Art, Billy and The Capital Grille

"Are you what you seem to be?"

ONE DAY DURING  his last season as general manager of the Chicago Cubs, I trekked over to Mesa, Arizona and interviewed Jim Hendry. The setting was perfect, old-time baseball: walking around the spring training facility under the morning Arizona sun, hearing the pop of dozens of baseballs into catcher's mitts echoing across the facility, never quite far from the back of one's mind that back home everyone was digging themselves out of their parking spaces, staking their territory by digging out their parking spaces and placing a folding chair in the cleared spot, a modern sign of medieval intentions, or just clicking their electric car starters, counting the days, while we, the gilded, sat at a picnic table discussing on the record how if things just went right the Cubs could win, and then off the record how this fucking team didn't have a chance. It was the good life.

Jim was a particular pleasure to talk to, not because he was a baseball genius but precisely because he wasn't. Like managers who actually had authority, Hendry's people, the baseball men who did not have MBAs from Ivy League schools and did not resemble young Wall Street sharks, were out of time. The image of Theo Epstein, Blackberry (now iPhone) glued to the side of his face, suggesting his rise was the product non-stop work (as well as a self-important shield against being approached) would soon replace Hendry knocking back a gin and tonic as the front-office archetype.

Jim Hendry: A good man out of time...

While walking across the back fields with my old friend Marty Lurie, Marty's phone rings. Marty talks for a few minutes and hands me the phone.
"He wants to talk to you."
I take the phone.
"Howard," the voice said. "HE MADE ME LOOK LIKE A FUCKING ASSHOLE!"
It was Art Howe, former manager of the Oakland A's.
"He" was Billy Beane, still GM of the Oakland A's.
"He" was also the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, who portrayed Howe in Moneyball.

Art never sported a prodigious gut like that underneath his windbreaker.

Art Howe was the first manager I covered in the big leagues. It was April 1998 and I was the beat man for the San Jose Mercury News. The A's were not a good team and nor were they expected to be. They were, however, expected to have a bright future. Two players, Ben Grieve and A.J. Hinch, were to contribute immediately. Grieve even won Rookie of the Year, and after every big game, Billy would say, "He's got a swing like Tiger Woods." Two other kids, Miguel Tejada and Eric Chavez, would be called up that year. Two more, Mark Mulder and Tim Hudson would arrive the next year. In 2000, the year Hudson won 20 games, Barry Zito would be next and beat Roger Clemens at Yankee Stadium in the playoffs that fall.

Art was a solid baseball man. In his office was a newspaper clipping of his finest moment as a pro, when the Houston Astros won their first division title. One-game, playoff, October 6, 1980, at Dodger Stadium. Howe went 3 for 5 with a home run and four RBI in a 7-1 win. Howe kept the banner headline of the Houston Chronicle the next day above his desk. It read:

"HOWE THE WEST WAS WON."

"I may look like Kandy Korn, but I can play."

Perhaps most importantly, it would be in 1998 that GM Sandy Alderson would step aside and his heir apparent, Billy Beane, would take over, become a famous baseball innovator, innovations made famous first by Michael Lewis' runaway best seller Moneyball and then by Brad Pitt playing Beane in the film. Beane was also innovative in tormenting Art Howe every chance he got, making him the first real casualty of the coming analytics war. The coup de grace came on the big screen. While Pitt's Beane was sharp and quick and three dimensional and human, Hoffman's Howe was sullen and unlettered, selfishly obsessed with his contract as the team won, representative for all America to see of a man whose sport Beane in real life believed had passed him by. The only greater indignity would've been if Hoffman, while portraying Howe channeled his inner Scotty from Boogie Nights and asked, "Billy, can I kiss you on the mouth?"

"I'm such a fucking idiot!"

Before meeting Art Howe, I did not know the word “Monkeyfucked” existed in the English language, nevermind know it was a verb. We were in Detroit, in old Tiger Stadium. Grieve misplayed a fly ball in right by hesitating, stepping back, then charging a ball that would clang off of both his shin and glove before ricocheting past him. A four-run inning ensued, and the A’s would lose again.

Afterward, when the cameras left and it was just the writers, the tape recorders turned off, Art summed up the evening.

“We had a chance until Ben monkeyfucked that ball.”

Art Howe was not only responsible for adding to my vocabulary, but he also took me to my first big-time steakhouse. Once a season, Art took the beat writers out to dinner. In 1999, he treated us to Ruth’s Chris in Toronto and it marked an appreciation of the American steakhouse that exists to this day. 

Flying 56,000 miles on American produced its own share of monotony, but it was there, up in the air, where I noticed the ad for the great independent steakhouses across the country and began the journey of sampling many, from Bob's in Fort Worth to Plaza III in Kansas City to Berns in Tampa to Manny's in Minneapolis and Gibson's in Chicago. The enjoyment of the steakhouse even forced the repeated violation of HB Food Rule No. 2: (No chain restaurants unless completely necessary).

Having visited the Boston (the old Newbury Street location), New York, Philadelphia and Hartford locations, The Capital Grille represented one of those repeated violations and also one of the great conflicts. 

There is not a bad choice on the Capital Grille menu. The beef carpaccio is superb. The Potatoes Oscar (potatoes with asparagus, lump crab and Bernaise sauce) is stunning and the steaks, even though I am not adventurous, preferring my bone-out filet, medium rare, are first-class. The only thing better than the food at Capital Grille is the service. Yes, they actually keep a database of their customers and the locations they've visited to provide them premium VIP service. That, or they send it directly to the NSA as part of its nationwide spying program in the name of patriotism...   

