour that will make it feel colder. Saturday’s forecast is more threatening: heavier rain and a stronger wind.
“This is Yankee weather,” catcher Jorge Posada said. “We’ve been playing like this all year. It seems like every time we come home, it’s been raining. We’ll deal with it and they’ll have to deal with it, too.”
In theory, mushy basepaths could hinder the Angels’ celebrated running game, but the Yankees cannot count on that. In Game 5 of last year’s World Series, with rain engulfing Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, Tampa Bay’s B. J. Upton managed to steal second and score on a single to left field, tying the game just before it was suspended.
For the Angels, the running game starts with the leadoff man Chone Figgins, who led the league in walks, with 101, and had 42 stolen bases. His teammates Erick Aybar, Maicer Izturis and Bobby Abreu also like to run, making things tougher for Sabathia.
“If we get on, we’re going to try to create some havoc,” Figgins said. “But he’s one of the best pitchers in the league. That’s not always a simple thing to do. It’s a tough battle. He knows we’re trying to get on base and we know he’s going to try to keep us off base. It’s a toss-up what’s going to happen.”
Sabathia lost twice to the Angels this season. A double steal was a factor in a run in his first loss, but otherwise he gave up no stolen bases. Sabathia learned a slide-step delivery from Terry Mulholland, his teammate with the Cleveland Indians, and effectively controls the running game.
“He’s got a slide step, and he pays really good attention,” Posada said. “So he’s very, very good.”
The Yankees actually had a better success rate on steals than the Angels this season. But the threat of running — and their skill at churning for extra bases — might be the Angels’ best weapon. They attempted so many steals that they could distract a pitcher, increasing the chance of a mistake to a power hitter like Kendry Morales, Torii Hunter or Vladimir Guerrero.
“They’ve got great balance to their lineup, so the biggest thing for me is just try to keep those guys off the bases: Figgins and Izturis and Aybar,” Sabathia said. “Try to concentrate on Vlady and make good pitches to Torii and those guys. They’ve gotten the best of me so far in my career, but I look to go out and just try to pound the strike zone, command both sides of the plate and see what happens.”
Sabathia is 5-7 with a 4.72 earned run average against the Angels in his career. Howie Kendrick is 8 for 12 against him, and Hunter is 20 for 68 (.294) with three homers. He said the Angels shortened their swings against Sabathia, an effective tactic against a power pitcher.
That is clearly the Angels’ image: they slap, they scrap, they scamper. Yankees Manager Joe Girardi compared them Thursday to the St. Louis Cardinals of the mid-1980s featuring Vince Coleman and Willie McGee. Mike Scioscia, the Angels’ manager, had a different view, and that was why he was not worried about sloppy weather slowing his team.
“I don’t think our offense was as dependent on what we did on the basepaths this year as it had been in previous years for us to reach our goals,” Scioscia said. “Our batter’s-box offense this year was much better. Our situational hitting was much better. We didn’t drive the ball as well as the Yankees did, but we certainly scored on par with them. So if it slows down our running game, I think we have some things that we can still do.”
However they do it, the Angels usually present matchup problems for the Yankees. Including the postseason, the Angels are 56-44 against the Yankees since Scioscia took over as manager in 2000.
Yet the Yankees won 3 of 4 in September from the Angels, who just swept the Red Sox, the team that had knocked them from the playoffs in three of the previous five seasons. History is instructive, but it might be meaningless.
“Obviously, we struggled against Boston and here we are,” said John Lackey, who starts for the Angels in Game 1. “So that doesn’t really matter right now. We have to continue to play well, because they’re a great team.”
The series has the makings of compelling baseball theater. The only question now is when the weather will let it happen.
Restaurant Review: Eat Art Esslokal in Austria
Restaurant Review: Eat Art Esslokal in Austria
In 1964, the artist Daniel Spoerri mounted an exhibition in New York called “31 Variations on a Meal.” He served meals to 31 art-world figures that included Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, theDecades later, the everyday diner can enjoy creations by the peripatetic 79-year-old in rural Austria, 35 miles northwest of Vienna. On an idyllic square in the village of Hadersdorf am Kamp, the Romanian-born, Swiss-bred Mr. Spoerri paired a minimuseum displaying his work with a restaurant called Eat Art Esslokal.
