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Yankees were no “chickens” as they dominate Mets in Subway Series

(Photo by Gary Quintal)

By Rich Mancuso

BRONX, NEW YORK, June 25– A chicken became a story line Friday night at Citi Field before the New York Mets took the field for the first of three against the cross-town Yankees. Sunday evening, after the Yankees took the finale of their six-game inter league series, they Yankees were not the chickens.

Instead, Robinson Cano hit the go ahead home run for the Yankees in the eighth inning at Citi Field. The Yankees won their fifth straight individual series against the Mets. 6-5, and a chicken joke about the team, initiated by Mets reliever Frank Francisco, became a novelty.

Because the Yankees once again proved they are the better baseball team in New York, a chicken joke to them meant nothing. They took five of six games from the Mets, the first time they have done that since 2009.

“They hit balls out of the ballpark like there’s nothing to it,” said Mets manager Terry Collins who admitted it may have been a mistake not bringing in lefty Tim Brydak to face Cano.

Miguel Batista (1-2) gave up the home run ball, the 16^th by Cano leading off the eighth with two strikes. It was hit straight to center, the 15^th home run hit by the Yankees against the Mets in the six games. Seven of those long balls were hit at Citi Field the past three games, which accounted for 24 of the Yankees 32 runs.

The Yankees were not chickens in this latest installment of the Subway Series that had some more interest the past few weeks. The Mets have been a better team this season and that also accounted for another sellout at Citi Field, 42,364 the largest crowd for the ballpark that opened in 2009.

And Francisco was placed on the 15-day disabled list Sunday with a strained muscle on his left side. So the chicken initiator, who saved the Mets win Friday night, had no bearing on the outcome of the finale. 

It was supposed to be an anticipated pitcher’s duel. R.A. Dickey of the Mets, without allowing an earned run in 44.2 innings and dominant with an 11-1 record and 2.00 ERA ,who will most likely get the start for the NL all-stars in a few weeks at the midsummer classic.

He surrendered a run in the third inning on a sacrifice fly. He threw a wild pitch in the fifth inning and allowed five runs earned. The streak is over for now.

“I didn’t have a great knuckleball,” commented Dickey. “It was just coming out wobbly a little bit. I kept searching for it,” he said.

The 37-year old helped the Mets overcome a four-run deficit. He got a single off CC Sabathia the Yankees starter in the fifth inning. Sabathia did his part, 9 hits in 5/2-3 innings. But he gave up five runs, one earned.

“My focus was on tonight,” said Dickey who made a point that it was like a playoff atmosphere pitching against the Yankees in a crowded ballpark. “It was nice,” he said about the scoreless streak. “I’m hoping to start another one.”

Ruben Tejada in his first game back from the disabled list went 2-for-4 and drove in two runs, and a single off Cory Wade tied the game in the sixth.  Andres Torres also had two hits and drove in two runs, including a two-out hit that went past Mark Teixeira at first in the same inning.

“Tomorrow is another game,” said Torres who experienced his first stint of games against the Yankees.

And with the chicken quickly disappearing from the scene, there is a realization that the six games, which have been a part of this home and home series, will be a thing of the past.

Next year, with the schedule going more towards more inter league games, the Mets and Yankees cross-town series will be reduced to three games which was the original format when inter league play started in 1997.

“We don’t get caught up taking two of three here,” said Yankees manager Joe Girardi.

He also won’t complain about the series going back to three games next season. Girardi is an advocate for that more balanced schedule and winning games against teams in your division.

The Yankees have won 14 of their last 18 road games, with or without the balanced schedule. Collins won’t mind not seeing the Yankees again, unless of course they should meet in October.

“Not bad for a bunch of chickens,” added the Yankees Nick Swisher who got hold of a Dickey knuckleball and hit his 11^th home run to right-center in the Yankees four-run third inning.

e-mail Rich Mancuso: Ring786@aol.com

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Yanks fry up some Amazin’ Chickens

(Photos by Gary Quintal)

By Howard Goldin

QUEENS, NEW YORK, June 24- For the second consecutive evening, home runs accounted for all the runs scored by the Yankees. Unlike the previous night, the four runs were sufficient to the give the Yankees the win. The Yankee win ended the team’s longest losing streak of the year, three games.

The home runs and excellent relief work by the bullpen contingent of the Yanks combined to earn the Yanks the win over the Mets.

Although Yankee starter Ivan Nova only pitched 5.2 innings and was not involved in the decision, he managed to raise his undefeated road streak to 16 starts. His record during the streak is 12-0.

The first hit Nova surrendered was a lead-off home run to Kirk Nieuwenhuis in the third.

