WHITE PLAINS CITIZENETREPORTER SETS RECORD VISITS FOR YEAR 7,017,658 VISITS! 2,098,003 VISITORS MADE 6 VISITS A DAY EVERY DAY. 63,330 UNIQUE VISITORS MADE 133,730 VISITS IN DECEMBER. WPCNR AVERAGED 17,284 VISITORS A WEEK, VISITING 31,270 TIMES.

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WPCNR CITY HALL TICKER. From Melissa Lopez, The Mayor’s Office. August 11, 2007: Mayor Joseph M. Delfino is pleased to announce that the first class of White Plains “Lets Get Ready” program will graduate sixty students on Tuesday, August 14th, 7:00  p.m. at Pace University in White Plains.   The program is a collaboration between the White Plains Youth Bureau, White Plains High School, PACE University and Let’s Get Ready.  The program was paid through a donation given by Wellesley-in-Westchester, the Westchester County alumni group of Wellesley College. 

The program helps youth who cannot afford the SAT prep classes necessary to keep up with the new standards for college admission.  Participants in the program pay a $25 deposit fee which is refundable if they miss three or fewer classes.



Students meet at Pace University twice each week on the corner of Martine Avenue and Bank Street.  Students are grouped based on students’ diagnostic SAT scores.  On Tuesdays, groups of four to six students review verbal for two hours.  On Thursdays, the students review math with a different math specific coach.

For one hour on both days, students review the College Choice curriculum – a special curriculum created by Let’s Get Ready with activities relating to college admissions.

College coaches help support the program providing tutoring and mentoring.  The coaches are college students from Syracuse University, Columbia University, New York University, Pennsylvania University just to name a few of the universities.  The program has a 1 to 5 ratio of coaches to students.

The program has also offered college tours this summer.  Students have visited Columbia University, New York University and the University of Albany.

Mayor Delfino says that having a Lets Get Ready program in White Plains will go a long way to help students in their preparation for college.  

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WPCNR THE PARKING NEWS. By John F. Bailey. August 9, 2007: The City of White Plains has returned the Marine Corps Recruiting Vehicle it had impounded with the intent to auction it off to pay outstanding Marine parking ticket fines and late fees. Gunnery Sergeant Matthew Butler reported to WPCNR today the city returned the vehicle Tuesday. 

Sergeant Butler said the Corps is continuing to hold talks with the city over the settlement of $94,000 the city is claiming the Marines owe, despite $70,000 of that being fines for space in the Chester-Maple Garage that Marines claim was paid for in full. The city has denied there was a lease on the permit spaces. The Marine car impounded since April has been quietly returned to the Marines.

 

 

Butler said Marines the Corps has been able to determine were the drivers of Marine Cars ticketed by the city for parking violations are “voluntarily paying their tickets.”

“We want to be good partners with the city,” Sergeant Butler told WPCNR Thursday. “Individual Marines we’ve been able to identify are voluntarily paying their tickets.” Asked about the $70,000 in tickets the Marines report are related to the city ticketing vehicles where space was already paid for in the Chester-Maple garage, Butler said those issues were still being worked on in good faith. Sergeant Butler said he did not have any figures on how much in fines have been paid so far by the Marines.

The city seized the car with the intention of auctioning it, but apparently returned the car after learning that federal law prohibits seizure of government owned vehicles or selling of government property, which apparently the city Department of Parking was not aware of.

WPCNR has also learned that the ticketing of the Marine vehicles was begun apparently in earnest only in July 2006  (at the beginning of a financially troubled year for the city).

WPCNR learned according to one source this was initiated by the city when neighboring stores complained. According to a person who worked in a business near the Marine Corps Recruiting Office, “I previously worked at a privately owned store on East Post Road and also parked in the Chester Maple garage. I remember a time when enforcement on the Marine cars was “select” depending on the person writing tickets that day. Oftentimes the cars were ignored and the neighboring store owners would complain to not only the officer writing, but the Marines as well.”

The person recalled the ticket blitz began about a year ago, confirming what WPCNR had been told by the Marines last week.  Some tickets have been said to date back to 2001, but that has not been confirmed by any breakdowns from the Department of Parking, which has said to various media that they do not have a breakdown of the ticket details as to place and infraction.

The source said, “Then, it pretty much came out of nowhere that they started getting tickets on the street outside their office.”