The kitchen serves seasonal menus that rotate weekly and feature just one or two starters, two entrees and one dessert. In keeping with the New Realism manifesto that Mr. Spoerri signed in 1960 in Paris, Eat Art aims to integrate life and art; Ibo Altun, the chef, sticks to dishes prepared slowly with largely local ingredients.
A recent late-summer meal started with a trio of refreshing soups — cucumber, melon, gazpacho — and a mango lassi (a yogurt drink) served together in mini portions (6 euros, or $8.80 at $1.50 to the euro). A risotto followed, flawlessly melding the sharpness of Parmesan with the sweetness of just-ripe local plums (8 euros). The entree was a meltingly tender beef ragout with a hint of saffron, served with couscous (12 euros). A tangy crema of ricotta jazzed up with pine nuts and orange zest offered a perfect endnote (4 euros). Like the menu, the wine list skews local: in this case, a grüner veltliner from the village’s Turmhof vineyard up the road (2 euros).
Service is friendly and informal, and upstairs is a spacious room in which Mr. Spoerri’s team organizes readings and concerts. And then there’s the art: Mr. Spoerri’s trademark table collages, made just for the restaurant, decorate interior walls.
Opening a restaurant in a tiny village at 79? For Mr. Spoerri, it’s nothing new — food has always been important to his work.
“A restaurant is like an atelier,” he said. “I wanted to have a territory in which objects are manipulated unconsciously. You don’t think about where you put down a spoon. I also do it because it keeps me alive.” The words of a true new realist.
Eat Art Esslokal; Hauptplatz 16, Hadersdorf am Kamp, Austria; (43-664) 88-45-47-88; www.spoerri.at; open Thursday to Sunday, closed from Christmas until Easter.n created collages from their dirty plates and other detritus, to be hung vertically on a wall.
In 1964, the artist Daniel Spoerri mounted an exhibition in New York called “31 Variations on a Meal.” He served meals to 31 art-world figures that included Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, theDecades later, the everyday diner can enjoy creations by the peripatetic 79-year-old in rural Austria, 35 miles northwest of Vienna. On an idyllic square in the village of Hadersdorf am Kamp, the Romanian-born, Swiss-bred Mr. Spoerri paired a minimuseum displaying his work with a restaurant called Eat Art Esslokal.
The kitchen serves seasonal menus that rotate weekly and feature just one or two starters, two entrees and one dessert. In keeping with the New Realism manifesto that Mr. Spoerri signed in 1960 in Paris, Eat Art aims to integrate life and art; Ibo Altun, the chef, sticks to dishes prepared slowly with largely local ingredients.
A recent late-summer meal started with a trio of refreshing soups — cucumber, melon, gazpacho — and a mango lassi (a yogurt drink) served together in mini portions (6 euros, or $8.80 at $1.50 to the euro). A risotto followed, flawlessly melding the sharpness of Parmesan with the sweetness of just-ripe local plums (8 euros). The entree was a meltingly tender beef ragout with a hint of saffron, served with couscous (12 euros). A tangy crema of ricotta jazzed up with pine nuts and orange zest offered a perfect endnote (4 euros). Like the menu, the wine list skews local: in this case, a grüner veltliner from the village’s Turmhof vineyard up the road (2 euros).
Service is friendly and informal, and upstairs is a spacious room in which Mr. Spoerri’s team organizes readings and concerts. And then there’s the art: Mr. Spoerri’s trademark table collages, made just for the restaurant, decorate interior walls.
Opening a restaurant in a tiny village at 79? For Mr. Spoerri, it’s nothing new — food has always been important to his work.
“A restaurant is like an atelier,” he said. “I wanted to have a territory in which objects are manipulated unconsciously. You don’t think about where you put down a spoon. I also do it because it keeps me alive.” The words of a true new realist.
