AFGL: Eddie, Traviata and Super Bowl
A Few Good Links for this week will cover Eddie Ortega’s new venture, a new edition to the La Traviata line and something about a football game.
1. Eddie Ortega has left EOBrands to start the eponymous Ortega Cigar company. Eddie isn’t going for the limited edition nor the mass market crowd. Instead, he’s going after the happy medium in between the two saying that he wants somewhere around 300 accounts with retailers. He hopes that this will be a mutually beneficial relationship and that quality will remain high. I’m sure I speak for most cigar smokers by saying “I hope so too.”
And why would anybody think otherwise? EOBrands produces the 601 brand of cigars as well as Cubao, which are both highly thought of by many cigar smokers; Eddie’s cigars should be as good. Here’s a little peak into what he’s up to:
All the brands comprise a rich and complex blend of tobaccos grown in South and Central America with Nicaraguan tobaccos from Esteli and Jalapa giving it the prevalent flavors topped off with an excusite (sic) choice of Mexican Maduro; Ecuador Habano; Connecticut Broadleaf or Connecticut Natural.
2. There’s a new La Traviata on the way and it is the La Traviata Luminoso Maduro. This cigar weighs in at 4.5″ x 50 with a Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper and should go for slightly more than $5.00 a stick. Personally, I liked the Ecuadorian wrapped La Traviata better than the maduro but maybe this one will change my mind.
3. The Super Bowl is this Sunday barring any Tom Clancy-esque hijinks by nuclear physicist Islamofascists. I don’t have a dog in this fight (is that okay to use that analogy when talking about football nowadays?) and never do when it comes to football. Still, it is an event that cannot be passed up.
What cigar(s) are you going to smoke during the game?
AFGL: OSOK, Fielder & Maryland Sucks
A Few Good Links today will cover the new cigar from Room 101, why I am happy Prince Fielder is a Tiger and why Maryland sucks.
1. Jewelry craftsman and cigar maker Matt Booth has teamed up with his photographer to come out with a new blend of cigars called OSOK, One Shot One Kill. Now, if you are thinking that name is provocative let me just fill you in on the meaning: by “shot” they mean “photograph” and by “kill” they mean “killer photo.” The photographer, whose name is Edgar Hoill, is nicknamed OSOK and that’s where that comes from. If the cigar is as good as its marketing it should be great.
I like the name and it’s more understandable than one of Booth’s other cigar creations – Namakubi, which has something to do with severed heads and Samurai. I don’t have any definite plans on reviewing either of these cigars but I wouldn’t rule it out.
2. Prince Fielder did not sign with the Rangers (woohoo) but has decided to sign on as part of the one-two punch that is Prince-Cabrera. I guess if you wanted to strangle a joke out of this you could say that Prince, Cabrera and Verlander are now “Detroit’s New Big Three.” (Note to Tigers’ marketing team: I came up with the slogan so you owe me royalties if you decide to use it.)
The reason why I like this is because it puts Prince in the AL Central. The Tigers should be strong enough to manhandle their division counterparts and suppress wins enough so that none of the teams from the Central will seriously compete for the Wild Card. If baseball goes to a two Wild Card format for 2012 that means there will be five teams (Angels, Rangers, Yankees, Red Sox and Rays) battling for four playoff spots (AL West and East champs and the two Wild Card spots).
Anything can happen over 162 games but that really isn’t true. I just can’t envision a world where the Orioles or the Mariners figure out how to win enough ballgames to make it to the playoffs.
3. I’ve driven through Maryland before, it looked nice. But now I’m going to have to say that Maryland sucks because it has decided to increase cigar taxes. The size of the tax increase is a sideshow to the rationale:
“I imagine everyone’s here because of the public health side of the story,” Maryland’s Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown said. “It’s also a revenue generating story but that wouldn’t be why you’re here, but rather to focus on the benefits to health of what we’re proposing.”
Saying that the reason they are raising taxes on cigars is for health reasons is as laughable as a guy saying he has a subscription to Playboy so that he can read the articles. States who tax tobacco use want the extra revenue and the politicians who support these onerous taxes want the goodwill they engender amongst the busybody anti-smoking groups.
AFGL: List of Lists, King, Fielder
A Few Good Links this week is going to focus on a list of the lists of top cigars, some news about Stephen King’s Dark Tower series and an update on the (so far) sad tail of a slugging first baseman without a bag.