The source also indicates “While it may be wrong for the Marines to receive tickets…a primary reason they do is not the enforcers’ desire to do so, but the CITIZENS and STORE OWNERS who call and complain to Parking Department brass, and say that the Marines are taking our spots (or potential customers’ spots) without paying. Ticketing them only began a little over a year ago, as it was not common practice until complaints were made by the public.”

The person said they did not understand why Marine vehicles parked in the garage were ticketed for check clearing problems, pointing out that it was their experience if you’re an individual, “checks do not have to be cleared in order to receive a permit, any regular permit holder can walk into an office on the first of the month and receive their permit by simply writing a check. If the check bounces, the permit of that individual is sought out by use of permit numbers that help identify the owners. So that excuse doesn’t make sense.”

To date the Army Corps of Engineers which the Marines say issued the check on the first of the month for monthly Chester-Maple Permits has not furnished details of the agreement the Engineers have with the city. The city has denied there is a lease on the spaces, but there may be an agreement.

Last week, Tim Curry, New York Times reporter covering the story reported that Paul Wood, the City Executive Officer as saying he did not know whether the $94,000 would ever be paid, or if a city court judge might choose to waive the fines.

This week, Barbara Leek, the City Judge, eliminated the late fees attached to tickets paid by the first Marine to come forward to pay parking tickets his vehicle had received.

 

 

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WPCNR VIEW FROM THE UPPER DECK. By Baseball Bailey. August 9, 2007: Barry finally belted the big blow, number 756, to far more tumult than the original Babe did when he hit his 714^th in 1935 before a few thousand fans in Pittsburgh.

Barry’s Blast was an electrifying humpback line drive in the first five rows of bleachers at AT & T Park. And the homerun crown was passed to a new homerun king. Congratulations to Mr. Bonds who drove for his goal despite the controversy, the criticism, the negativism that has stalked him for a decade.

However, the Babe’s achievement so far and away above and beyond what hitters had achieved at the time in the 1930s still has to be viewed as the magical figure.

 

Mr. Bonds has surpassed the original breaker of Ruth’s record, Henry Aaron who did not attend the Bonds Watch. Neither did the Commissioner of Baseball, Bud Selig. Since no one has definitively proved Mr. Bonds took sterioids, though the circumstantial evidence is damning, the failure of Selig or Aaron to attend cheapens the achievement.

However Henry Aaron’s statement about the blast of how it inspired others to achieve their dreams is what the game is about.

Mr. Aaron, facing fierce racial threats when he pursued the Babe had his demons as he pursued the record. Mr. Bonds has his. Barry and Hank still had to hit them.

However the homerun in Ruth’s time was an achievement. A far greater achievement than today. 

 Today homeruns are just 4 singles strung together, aided and abetted by organized baseball’s chemical alterations to their game.

What do I mean by chemical?

1.       The baseball was juiced in the mid-90s to hype fan interest again after the 1994 baseball strike. Tom Seaver proved this on television, comparing a baseball from his era the 1970s to today’s. Consequently, Mr. Seaver has not gotten much work as a commentator. I saw Mr. Seaver compare the cores of the 1969 baseball with the baseball the late 90s. Seaver noted and showed graphically with a pencil to show how tightly wound the core was compared to the ball of this day. He also showed how sunken the seams were on the modern baseball. Seaver said this made the ball less aerodynamically resistant.

 

2.       The ballparks were shrunken. As the new wave of ballparks developed – Camden Yards, Jacobs Field,  Turner Field, The All-American Ballpark, The Ballpark at Arlington, Coors Field, PacBell Park, the new Detroit Park, power alleys were shrunken, foul lines shortened, foul territory shrunken.

The combination of shorter fences and livelier baseballs, (pitchers have said throwing today’s ball is like throwing a handgrenade), set up a situation where the ball would when hit reasonably squarely, would carry farther and have less distance to travel to clear the fence.

Hitters in the Babe’s era had big ballyards to clear: The Polo Grounds, Shibe Park, Comiskey Park, Muncipal Stadium, League Park, Forbes Field, Griffith Stadium, Yankee Stadium (the biggest park of all), Navin Field (later Briggs Stadium), Sportsman’s Park. The only parks remaining from yesteryear are Wrigley Field and Fenway Park.

So right away, Mr. Bonds has a large advantage over the Babe. Henry Aaron played one more year than the Babe…who pitched the first five years of his career, splitting time in the outfield, and the Babe had to hit a dead ball for the first five years of his career. The Babe hit 49 homers in his first five years in the bigs. He was up for a cup of coffee with the Red Sox in 1914, appearing in only 5 games, then 42,67,52, and 95 and 130 from 1915 to 1919 respectively. Taken into perspective the Sultan of Swat hit 665 of his 714 homeruns in his final 15 years, averaging 44 a year. Aaron, in his first five years belted 140 from 1954 to 1959, and in his last 18 years hit 615. The Babe was the more prolific belter, after a slow start.