Eat Art Esslokal; Hauptplatz 16, Hadersdorf am Kamp, Austria; (43-664) 88-45-47-88; www.spoerri.at; open Thursday to Sunday, closed from Christmas until Easter.n created collages from their dirty plates and other detritus, to be hung vertically on a wall.
Smoking Bans Reduce Heart Attacks and Disease
Smoking Bans Reduce Heart Attacks and Disease
Bans on smoking in places like restaurants, offices and public buildings reduce cases of heart attacks and heart disease, according to a report released Thursday by a federally commissioned panel of scientists.
The report, issued by the Institute of Medicine, concluded that exposure to secondhand smoke significantly increased the risk of a heart attack among both smokers and nonsmokers. The panel also said it found that a reduction in heart problems began fairly quickly after a smoking ban was instituted and that exposure to low or fleeting levels of secondhand smoke could cause cardiovascular problems.
“Even a small amount of exposure to secondhand smoke can increase blood clotting, constrict blood vessels and can cause a heart attack,” said Dr. Neal L. Benowitz, a professor of medicine, psychiatry and biopharmaceutical sciences at the University of California, San Francisco, and a member of the panel.
“Smoking bans need to be put in place as quickly as possible,” Dr. Benowitz added. “The longer we wait, the more disease we are accepting.”
The report, commissioned by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, examined data from 11 studies from communities in Canada, Italy, Scotland and the United States.
The degree of heart attack reduction in those communities varied widely, from 6 percent to 47 percent, but every study showed a decline.
“The evidence is now overwhelming,” said Dr. Richard D. Hurt, director of the nicotine dependence center at the Mayo Clinic, who was not involved in the report.
“Secondhand smoke kills a lot of people,” Dr. Hurt said, “and one of the mechanisms by which it does is through exposure and the effect on the cardiovascular system.”
The committee said that none of the 11 studies were optimal in method or in data collection, making some significant questions unanswerable. Some studies were small, some were conducted over a short time, and only two, in Scotland and in Monroe County, Ind., noted whether heart attack victims were smokers or nonsmokers.
These limitations left the committee unable to determine why reduction rates varied so much. But some members speculated that places like New York State, which had some smoking restrictions in place before instituting more comprehensive bans, would already have been showing improvement, so reductions from bans would be smaller.
“Evidence was not strong enough to say the degree” to which smoking bans reduce risk or the degree to which “individual lifestyle, community and societal factors can also influence the magnitude” of heart disease reduction, said Dr. Lynn R. Goldman, the panel’s chairwoman, a professor of environmental health sciences at Johns Hopkins University.
Dr. Michael Siegel, professor of community health sciences at Boston University, said that such limitations were significant flaws and that the panel was being “sensationalistic” about the impact of smoking bans.
“Anybody could have told you without any kind of review that smoking bans don’t raise heart attacks,” Dr. Siegel said, but “it could be that they have an exceedingly small effect” and that reductions were “just occurring anyway” because of improvements in treatment of heart disease.
A panel member, Dr. Eric D. Peterson, a cardiologist at Duke, said that even if reduction rates were small, the studies supported bans.
Dr. Goldman said the committee found that “a cause-and-effect relationship exists between heart disease generally and secondhand smoke exposure.”
“It increased the risk of coronary heart disease by about 25 to 30 percent,” she added.
Dr. Siegel said that connection was “unequivocal,” but that a significant risk applied only in people who have severe heart disease. “An otherwise healthy person is not going to walk into a bar for 20 minutes and have a heart attack,” he said.
Seventeen states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia ban smoking in bars, restaurants and workplaces, while 14 other states ban smoking in one or two of those types of establishments, according to Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights, an advocacy group. More than 350 cities and towns have similar bans.
The panel’s report echoes two recent studies which found that one year after smoking bans were put in place, the average rate of heart attacks had dropped by 17 percent, and continued to drop more over time.