An error by Alex Rodriguez on Scott Hairston, the first batter in the following inning allowed him to reach first. Hairston crossed the plate on a double to center by Omar Quintanilla.

The final Mets run off Nova came on an RBI single by his counterpart, Chris young, with two out in the sixth. Nova left the game after the hit. He gave up five hits and three walks while fanning seven in his stint.

The Yankee relievers continued their outstanding work for the final 3.1 innings of the contest. The five hurlers, Clay Rapada, Cody Eppley, Boone Logan, David Robertson and Rafael Soriano, combined to keep the Mets scoreless while giving up only two hits and two walks. Eight of the ten outs were recorded by strikeout. The save for Soriano was his 14^th in 15 save opportunities.

The Yankees bullpen staff entered the game second in the American League in ERA and first in allowing the lowest percentage of inherited runners to score. They improved their numbers in each categpry during the game.

Both managers were impressed by the performances of the Yankees relievers. Mets skipper terry Collins said, “They threw the ball good; they made good pitches.”

Mets starter Chris Young kept the Yanks scoreless and yielded only two singles in the first six frames. The visitors scored all four runs in the seventh and all by the long ball.

Mark Teixeira led-off by drawing a base on balls. Nick Swisher’s 1,000^th hit in the majors was a double to right that Lucas Duda dived for but could not grab. The next batter, Raul Ibañez, tied the game at three with his 11th home run of the year.

After the homer, Jon Rauch entered to relieve Young. Eric Chavez was sent by Yankees manager Joe Girardi to pinch hit. On an 0-2 count, the 34 year-old veteran hit his 237^th big league homer, but first as a pinch hitter to left field. The blast decided the outcome in favor of the Yankees.

Girardi spoke highly of the two veterans whose homers gave the team the victory, “They’re experienced guys. They’re not going to get caught up in the moment. They know how to get the ball out.”

The Yankees lead the majors in homers with 11o. The four bagger has been their decisive weapon this year. The Yankees have a compiled a 41-15 mark in games during which they homer while finishing 1-13 in games in which they don’t drive the baseball in the seats.

The rubber game of the second Subway Series of 2012 will feature a potential pitching duel as CC Sabathia (9-3) hooks up with R.A. Dickey (11-1) on Sunday night.

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Mets Walk All Over Pettitte

(Photos by Gary Quintal)

BRONX, NEW YORK, June 23- Yanks fans are left shaking their heads after the improbable loss to the Mets as the Amazin’s win their first game in the Subway Series. What is most troubling is the fact that old reliable Andy Pettitte gave up five runs in the first inning. 

Although Pettitte settled down after the first inning massacre, the damage was done. 

Then a ninth inning rally was thwarted by Frank “They’re All a Bunch of Chickens” Francisco. The ace struck out Curtis Granderson leaving the tying runs on the base.

The Mets went on to win it 6-4.

Burn in Hell

Mother to Son's Killers: ‘Burn in Hell’

By David Greene

BRONX, NEW YORK, June 19- For the first time, the mother of murder victim Jorge Arrango is speaking about her son and his brutal killing along E. Gun Hill Road, where the 20-year old, well liked young man grew up and was mortally wounded on May, 18.

Jeanette Febles, 55, the victim’s mother spoke exclusively to this

publication and offered insight into her life that has been turned

upside down, since the brutal beating and knife attack in which he was stabbed a reported 15-times in the chest, arms and legs-- all caught on surveillance video run by a local community watch program.

Currently undergoing cancer treatment, Febles must stand strong for Arrango's two brothers and six sisters, as they prepare to face life without Arrango, and an eventual trial when they must all come to face Ramon Sanchez and Luis Davis, who late last week were charged with murder.

After his death the grief-stricken mother returned to the Carib Restaurant at the corner of E. Gun Hill Road and Jerome Avenue, where she and her son would often have dinner after attending mass at St. Ann's Church on Bainbridge Avenue, searching for answers to this new puzzle she lives with every waking moment of her day.

Febles recalled the fateful night, saying, "He was with a friend of his, they came to my house and he said, "Mom, give me some money and I'll be right back," and he met with these people he met a month ago."

She continued, "One of the guys started arguing with my son," so she gave him the money.

Recalling the events leading up to her sons fatal confrontation,

Febles states, "You don't want to deal with it, they cut people, you don't know what there going to do. So the other guy pushed him and was antagonizing him, and then someone punched him."

Arrango knew little of life outside of the family apartment he shared with his brothers and sisters or the Norwood neighborhood where he was raised, with the exception of a recent and unexpected trip to Europe.