Mr. Bonds had a dramatic surge in the 90s in his production, coinciding with baseball’s doctoring of its baseballs and shortening its fences. Going into 1995 season, with 10 years in the bigs, Barry had 259 homeruns after the shortened 1994 strike season. In 1995, before he began receiving the personal training of Greg Anderson, Bonds in his first full season after the strike hit 33 homeruns.

 

 Bonds, after five years in “The Show” had hit 117 homers by 1991, leading the Babe by 51 homers After ten years Bonds had 292. Both modern sluggers well ahead of the Babe’s pace. Over his last 17 years Babe, hit 665 into the seats compared to Bonds hitting 464 in his last 10 years. Bonds prodigiously upped his homer output, as did the Babe. The Babe was also helped by a livelier ball in the 1920s.

Ruth also had three poor years in those last 17 seasons, hitting only 35 (1922), 25 (1925),34(1933), then tailing to  22 and 6 in 1934 and 1935. My point being that the Babe was hitting them out in deeper ballparks, with a harder to drive baseball.

Bonds also had 1,375 more official at bats than the Babe (9,774 to 8,399). But Barry’s blasting since 1995 has been phenomenal – 464 homeruns –an average of 45 a year, when in his first decade in the bigs he averaged 29.

Still in the 10 best years of the Babe—1920 to 1930 the Sultan of Swat, playing less games than Mr. Bonds and Mr. Aaron blasted 516 out of the yard against grizzled ornery take no prisoners pitchers —outhomering Bonds 516 to 462 In his prime years.

Conversely it says a lot about Mr. Bonds consistency and his ability to double his homer output with help from a lively ball, shallower ballparks, lousy pitching and better conditioning. Actually Mr. Bonds body and Babe Ruth’s body are similar with similar swings if you observe the photos.

The numbers that the Bambino puts up are beyond respectable. Here we have Mr. Bonds and Mr. Aaron eclipsing the Babe numerically, but in perspective, the Babe is still awesome, despite his womanizing, his hot dog addiction, his cigar-smoking habit, his hard-drinking.  The Babe’s contemporary sluggers —Jimmie Foxx(534), Mel Ott (511)Lou Gehrig (493), Hack Wilson(244), Al Simmons (307) – do not touch him.

Some other factors in the Aaron-Bonds-Ruth comparisons on numbers

When I was a young fan, old fans then talked about how good the pitching was in the 20s and 30s compared to the pitching in the 1950s. However, they had a point – the relief pitching just was not a big factor in the 20s and 30s. Starters went all the way mostly. But they were ornerous. Nasty. They threw all sorts of pitches with a bigger strike zone: curves, changes, spitballs, emery balls The Men in Blue gave them the letters strike, the knees strike, the corners. Sure there were bad pitchers then, most of them on the 1930 Philadelphia Phils who hit .315 as a team and finished last, their team ERA was 6.71 runs per game. But not many. Most teams had 3 solid pitchers in the Babe’s day.

In Aaron’s time, the 50s and 60s and 70s the pitching was still strong and there were pitchers in better shape, and closers to contend with. 

However in the last ten years, pitching was changed to favor the hitter, in the following ways:

1.       The strike zone was closed down dropping from the letters to the belt and knees. The high strike was no longer called. The corners were still in play. This forced pitchers to throw more down the middle in the wheel house and gave hitters more leeway as to where to expect the pitch when pitchers fell behind on the count. This is evidenced by the vast number of homers on 2-0 counts and on first pitches.

 

The caveat here is today’s pitching is far thinner than it was in Aaron’s day or in Ruth’s day as a player. Pitchers reach the big leagues today and they are learning on the job and their mistakes are homers – not singles or doubles.

 

The pitching started to really go south in the mid-90s when pitch counts came into vogue. The six inning start is now considered a quality start. Very suspect middle relief is then relied on – and this is when a lot of shots get hit. But anyway this is a completely other column.

 

My point is the Sosa-McGwire-Bonds home run era is a far more conducive environment to hit homeruns. Baseball has taken on the element of a pinball game with all the homers.

 

Bonds at the present pace may blast a hundred more because the pitching is so horrendous.