David Sutton, a spokesman for Philip Morris U.S.A., said that he could not comment on the institute report until the company had had a chance to review it, but that the company supported smoking bans in public areas.
“Private business owners should have the flexibility” to “cater to smokers and nonsmokers alike,” Mr. Sutton said, but “there are sufficient reasons to warrant measures that regulate smoking in public places, places where people must go.”
Bans on smoking in places like restaurants, offices and public buildings reduce cases of heart attacks and heart disease, according to a report released Thursday by a federally commissioned panel of scientists.
The report, issued by the Institute of Medicine, concluded that exposure to secondhand smoke significantly increased the risk of a heart attack among both smokers and nonsmokers. The panel also said it found that a reduction in heart problems began fairly quickly after a smoking ban was instituted and that exposure to low or fleeting levels of secondhand smoke could cause cardiovascular problems.
“Even a small amount of exposure to secondhand smoke can increase blood clotting, constrict blood vessels and can cause a heart attack,” said Dr. Neal L. Benowitz, a professor of medicine, psychiatry and biopharmaceutical sciences at the University of California, San Francisco, and a member of the panel.
“Smoking bans need to be put in place as quickly as possible,” Dr. Benowitz added. “The longer we wait, the more disease we are accepting.”
The report, commissioned by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, examined data from 11 studies from communities in Canada, Italy, Scotland and the United States.
The degree of heart attack reduction in those communities varied widely, from 6 percent to 47 percent, but every study showed a decline.
“The evidence is now overwhelming,” said Dr. Richard D. Hurt, director of the nicotine dependence center at the Mayo Clinic, who was not involved in the report.
“Secondhand smoke kills a lot of people,” Dr. Hurt said, “and one of the mechanisms by which it does is through exposure and the effect on the cardiovascular system.”
The committee said that none of the 11 studies were optimal in method or in data collection, making some significant questions unanswerable. Some studies were small, some were conducted over a short time, and only two, in Scotland and in Monroe County, Ind., noted whether heart attack victims were smokers or nonsmokers.
These limitations left the committee unable to determine why reduction rates varied so much. But some members speculated that places like New York State, which had some smoking restrictions in place before instituting more comprehensive bans, would already have been showing improvement, so reductions from bans would be smaller.
“Evidence was not strong enough to say the degree” to which smoking bans reduce risk or the degree to which “individual lifestyle, community and societal factors can also influence the magnitude” of heart disease reduction, said Dr. Lynn R. Goldman, the panel’s chairwoman, a professor of environmental health sciences at Johns Hopkins University.
Dr. Michael Siegel, professor of community health sciences at Boston University, said that such limitations were significant flaws and that the panel was being “sensationalistic” about the impact of smoking bans.
“Anybody could have told you without any kind of review that smoking bans don’t raise heart attacks,” Dr. Siegel said, but “it could be that they have an exceedingly small effect” and that reductions were “just occurring anyway” because of improvements in treatment of heart disease.
A panel member, Dr. Eric D. Peterson, a cardiologist at Duke, said that even if reduction rates were small, the studies supported bans.
Dr. Goldman said the committee found that “a cause-and-effect relationship exists between heart disease generally and secondhand smoke exposure.”
“It increased the risk of coronary heart disease by about 25 to 30 percent,” she added.
Dr. Siegel said that connection was “unequivocal,” but that a significant risk applied only in people who have severe heart disease. “An otherwise healthy person is not going to walk into a bar for 20 minutes and have a heart attack,” he said.
Seventeen states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia ban smoking in bars, restaurants and workplaces, while 14 other states ban smoking in one or two of those types of establishments, according to Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights, an advocacy group. More than 350 cities and towns have similar bans.
The panel’s report echoes two recent studies which found that one year after smoking bans were put in place, the average rate of heart attacks had dropped by 17 percent, and continued to drop more over time.
David Sutton, a spokesman for Philip Morris U.S.A., said that he could not comment on the institute report until the company had had a chance to review it, but that the company supported smoking bans in public areas.