- The Consensus: 2011 Awards via halfwheel: Ever wanted a Metacritic-esque survey of the cigar world? (Incidentally, I think that would be a good idea. It would need constant updating and there would have to be some kind of resolution as far as scoring goes, should certain sites be weighted more heavily, what about vitola… I digress.) Well, halfwheel has come out with a survey of what the cigar blogging world thought were their favorite cigars of 2011. I will only tell you that Undercrown was the consensus top pick according to them. If you want to see the rest of this amazing post (like top brand, factory, country and some trends) you’re going to have to click on through.
- Stephen King wrote one of my favorite fantasy series of all time in The Dark Tower. In late April there will be a new addition to this series with The Wind Through the Keyhole, which will basically shed some light on the main character’s past. I think it’s kind of like Godfather 2 in that there are some elements that take place during the natural progression of the story and there are some prequel elements as well. This will be mostly prequel though. With the movie/tv-ification of this series in peril the new book is at least something to look forward to.
- While Prince Fielder’s normal pace is slower than most his current pace is maddeningly slow. I’m guessing his agent, Scott Boras, is playing a game of chicken with all of his client’s potential suitors but there comes a time when you have to wonder whether or not this was a bad move. And then I see a little piece of news like this and I’m thinking the AL West is where the real arms race is.
Baseball
Recently, baseball has been front and center for me. My team, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, California, USA, recently signed Albert Pujols and C.J. Wilson; two of the most coveted free agents on this year’s market. I have also just started watching Ken Burns’ Baseball, which starts out telling the tale of a very different kind of baseball; one where men played without the need for remuneration and minorities were blacklisted (the former is bad if the owners are making money and the latter is always wrong).
After absorbing the facts that are those gargantuan contracts and the innocent roots of baseball I once again have come to the realization that baseball is part of the American soul. It is the sport that has animated individual Americans for the longest period of time. When things looked bleak in your Irish tenement you busted out of that claustrophobic existence and made a dash to the closest ball field to see the local teams play – or maybe play in a game yourself. Baseball brought sanity and levity to an existence that was harsh and unforgiving.
In almost every conceivable way, baseball is a completely different sport than it was for the first century of its existence. Now we have the designated hitter, ten teams will soon be firing up the private jet for the playoffs, there are thirty teams, players get paid more in one year than the average block of Americans will earn in their collective lifetimes, stadiums are modern with modern amenities and with modern cuisine and modern security measures. The players today regularly consume performance enhancing substances like protein shakes, vitamins, supplements and the such.
As we all know, some of these performance enhancers are illegal and have ruined many a career and, according to some apocalyptic sports writers, almost destroyed the sport. Just as fans were beginning to think that the steroidal period of baseball was over the reigning NL MVP had to go and juice up. The players of today also train better, they have video showing different angles of every swing they have taken in their careers. Even the mundane fact that there are teams all over the country (Canada too, eh) points to the progression, or at least the evolution, of baseball.
Even with all of those changes baseball is still the most American of sports because it exemplifies what America is all about. There are winners and losers without any chance of a tie (democracy); games are not decided by a clock (Protestant work ethic); players are rewarded for their excellence (capitalism); sacrifices (subordination to the greater good); cheating (moonshiners, companies too big to fail, tax evasion); sometimes inept umpires (government’s regulators); and the National Anthem (patriotism).
Baseball is America.
That is why when the Angels play their first game of the regular season I am going to pick an excellent cigar and watch. Hopefully Pujols will jack one out of the park.
If Baseball Last Night was a Cigar…
…It would have been a 100 point cigar. No doubt.
Four teams: the Red Sox and the Rays in the American League; the Braves and the Cardinals in the National League; and there were only two golden tickets left for the playoffs. And all was decided yesterday.
Days like yesterday are what World Series dreaming boys live for. Nomadic scouts and under-appreciated coaches have seen countless days of baseball and have never seen anything like what happened. If yesterday was the last scene in a movie the cranky as Sparky Anderson movie critic Roger Ebert would have given it one star for being utterly insane. And it was.
Beating the Astros 8-0, the Cardinals were the first team still in contention to take care of business. It was like a cigar that starts out amazingly but without much complexity. You know the kind of cigar I’m talking about: the flavor, whether it be spice, earth, meat or what have you, is very pure and gives your mind a readily available comparison to a flavor you already love. But something was missing.