 

Nonetheless, he still has to hit them, regardless of whether the fences are shorter, the pitching less competent.  He is doing it and has done it. If baseball or authorities ever tie him directly to steroids unequivocably I have to think about the asterisk issue, but so far they have not.

 

You could say that the Babe with his massive chest and fast bat was a model for Bonds.

 

I wrote this because the Babe will never be forgotten. When you think homerun, you think Babe Ruth, and the achievements of Mr. Aaron and Mr. Bonds pay homage to the once and future home run king. The Sultan of Swat.

 

I leave you with this description of the Babe on one of his great days in 1928, beating the great Lefty Grove  in the eighth, and snapping Lefty’s 14-game winning streak on September 9 and to send the Philadelphia A’s two and a half games behind the Bronx Bombers on  – taken from Lefty Grove: American Original by  Jim Kaplan:

 

The Yankees had tied the score…Been handed two runs, really.What more? Ruth, with his wonderful sense of theater, bunted on the first pitch – foul by inches. Just think of it: Babe Ruth giving himself up to move Gehrig ninety feet. Or beat out a bunt. The Babe was saying simply this: I can beat you every which way, busher.

 

Ruth took a ball. Then on a 1-1 fastball – mano a mano—combat, you give me your best, I’ll give you mine – Ruth homered deep to right to give the Yankees their final 5-3 margin. Not even old Ty Cobb, popping out in his last official at bat, could bring the A’s back….

 

Vidmer (Richards Vidmer, a Times sportswriter) fleshed it out: “His big bat swung, a crackling sound split the tense silence. A ball sailed high and far toward the bleachers and then the thunder broke loose. A scream of delight went up from the multitude that echoed and reechoed while the mighty busters of the Bronx trotted around the bases. Straw hats rained on the field, mingling with the torn and tattered bits of paper that had fluttered down when Gehrig had driven in the tying run with a single a moment before. The Yankees had beaten back the enemy for the third straight day.”

 

Then in his last days with the Yankees in 1934, the Babe was playing for the Yankees for what turned out to be the last time in Fenway Park. A crowd of 46,000 turned out in the Fens to see the Yankees and the Sox play two. The Babe went 2 for 6. When he left after his last at bat, this is what happened:

 

Whitman wrote in the Boston Herald:

 

Spontaneously and as one man, the huge crowd, all the way around the field, stood up and applauded. There was little shouting. It was hand clapping, steadily swelling in volume until the big fellow was lost to sight as he entered the Red Sox dugut – the one he first entered as a major leaguer twenty years ago – and passed out of sight to the intimacies of the Yankee clubhouse under the grandstand.

The Red Sox said there were tears in the Babe’s eyes as he passed through the dugout on the way out because he was touched by the mass applause.

 

On opening day in Boston after being signed by the Boston Braves in 35, before 20,000, an aging Babe who could hardly run around the bases faced “King Carl” Hubbell of the old New York Giants and blasted a solo shot into the Braves Field bleachers…in May in Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field, the Babe was hitting .180. He was doing nothing at the plate, but somehow the old magic returned. The Bambino belted three majestic homeruns at Forbes Field, one over the double decked grandstand in right, but basically had to walk around the bases.

 

That was the Babe, rising to the occasion more often than not. Leaving us laughing, crying, remembering always.

 

In the final paragraph of Babe Ruth and The American Dream, Ken Sobol writes why The Babe will continue to be the once and future home run king:

 

Death is a fact of life, a serious matter that has to be faced eventually, and the central ignigma of Babe’s fifty-three years was that he always found such things beyond his grasp. Year after year, his associates watched him, wondering when he would grow up, expecting that he would eventually have to learn to face facts as they themselves had to learn, that he would start behaving in a manner consistent with the adulation he received from millions of worshipful kids, but he managed to fool them all. He just stayed Babe Ruth – a wary, self-centered, exuberant, ignorant boy who by an accident of physical coordination happened to be the most exciting figure of his time.

 

So kudos to Mr. Bonds and Mr. Aaron, for in Mr. Bonds achievement, he ironically is upstaged by The Babe.

 

The Babe would have been there, his arms around Mr. Aaron and Mr. Bonds, talking hitting, saying “Hiya Keeds.”

 

Yes, definitely The Babe would have been there.

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WPCNR SCHOOL DAYS. By John F. Bailey. August 7, 2007: Superintendent of Schools Timothy Connors reports that the decision to clear the woods on the Havilands Lane side of the White Plains High School Campus was unauthorized today. Connors said Mike Lynch, Administrator of Buildings & Grounds, had unilaterally made the decision to add a field without telling anyone about it.