“Private business owners should have the flexibility” to “cater to smokers and nonsmokers alike,” Mr. Sutton said, but “there are sufficient reasons to warrant measures that regulate smoking in public places, places where people must go.”
Holiday Travelers Who Wait to Book May Pay More
Holiday Travelers Who Wait to Book May Pay More
By MICHELLE HIGGINS
Published: October 15, 2009
Last year, procrastinators were rewarded when they finally got around to booking flights for holiday travel. Back then, airlines were not prepared for the sharp falloff in travel and offered last-minute deals to fill up empty planes.
This year? Dilly-dallying, even waiting just a few days, could carry a steep price. Fares, though still lower now than at this time last year, are rising each day, a trajectory that began more than a month ago.
In the last week alone, overall fares for Thanksgiving travel rose 6 percent, according to Bing Travel, part of Microsoft’s search engine. Ticket prices for the most popular itinerary, departing Wednesday, Nov. 25, and returning Sunday, Nov. 29, are up 10 percent in the last week.
In recent weeks, some flights have risen even more. From New York, a round-trip American Airlines flight to Chicago that cost $354 on Sept. 14 was $540 on Thursday, a 52 percent jump, according to Yapta.com, which tracks fares.
A JetBlue flight to Orlando that was $524 on Sept. 24 was $614 on Thursday, and a Continental flight from Newark to San Francisco that was $504 on Sept. 18 was $770.
That does not count all the extra fees — some added just for holiday travel days — that airlines are charging this year.
The professional crystal-ball gazers on fares agree that fliers should not wait to book their tickets.
“Travelers should be shopping now,” said Joel Grus, who tracks airfares at Bing Travel. “If a price seems good to them, they should get it.”
Rick Seaney, chief executive of FareCompare.com, wrote in his online Holiday Travel Guide, “Holiday travel procrastinators do so at their own peril this year, and practical travelers should be shopping now and buying before the end of October.”
Anne Eddy is kicking herself for waiting. In August, she paid $313 for a round-trip flight from Providence, R.I., to Houston to take her son Duncan to Rice University, where he is a freshman. A week later, she paid $632 — roughly double — to buy him a ticket home for Thanksgiving.
“I felt behind the game,” said Ms. Eddy, a health care administrator from Needham, Mass.
Determined to get ahead of it, she immediately booked a flight for him at Christmas. It was $309 round trip. A recent online search showed that if she had waited any longer for the Thanksgiving reservation, she might have had to pay more than $800 — if she could get a seat at all.
The lesson?
“If you book way in advance, you can get really good deals,” she said.
Airlines now have an advantage in the endless game of cat-and-mouse with travelers. Because of the recession, they have been grounding planes. Fewer seats for sale gives them more power to set prices, since they are less desperate to get even modest fares to help fill up planes.
The number of domestic seats for sale is down 5 percent this month, compared with October last year, and they are down 21 percent from October 2000, according to OAG, an aviation-data firm.
“Essentially, that’s creating a sellers’ market,” said Jeff Pecor, a spokesman for Yapta.com, which alerts fliers to price drops even after the ticket has been bought so travelers can call the airline to claim a travel credit.
“While we’re tracking roughly the same number of flights for this holiday season as last year, we have issued fewer price drop alerts on flights,” he added.
All of this means travelers who plan early and are flexible in their schedules are more likely to get a bargain this year.
Marisa W. Green, an orchestral conductor from Hightstown, N.J., was able to lower the cost of her Thanksgiving flight to Cleveland about $75, to $226 round trip, by leaving from Newark and returning to Philadelphia.
It also helped that she was able to avoid the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and the Sunday after and is making a stop in Baltimore on the way there.
“The worst thing that happens is I miss my connection,” she said.
“The best thing that could happen: one of those flights is oversold and I get bumped,” she added, because she is in no rush to get home and would be willing to give up her seat and endure a delay in exchange for a voucher for a free flight.