The next game to end put the Cardinals into the playoffs; unfortunately for the Braves, it eliminated them. Thirteen inning affairs are hard fought battles that leave nerves raw and drain every last ounce out of everyone involved; fans included. This is even more so when the stakes are as high as they were yesterday for the all-but-playoff-bound Braves. They lost the initiative a couple of weeks back and never found their way back to the right path. I think all baseball fans have a little bit of pity for that team and their fans.
With the National League’s playoff dance card now filled in such a dramatic way you would have been right to proclaim yesterday as one of the better day for baseball fans. It was like a cigar that is powerfully flavorful evolving into something that was even better. More flavor, more nuance. Just… more. And then the most amazing thing happened.
Joe Maddon has been “new school” for so long that he has made it old school. For well over a decade, probably closer to two, he was the Angels’ consigliere of statistics. Before there was Moneyball there was Joe Maddon serving as the Angels’ bench coach with enough stats to make the combined works of Tolstoy look sparse. Massive three ring binders elucidated the tendencies of every opponent the Angels faced. More Sun Tzu than George Patton, his even keeled demeanor and analytical mind set the tone for the Angels for at least the last decade of his tenure in Los Angeles via Anaheim.
I know Mike Scioscia gets most of the credit for the Angels’ successes over the last decade but Maddon (and the rest of the coaching staff) deserves more than a footnote worth of the credit as well. It may sound odd ridiculous to the uninitiated baseball fan but Maddon became a hero to Angels fans while we were lucky enough to have him. That is why even though I have a lot of respect for both the Yankees and the Red Sox it is the Rays that I root for once (hopefully someday soon that will be an “if” again) the Angels get eliminated. Even though I don’t have a great knowledge of their roster I know their team because it is the embodiment of the bespectacled Maddon.
Basically since the earliest days of August it was a fait accompli that the Yankees and the Red Sox were going to the playoffs; one winning the East and the other the Wild Card. When September rolled around Maddon’s Rays were nine games out in the Wild Card and all hope seemed lost. But Maddon, the maestro of determination, kept his team playing hard. As each week passed the Rays crept a little closer to the faltering Red Sox. Soon, faltering became flailing and flailing became collapsing. And all of that lead up to yesterday with the Red Sox tied with the Rays.
Yesterday turned out to be a microcosm of the seasons that both teams had. The Red Sox got a lead and looked like mortal locks for the Wild Card once the Yankees tacked on seven runs against the Rays early in their game. A rain delay in Baltimore became like Chinese water torture for the Red Sox as they were able to see the Rays score some runs against the Yankees and, in the ninth, tie their game with a pinch hit home run by a guy who makes pitchers take a sigh of relief. Dan Johnson, the improbable hero in an improbable Rays’ season, doubled his home run total and breathed life into a beleaguered Rays’ team with one swing of the bat. Right down the right field line his hit sailed over the wall as if it were pushed by the collective will of thousands of Rays’ fans. The game was tied and headed for extra innings.
The Red Sox game had continued by this point and soon their Superman closer, Jonathan Papelbon, came in to at least guarantee his team a one game playoff between his team and the resurgent Rays. Papelbon quickly disposed of the first two hitters that he faced with such dominance that there seemed to be no hope for the Orioles. But then Chris Davis doubled and then a guy named Reimold hit a ground rule double to score Davis’ pinch runner. The game was tied and the only thought going through my mind was: “collapse.” They had the game in the bag but they just couldn’t close the deal. The next batter up, Andino, hit a single and made every heart in Boston sink a little further when the Orioles scored the winning run and gave the Rays a way into the playoffs without having to play in a game 163.
A mere five minutes later in a city 1,000 miles away a phenom named Evan Longoria walked to the plate and dug in. A ball, a strike looking, a strike swinging, a ball and a foul ball started off the at bat. And then Longoria sent a screaming line drive down the left field line. It was very low and did not look like it had any business going over any Major League fence but it did. In what had to be the shortest home run of the year the Red Sox were banished from the playoffs and the Rays were able to clinch a Wild Card berth.
Every element of baseball last night was amazing. For a fan it embodied everything that is amazing about baseball. It transcended the normal bindings of baseball and reached you at an emotional level.
Hopefully someday I can smoke a cigar that is as amazing as last night’s games. It might not happen but, as the Rays and the Cardinals proved this September, anything is possible.