Now recalling her son, Febles says that Arrango attended public school at P.S. 94 across the street, but did not make it to high school as a severe case of asthma would sideline the youngster and he was forced to drop out of school. Later on he would get a high school equivalency diploma and get a certificate to become a home health aid.

"He didn't go to high school," Febles recalls, "most of his life he

was sick with asthma at home, so he flunked a lot of courses... a lot of times he flunked the grade because he was sick all the time."

Determined to give her son a proper burial, Febles says, "I made

arrangements, but I'm still collecting money," having recently visited Woodlawn Cemetery and was floored to learn that a modest sendoff to her beloved son would cost roughly $20,000. $7,000 for the funeral,$10,000 for the funeral home and $3,000 for the headstone.

She says, "I can't afford that, so I started collecting. I can't even

think, their doing it for me," referring to family members and

friends throughout the neighborhood, who continue to pay their

respects at the building where the memorial has been set up, that is quickly growing and turning into a shrine to Arrango.

Asked if the mother needs help, she replies, "Yes I do, it's too much and I can't afford that."

In more recent years, Febles says her son's health eventually improved to where he could take his General Equivalency Exam and pass the course to earn his home health aid attendant certificate, when he went to care for an elderly retired doctor in upper Manhattan.

Febles explains, "Unfortunately the patient died and he was very

effected by this, this was last year. The man left him some money, so he went to France, he visited Europe."

She continued, "When he came back he says, "Mom, I can't be a home health attendant anymore," he could not deal with the fact that the patients die. He got used to seeing the man everyday and enjoyed helping him."

On the day he died he had a job interview in Yonkers, where the young man expected to get a call back, as soon as the boss returned from vacation.

In the days since the stabbing, she agreed for doctors to remove

Arrango from life-support, Febles recalls, "His brothers and sisters are all crying. They come and see me and they go out to the card shop and they go out to the alley," where the make-shift memorial to the young man now stands.

The mother then paused and added, "and they don't know what to do with themselves."

The mom says her son was the, "center," of the family as, "he liked to party and get into every person's situation. He wanted to know what a person was doing or what they could do together."

Family members will miss the young man's casual singing in the apartment and his sketch's as Arrango also loved to draw.

A religious woman, Febles is asked if she could speak to her son's killers, what would she say, responding, "I don't like to be mean or bad but I just hope, and I know... I hope that they would burn in hell for eternity, that's all I can say."

Providing her health holds up, Febles expects to be in the courtroom with all of her daughters, but does not want the trial to, "sidetrack" her surviving children's own families, anymore than it has too.  

Questionable practice

Engel Took Out Co-op Loan with ‘Slumlord’ Donor?

By Michael Horowitz

BRONX, NEW YORK, June 21- When most people need a mortgage, they go to a bank or another financial institution.

But that's not what Rep. Eliot Engel did when he needed a loan for the purchase of the two-bedroom cooperative apartment he maintains at 3725 Henry Hudson Parkway in Riverdale.

The Congressman engaged in a questionable ethical practice, which required the approval of the Ethics Committee, before he could accept a mortgage loan from a long-time campaign contributor and business partner.

Engel, whose district lines were recently redrawn to include Co-op City, engaged in a questionable ethical practice to help pay for the Riverdale apartment.  

The long-time Congressman, who has engaged in other seemingly questionable practices over the years, bought the apartment for $280,000 on Feb. 14 of last year, taking out a cooperative loan of between $100,000 and $250,000 with Harry Bajraktari, his Albanian-American business partner, the Congressman's most recent financial-disclosure statement notes.

A comprehensive disclosure of assets and liabilities, revealing information that members of Congress could hide in the past, was not required until this year.

The existence of the loan from Bajraktari, a prominent leader in the Albanian-American community, was first revealed in Engel's financial-disclosure statement for 2011, which he filed on May 15 of this year.

In 2009, Engel was caught misrepresenting his home at 9925 Conestoga Way in Potomac Village, MD, as his primary home in order to get a homestead-tax deduction.

When he was caught taking the illegal deduction, Engel stopped the practice, but state officials in Maryland did not require him to return the $7,000 in deductions that he had claimed in deductions over the prior decade.

When he first ran for Congress in the 1990s, Engel enlisted the help of Louis Moscatiello, a mobster union leader who was convicted of labor racketeering and subsequently served a jail sentence for his crimes.

Slumlord Congressman?

Engel Owns Building with Illegal Apt., Mice 

By Michael Horowitz

BRONX, NEW YORK, June 21- Harry Bajraktari, a prominent Albanian-American who loaned Rep. Eliot Engel between $100,000 and $250,000 for the purchase of a two-bedroom cooperative apartment in Riverdale, owns a building with the Congressman at 1142 Metcalf Ave.