She may get her wish. The rate at which passengers were bumped in the second quarter of this year rose about 40 percent compared with a year earlier, according to the Department of Transportation, even though that agency last year doubled the penalties airlines must pay passengers who are denied seats.
Passengers are generally reluctant to give up seats when trying to get home for the holidays. But they may be even more disinclined to raise their hands this year because they may have trouble getting a seat on another flight.
By MICHELLE HIGGINS
Published: October 15, 2009
Last year, procrastinators were rewarded when they finally got around to booking flights for holiday travel. Back then, airlines were not prepared for the sharp falloff in travel and offered last-minute deals to fill up empty planes.
This year? Dilly-dallying, even waiting just a few days, could carry a steep price. Fares, though still lower now than at this time last year, are rising each day, a trajectory that began more than a month ago.
In the last week alone, overall fares for Thanksgiving travel rose 6 percent, according to Bing Travel, part of Microsoft’s search engine. Ticket prices for the most popular itinerary, departing Wednesday, Nov. 25, and returning Sunday, Nov. 29, are up 10 percent in the last week.
In recent weeks, some flights have risen even more. From New York, a round-trip American Airlines flight to Chicago that cost $354 on Sept. 14 was $540 on Thursday, a 52 percent jump, according to Yapta.com, which tracks fares.
A JetBlue flight to Orlando that was $524 on Sept. 24 was $614 on Thursday, and a Continental flight from Newark to San Francisco that was $504 on Sept. 18 was $770.
That does not count all the extra fees — some added just for holiday travel days — that airlines are charging this year.
The professional crystal-ball gazers on fares agree that fliers should not wait to book their tickets.
“Travelers should be shopping now,” said Joel Grus, who tracks airfares at Bing Travel. “If a price seems good to them, they should get it.”
Rick Seaney, chief executive of FareCompare.com, wrote in his online Holiday Travel Guide, “Holiday travel procrastinators do so at their own peril this year, and practical travelers should be shopping now and buying before the end of October.”
Anne Eddy is kicking herself for waiting. In August, she paid $313 for a round-trip flight from Providence, R.I., to Houston to take her son Duncan to Rice University, where he is a freshman. A week later, she paid $632 — roughly double — to buy him a ticket home for Thanksgiving.
“I felt behind the game,” said Ms. Eddy, a health care administrator from Needham, Mass.
Determined to get ahead of it, she immediately booked a flight for him at Christmas. It was $309 round trip. A recent online search showed that if she had waited any longer for the Thanksgiving reservation, she might have had to pay more than $800 — if she could get a seat at all.
The lesson?
“If you book way in advance, you can get really good deals,” she said.
Airlines now have an advantage in the endless game of cat-and-mouse with travelers. Because of the recession, they have been grounding planes. Fewer seats for sale gives them more power to set prices, since they are less desperate to get even modest fares to help fill up planes.
The number of domestic seats for sale is down 5 percent this month, compared with October last year, and they are down 21 percent from October 2000, according to OAG, an aviation-data firm.
“Essentially, that’s creating a sellers’ market,” said Jeff Pecor, a spokesman for Yapta.com, which alerts fliers to price drops even after the ticket has been bought so travelers can call the airline to claim a travel credit.
“While we’re tracking roughly the same number of flights for this holiday season as last year, we have issued fewer price drop alerts on flights,” he added.
All of this means travelers who plan early and are flexible in their schedules are more likely to get a bargain this year.
Marisa W. Green, an orchestral conductor from Hightstown, N.J., was able to lower the cost of her Thanksgiving flight to Cleveland about $75, to $226 round trip, by leaving from Newark and returning to Philadelphia.
It also helped that she was able to avoid the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and the Sunday after and is making a stop in Baltimore on the way there.
“The worst thing that happens is I miss my connection,” she said.
“The best thing that could happen: one of those flights is oversold and I get bumped,” she added, because she is in no rush to get home and would be willing to give up her seat and endure a delay in exchange for a voucher for a free flight.