A Capital Grille burger with Parmesan truffle fries - and a sidecar.

Rules, however, were NOT meant to be violated and the price of Capital Grille deliciousness is the face-to-face collision with morality and worldview. The Capital Grille is a high-end continuation of the homogenizing of America - a Capital Grille is not a bonus for being in a city, as is Manny's or St. Elmo's in Indianapolis, but part of the ubiquity of Anywhere, USA, the corporatocracy at full octane. 

As the Lexus is really nothing more than a Toyota, the Infiniti is a Nissan and the Audi a Volkswagen, the Capital Grille is the top of a chain, but still a chain. Its family of restaurants includes Red Lobster and Olive Garden and the defunct Bugaboo Creek Steakhouse, and that is the problem with chains, they have too many links. 

All the pieces matter.

The links are perilous: supporting the Capital Grille is essential to the pursuit of a high-quality gastronomy. Its existence also stands in complete opposition to how I view the world. It's like shopping at Home Depot (which I have been known to do) or eating at Subway (which I do not).

Maybe there is no stopping the dismal tide, but understanding America is understanding who signs the checks, of knowing that money may be power but knowing where the money is going and controlling that flow is even more power.It has always surprised me how surprised people are to discover ESPN is owned by Disney. Darden Restaurants Inc., owns the Capital Grille, so supporting them means supporting Olive Garden and its cookie-cutter nothingness, LongHorn Steakhouse, Bahama Breeze, Seasons 52, Eddie V's and the sports pub Yard House. To know is to be forewarned.  

Art Howe was right about many things. While ridiculed on the silver screen, he was ultimately right about Grieve. During Grieve's sensational Rookie of the Year campaign, Art would privately say, "He can't hit a breaking ball. I mean, not even a bad one. I have no idea why anyone throws him a fastball." 

At first it sounded like typical baseball-speak. The game of failure also produces a language of failure and managers, coaches and scouts all tend to concentrate on what a player cannot do instead of what he can. 

Art was right, though. Opponents caught on and the amount of fastballs he saw slowed slowed to a trickle. Grieve would never be as good as he was that rookie year, but still lasted nine seasons in the big leagues. 

He was also right in his choice of restaurants. Ruth's Chris, too, is a chain with 136 franchised locations, the largest luxury steakhouse chain in the country, but it is still of high quality despite its expansion. Oddly, I've never gone back to a Ruth's Chris since Toronto.

The Capital Grille, meanwhile, is a spectacular dining experience coupled with the gnawing dilemma of resisting my politics and patronizing the chain. Perhaps it is incumbent upon me to forgive the chain for top service in return. Peace is made in such ways, but so are slaves. Mel Gibson said so in Braveheart. Thanks a lot, Art.

Gorgonzola-topped filet mignon in red wine sauce with potatoes Oscar

Emerging from the spiral...

  Once, I used to write in my journal daily. I had many things to say, usually from about 38,000 feet traveling from one city to the next as life on the baseball beat dictates. One day, the journal writing stopped, not because I was more mature or more together; indeed life has only grown more complicated even as it has gotten better.

 The reason was because I had run out of words. Book writing killed journal writing because I have a certain number of words in me over a given time. How David Foster Wallace wrote "Infinite Jest" is beyond me.

Book writing, long-form ESPN writing and column writing seemed also to kill blog writing. Jeff Pearlman is a machine, writing books and blogs prolifically and with style. I, alas, am but a man.
A man, whoever is coming out of the abyss. There are words again, and this emergence promises to be sustained. Having written exactly one blog post in the last 18 months is embarrassing, yes, but another factor for the disappearance of the Carpaccio Files must be confronted: taking pictures of food has only been eclipsed by the selfie for sheer obnoxiousness. In bad economies, with friends losing jobs, with Gaza being destroyed and cops (still) killing black people, a photo of a Gorgonzola rib-eye from Roast seemed pretentious at best and at worst, colossally insensitive. If you're going to look like an asshole, at least let it be inadvertent...of course, being an asshole usually consists of some premeditation.

Still I do love art and food is often art, and here is a place to discuss an appreciate that art. Facebook is gone for me. If I cannot stand selfies of toes in sand no one should be subject to photos of my next sidecar...

Whoever comes here, however, is doing so because they love the art of food and the discussions of food and the magic of food (despite the deep disappointments that spurred HB rule no. 1: Never experiment when you're hungry).

A weekend in Boston for Sox-Royals landed me downtown, at Legal Crossing on the corner of Washington and Avenue de Lafayette. Legal may have, because of its popularity and expansion seemed like the McDonalds of Boston seafood, but the quality of the fried oysters far surpassed a Filet o' Fish...

Fried oysters with aioli...

After oysters, Fenway...A very Boston afternoon...

The weekend progressed with stops at an old standby, the sturdy Fleming's in Park Square. Yes, Fleming's is a direct violation of HB Rule No. 2: No chain restaurants, but like Roy's each rule has its exceptions. Capital Grille, while clearly overpriced, is another one.

Zocalo, on Stanhope, nestled on a side street between the South End and Back Bay, was a the Sunday spot and it didn't move me as it should have. A new tequila bar with chuletas de puerco on the menu should have been consistent with my "never experiment when you're hungry" edict, but because it was a new place, I could not vouch. 

The chuletas, like Zocalo, wasn't a complete failure, because the food was generally good despite the deafening noise of the lunch crowd. At the very least, it, like most things in life, deserves a second chance.

That, obviously, is an overcooked pork chop with spinach and mashed potato underneath...