In the Bronx building, in which Engel has a 24-percent stake, a family had lived in an illegal basement apartment for seven years until building inspectors for the city's Department of Housing, Preservation Development (HPD) started citing the building for the illegal apartment and the matter came under scrutiny in the Daily News, City News, and the Bronx News.

Bajraktari and Engel, through the E&J Realty company that Engel's business partner set up, purchased the three-story apartment at 1142 Metcalf Ave. for $430,000 in 2008. Engel's investment of $30,000 reportedly bought him a 24-percent stake in the building.

HPD inspectors started citing the building for its illegal basement apartment in February 2009. As of last summer, the violation for the illegal apartment remained in effect. 

Over the last three elections, Bajraktari, his partners, and his family have contributed $72,000 to the Congressman's campaigns.

A City News probe of the illegal basement apartment showed a family of eight living there in substandard conditions. The apartment was clearly a firetrap because it didn't have the egresses that are required under city law.

The family, whose identity City News shielded, had complained about mice, worms, rats, roaches, mold and protruding pipes, as we as wall and ceiling cracks.

Ironically, the family's complaints about their apartment led to a Housing Court decision that required them to move out by Aug. 1 of last year.

City News, in its inspection of the apartment last summer, showed that the apartment, which had three tiny bedrooms, had windows that could not be opened in the event of a fire or another emergency. The lack of easy egress reportedly made the apartment an illegal firetrap.

The husband in the apartment at the time, who paid $900 per month for it, charged that the apartment was kept up better before Bajraktari and Engel bought it.

The husband, who acted as an agent for the landlord before Bajraktari and Engel bought it, said that he acted in the role of superintendent when the previous landlord owned it.

“Things went downhill after Harry (Bajraktari) bought the building,” the husband said. “He tried to get us to pay more rent, but we refused, given the fact that we were living in an illegal apartment that wasn't being properly maintained.”

Let Them Eat Cake!

COMMUNITY BOARD

NEWS N’ VIEWS

by

Father Richard F. Gorman

Chairman

Community Board #12 (The Bronx)

 

“Qu’ils mangent de la brioche!” Upon learning that poor French peasants were starving because they had no bread, a “great princess,” purportedly Queen Marie Antoinette, contemptuously spoke these condescending words. 

Brioche is a greatly enriched French pastry that looks a great deal like bread and has a very high content of butter and eggs.  Obviously, if the peasants lacked the wherewithal to bake bread, they certainly had neither the money nor the means to make brioche. Clearly, whoever pompously uttered such disdainful words was either out of touch with the plight of the poor peasants or could care less about their abject poverty. Critical investigation leads one to the conclusion that Her Majesty Marie Antoinette was not the person responsible for this snobbish statement. In fact, historical scrutiny reveals that the Queen was a generous patroness of charity and was truly moved by the predicament of the poor when it was brought to her attention.  Nevertheless, Marie Antoinette, justly or unjustly, has become categorically connected with this infamous utterance and has, consequently, been stereotyped as the quintessential symbol of the arrogance of power combined with contempt for the everyday person.

This supercilious silliness, I regret to report to you, friends and neighbors, is alive and well in The Bronx. No, Queen Marie Antoinette has not risen from the dead. Sadly, though, the haughtiness ascribed to her is manifested by the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (N.Y.C.D.E.P.) in its disrespectful treatment of the residents of the Borough of The Bronx and their civic representatives. The behemoth of a bureaucracy has crucified the Northern Bronx since 2004, the year that the agency undertook the construction of one of the most wasteful municipal construction projects in the history of the City of New York. I am referring to the Croton Water Filtration Plant, which is still under construction on the grounds of the Mosholu Golf Course and Driving Range in Van Cortlandt Park, a golf course founded over a century ago as one of the very first public golf courses in the United States of America.  

For nearly a decade, the hard-working taxpayers of the North Bronx have endured earth removal, blasting, dust, trucks rumbling through our neighborhoods, garish construction site fences and walls, and street closures, more of which, incidentally, are in store this Summer. The Jerome Park Reservoir, an idyllic landmark that blessed our Borough with a bucolic, countrified setting amidst haphazard over-development and the loss of green space, has sat pitifully year after year deprived of its beauty even as Bronxites were robbed of its enjoyment and use. While several improvements to parks in The Bronx were realized as a result of this questionable undertaking being inflected upon our Borough, as of the penning of this column, all of the blood money promised for our parks has not yet materialized in completed projects pledged to our neighborhoods years ago. The most evident “gifts” accruing to the people of The Bronx courtesy of the Croton Water Filtration Plant, along with their sisters and brothers in the four other Boroughs of our great City, has been the outrageous bill for its construction costs, which will eventually top three billion dollars ($3,000,000,000.00)  --  many schools, youth centers, police officers, fire fighters, teachers, daycare workers, after-school programs, child protection case managers, paved streets, and repaired infrastructure than its original estimated cost of seven hundred fifty million dollars ($750,000,000.00).  Oh, did I forget to mention increased water bills? Yep, water rates have likewise gone up in the City of New York for the past several years  --  sometimes dramatically so  --  in no small part to foot the bill for the sky-high cost of this project.