She may get her wish. The rate at which passengers were bumped in the second quarter of this year rose about 40 percent compared with a year earlier, according to the Department of Transportation, even though that agency last year doubled the penalties airlines must pay passengers who are denied seats.
Passengers are generally reluctant to give up seats when trying to get home for the holidays. But they may be even more disinclined to raise their hands this year because they may have trouble getting a seat on another flight.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Real-Life Lessons in Using Google AdWords
Real-Life Lessons in Using Google AdWords
It used to be that business owners often struggled to afford advertising for their products or services. Google AdWords has changed that by offering an inexpensive way to spread the word. But if you don’t do some careful planning, you can easily find yourself spending thousands of dollars with little to show for it.
Here are the basics: Google AdWords are keyword-driven ads that show up along the right-hand side of a Google search page under the rubric “sponsored links.” People who search for terms related to those you select — say, “widgets for sale” — will see your ad alongside the results of their search. How high up your ad appears on the list of sponsored links will depend, in part, on how much you’re willing to spend on your campaign. The more you spend and the more relevant your ad, the higher it will rank. Because AdWords is a pay-per-click service, you pay Google only when someone clicks on your ad.When you begin your campaign, you create a text-only ad that includes a link to your Web site. Then you select the keywords that will determine which searchers see your ad. You can — and should — specify how much you want to spend, what language(s) your ad will appear in and even the geographical reach of your ad. Google also gives you the opportunity to post ads through its content network, AdSense, which will place your ad on Web sites that offer content that relates to your keywords.
Googling the term AdWords will return dozens of pages of links to experts of all kinds promising to help you construct and optimize an AdWords campaign of your own. What follows are lessons learned the hard way by business owners who’ve actually taken the plunge:
Be Sure AdWords Is the Right Choice
Brent Hollowell and Jesse Travis, co-founders of a travel accessory retailer in Baltimore called Zen Class, had high hopes when they began using AdWords to promote their Nirvana Seat Back Organizer, which slips over an airplane’s seatback tray. While they knew they might get clicks if they paid for words like “travel accessories,” they feared the cost of close to $1.50 a click would be prohibitive because not every visitor would be looking for their product. They decided to be more specific and set up an AdWords campaign using the keywords “airline seat back organizer,” which cost about 5 cents a click; anyone who searched on that phrase would see their ad along the right-hand side of their screen. The problem was that the campaign, after running for several weeks, produced very few clicks on their site. They realized that most people were unaware that seatback organizers existed and thus were unlikely to search for one.
“Given the challenge of having a product that hasn’t existed before, AdWords may not be the best tool for generating interest and sales,” Mr. Hollowell said. He and Mr. Travis have found they get better results advertising through more traditional product-placement ads and using search engine optimization (S.E.O.) techniques to improve their site’s performance on organic Google searches.
Set a Realistic Budget
About a year ago, Georgette Blau, who runs On Location Tours in New York City, set up an AdWords campaign to promote tours that were timed for the release of the “Sex in the City” movie. In doing so, she says she made a mistake: She ran the ad on the Google AdSense network but failed to understand how quickly she could run through the money she had budgeted for her campaign. An ad placed on the Google network can quickly appear on hundreds of Web sites and generate thousands of clicks. While this can be a good thing, it can also run up quite a tab. “Our ads were showing up everywhere, and we spent $600 before I could shut it off,” she said. Ms. Blau now sets realistic monthly and daily budgets for her campaigns to promote a “Sopranos” or “Gossip Girl” tour.
Focus on Local Markets
When Apple first introduced the iPhone, Matt McCormick, who runs a phone-repair business called Jet City Devices, saw an opportunity. Knowing that the iPhone’s screen was prone to damage, Mr. McCormick began bidding on keywords like “iphone repairs” and waited for business to flood in. A problem soon became apparent: while his site was swamped with traffic, very few people were actually mailing in their phones to get them repaired. But, after changing his campaign to run only on searches initiated within 50 miles of Chicago and Seattle — cities where he had physical shops where customers could drop their phones off in person — Mr. McCormick says his conversion rate jumped to 10 percent: “If you’re in business in only one or two cities, then Google’s localization feature can save you a ton of money, reduce AdWords competition, and bring great traffic.”