 

Cleared Wooded Area at High School. New Homeplate looking down new first baseline. WPHS Tennis courts are to the right. Fill from football field would be used to bring up the field to grade.

Connors said,  “One of our employees felt that we should take advantage of the soil being taken up from the football field and try to create another softball field. In his enthusiasm to do that, he moved forward with having some trees taken down. The difficulty with that is no one was aware of it, neither the Board or the Administration or the neighbors knew about it.”

Connors said, “I think his intentions were good. But our communications with the neighborhood were poor and then people didn’t know about it.They didn’t know what was being done. And, actually the persons coming in to remove the trees removed more than was anticipated and that concerned all of us. We put a stop to it. We’re looking at how do we look at the need for the baseball field and at the same time trying to make some adjustments that will enable us to plant some trees to help to restore the nice area that was behind those 4 or 5 houses.”

Connors said the official who made the decision was Mike Lynch, Administrator of Buildings & Grounds: “He intended well, but you don’t do those things without communicating. We’re going to work to resolve those issues.”

Asked what the plans were for the fill to start. Connors said “Part of the agreement with the contractors is that they take it away. He was just trying to capitalize. His intent was a good one. But there should have been some dialogue about it.”

He said he did not know how many trees were taken out. Connors said they were major-sized trees and it was “a shame to lose them.”

He said the  damage to the Varsity Softball field could be fixed with ground crew work by next season. Asked what the next step is on the cleared land, Connors said:

“We have to plan out exactly what they’re doing. I have promised the neighbors we would come back and tell them exactly what our next steps are. As soon as they have a plan to me, I’ll share it with the neighbors and I’ll share it with the Board. I don’t have a timeline when we’re going to get back to it.”

Asked when work on the field would resume, to have a field by next fall, Connors said, “Certainly cleaning up that property and doing that is the short term goal and we’ll get that done.”

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WPCNR COMMON COUNCIL CHRONICLE-EXAMINER. August 6, 2007: The Common Council approved the construction of a glass enclosed gallery/café on the former site of 189 Main Street tonight, 7-0, over the objections of the North Broadway Civic Association, allowing Louis Cappelli, the developer of the concept to expand to the full footprint of the previous 189 Main Street building.

Louis Cappelli, the Super Developer showed the council interior of the project and described it to the chamber audience: 

 “We’re talking about being able to walk in on the groundfloor. We’re talking about putting a glass elevator on the corner of Main as you first walk in. We’re talking about building a glass bridge across and we’re talking about having dining below from a café point of view. We’re talking about putting crazy little things like glass floors in so that people get the feeling of open space.This 30 feet high. This would be a picture wall that would have some sort of viewing on it. There would be some sort of gallery here we could put together with the Arts Council, or with other suggestions you might have as to what this wants to be. Some are talking about the heritage of White Plains and other things,and we’re open to that.  This would be a mixture of gallery, a mixture of dining, downstairs would be a mixture of again café, and you’d be able to go up to the roof and be able to have some outdoor dining on the roof.”

The council saw an overview of the proposed building and an interior view, but did not ask about how the building would be entered, how large the café was going to be and how much of the site was going to be covered by the café, and how many it would seat.

Another question not asked was whether the new gallery/café to be home to Via Quadronno, the “world-class” Manhattan coffee house, would have an entrance from the Ritz Carlton hotel across the new Court Street extension.  No details showing entrances and floor levels of the extent of the café  in the subterranean level of the new structure were shown during last night’s meeting, prior to the voted approval.

Mr. Cappelli added that he plans to put a wall structure to shield the view of William Street from the hotel, and that he had already spoken to owners of 185 Main about adding that structure, which he said he would be showing the Council in the future.

Malmud said though the process by which the project came to the council was “clumsy,”  “I like it very much.” The balance of the council was also enthusiastic about the project, each praising its uniqueness, and forgiving the jumpstart the project had made in the interest of meeting the October 10 opening of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. Councilman Benjamin Boykin emphasized that during the work session on the project, he was assured by Corporation Counsel Edward Dunphy the construction done on the project so far was legal.

 

 

 

 

In other action, the Common Council adjourned the hearing on the 1133 Westchester Avenue hotel proposed by Robert Weisz and referred two competing affordable housing proposals out to Boards and Commissioners for comment. The two housing proposals seek to hike the percentage of apartments a developer of a multi-family building has to set aside as affordable units from 6% to 10% as well as increase the cash buyout levels a developer has to pay if they choose not to build the affordable units.