As a sop to the neighborhoods for the fiscal irresponsibility of this project  --  along with the largely unfulfilled promises of jobs and oodles of construction spending in the Borough of The Bronx  --  the City of New York mandated in a resolution of the New York City Council the establishment of a Monitoring Committee to oversee this project. The members of this Monitoring Committee are the Chairs of Bronx Community Boards #7, #8, and #12, the Council Member in whose District the project was undertaken, the Borough President of The Bronx, and representatives of the Departments of Environmental Protection (N.Y.C.D.E.P.) and of Parks and Recreation (N.Y.C.D.P.R.). 

Let me tell you bluntly, folks, that sitting on this Monitoring Committee has been, more often than not, an exercise in futility and frustration. Apparently, our overlords at N.Y.C.D.E.P. consider monitoring as the passive and dead-headed viewing of a “dog n’ pony” show. Needless to say, “YOURS TRULY,” as well as my confreres from Community Boards #7 and #8 along with Council Member G. Oliver Koppell and Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr., view our obligation to monitor in a more activist, comprehensive, and intelligent fashion. The “arrogance with an attitude” of the Department of Environmental Protection (N.Y.C.D.E.P.), as of late manifested in the person of its representative, Mr. Mark Lanaghan, has been nothing short of astounding.

Witness the most recent example of this hauteur. N.Y.C.D.E.P. suggested that, since the construction of the Croton Water Filtration Plant in nearing its completion, the Monitoring Committee meet only four times per year rather than on the monthly basis on which it has been convening since its inception. The Department noted that the City Council Resolution establishing the Monitoring Committee stipulated that the Committee should meet “at least” four times a year. The Monitoring Committee voted overwhelming to continue its monthly gatherings.  

Last week, I was informed by Mr. Paul Foster, the Chairman of Community Board #7 (The Bronx) and presently acting as Chairman of the Croton Filtration Monitoring Committee (C.F.M.C.), that N.Y.C.D.E.P. would not be sending Mr. Lanaghan or any of its employees to this Thursday evening’s meeting of the Monitoring Committee because the agency had unilaterally decided to attend only four meetings per annum.  Moreover, the members of the C.F.M.C. were informed that, since no N.Y.C.D.E.P. personnel were coming to the meeting, the D.E.P. Community Outreach Office at 3660 Jerome Avenue, at which the Monitoring Committee has been assembling for years, would not be available. “YOURS TRULY” immediately advised Chairman Paul Foster to secure another location for our meeting of Thursday, 21 June 2012 and to formulate an Agenda for it. I further requested that in place of Mr. Lanaghan and his N.Y.C.D.E.P. colleagues, the media be invited to witness this latest sample of government-by-arrogance. Astonishingly, as this column goes to press, an Agenda, accompanied by the news that, indeed, the D.E.P. Community Outreach Office will be the site of our June C.F.M.C. Meeting, was e-mailed to me by Ms. Martha Holstein, a former N.Y.C.D.E.P. official now working as a consultant in the private sector, who was hired by the contractors for the Croton Water Filtration Project. Even better still, Mr. Lanaghan and Friends are going to come to the meeting. I would venture to guess that my complaining on this Monday morning with Bronx Community Board #8 Chairman Robert Fanuzzi to the Bronx City Council Delegation about N.Y.C.D.E.P.  --  and, more importantly, a very busy telephone in the hand of an angered City Council Member G. Oliver Koppell  --  had a great deal to bring about this change of events.  Thanks, Oliver!

Whether undeservedly saddled by history with a bad rap or not, it is so very true that Queen Marie Antoinette, along with her hapless Husband, Le Roi Louis XVI, lost their heads at the guillotine because the “99%” of their day got totally fed up with the abuse of the “1%’s” of the time. Perhaps, our friends at the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (N.Y.C.D.E.P.) need a reality check as to who are the servants and who are the masters.  I am concerned that these supposed “civil servants” have  --  please, pardon the pun!  --  lost their heads! 

Until next time, that is it for this time!