Narrow Your Keyword Net
Just as you might use quotation marks to limit the scope of a Google search, you can use brackets and quotes to focus your AdWords campaign. In fact, this is critical. If, for example, you select “widgets for sale” in quotes, your ad will show up anytime people search for those words — even if they search for, say, “blue or red widgets for sale.” If you use brackets to select [widgets for sale], on the other hand, only those people who search on the exact phrase will see the ad.
Catherine Wood, who runs an online designer clothing site called LaGrandeDame.com, suggests being selective about the keywords you place within those brackets or quotes. Ms. Wood said she followed Google’s guidelines when she set up her first campaigns this past April. “They tell you to try to choose the terms that will collect the most clicks,” she said. Ms. Wood began with 20 or so keywords such as “plus sized dresses” and “designer plus sized clothing” — somewhat general terms that she put in quotes. The result was that she received lots of traffic and quite a few customers. But, for the first four months she ran the campaign, she spent more than $5,000 a month, which meant she was spending more than $200 a new customer.
After learning her expensive lesson, Ms. Wood narrowed her keywords and used brackets to focus tightly on product names like [David Meister black dress] and [Anna Scholz Peacock Neru jacket] to drive very specific traffic to her site. She also learned the value of negative keywords — words you can specify (at no cost) so that people who search for them are blocked from seeing your ad. Ms. Wood, for example, stopped paying for clicks for anyone who searched for Halloween costumes.
Create Landing Pages
Ed Scanlan credits AdWords with helping build his company, Total Attorneys, a firm based in Chicago that provides outsource support to small legal practices. He suggests creating specific landing pages tied directly to the ad you’re running to maximize your chances of turning visitors into customers. Sending a visitor to your all-purpose home page can leave them feeling lost or aggravated. By contrast, if Mr. Scanlan runs a campaign based on a term like “legal case support,” people who click on the ad attached to those words land on a specific page designed just for them. These pages should ask users to take an action, like signing up for a mailing list or filling out a survey, to capture the visitor’s contact information.
Stay on Top of Your Campaign ...
David Metcalfe has used AdWords to promote XNet, a data center in Chicago. About a year ago, he noticed something strange was happening — his click-through rates were going through the roof. That sounds promising, but he was getting traffic steered to his site from a Web site in Spain — even though he had set his campaign for the Chicago area only. Mr. Metcalfe eventually got his money back from Google, but it took him six months of daily contact to do so. While this was clearly a fluke — and possibly criminal on the part of the offending site — it demonstrates two things: Pay-per-click campaigns carry risks, and the burden of monitoring them falls upon the owner of the campaign. “When you’re an entrepreneur dealing with a major corporation like Google, it can be hard to get someone to have a conversation with you,” Mr. Metcalfe said. “I was grateful I caught it when I did.”
... or Consider Outsourcing It
Monitoring an AdWords campaign requires a lot of effort. That’s why some entrepreneurs, like Rick Smith, prefer to outsource the management of their campaigns. Mr. Smith, who sells kitchen supplies online at chefsresource.com, says he originally set his AdWords campaign on autopilot. But he realized that while he was spending a good chunk of money each month, he didn’t know what kind of a return on investment he was getting. After attending an S.E.O. trade show near his home in Laguna Hills, Calif., about two years ago, Mr. Smith hired a firm to run his campaigns for him. The firm now tries new keyword combinations or ad text based on Smith’s latest inventory of cookware or knives. They update or change the ads on pretty much a weekly basis, adding in seasonal or holiday hooks when appropriate, and they monitor the results. In return for a percentage of his monthly budget, the firm sends him a weekly spreadsheet showing how much he has spent and how much revenue has been generated. “I’m spending less than I did when I did it myself,” said Mr. Smith, “and I’m getting more sales as a result.”
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