Pluto is the victim of bad PR

Poor Pluto. Maybe if you had just called once in a while. How hard is it to pick up the phone? Would hosting an open house every so often have killed you? We never really got to know you, Pluto -- so downgrading you wasn't that big a deal. We're sure you're nice. Probably a lot of fun at parties. It's just that you never wanted to hang with the rest of the Universe. You acted so distant all the time. You're obviously a loner. Sorry it has to be this way, Pluto. Can we still be friends? Being a moon isn't the end of the world, you know! (Caption: Is this Pluto and its big brother Neptune or an ad for a bocce ball tournament?)

The Boston Dead Sox

(Photo caption: It's okay Theo, but if I were you, I'd start updating my resume!)

Poor beantown. Everyone on the slumping Boston Red Sox (2-12 last 14 games) is injured, and those who are still playing are putting out performances that are hurtful to the eyes. David Ortiz has heart problems, Manny Ramirez is a head case, and the entire squad is jumping off the Bosox bandwagon faster than you can say "El Foldo." The Red Sox have the second highest payroll in the AL, but are sixth out of 14 teams in winning percentage. Their payroll is twice that of Minnestota's, yet the Red Sox trail the Twins by six games in the wild-card race. Every day it just seems to get uglier. Yesterday they put overweight and out-of-shape pitcher David Wells on the trading block; fans and the media are starting to get all over superboy GM Theo Epstein for some questionable moves before the season began; they made a big deal out of getting catcher Javy Lopez from Baltimore and he is hitting a dismal .214 for them; and they're being heavily criticized for picking up rag-armed castoff pitchers from out-of-contention teams (Jason Johnson from Cleveland and Kyle Snyder from Kansas City) who played poorly and are now gone. Could this be the curse of Babe Ruth revisited? Babe had a sick sense of humor which means he would have enjoyed this. Are the Red Sox dead? Is there a mortician in the house?

Pedestrians are an Endangered Species in SF

(I've been saying since I moved here that pedestrians in this city are an endangered species. Drivers in this town don't look for people walking on the street. Last month, a man was walking along Chestnut Street here in the Marina District, and a hit-and-run driver killed him while he was legally crossing at a crosswalk. Last week, I almost got hit by a pizza delivery person who didn't even slow down at a 4-way stop. And now, we have this maniac hitting people on purpose. I'm lucky that one of the victims wasn't me, because I walk along these same streets a lot. All I can say is if you walk the streets of SF, please be careful.)

This appeared on AOL this morning.

SAN FRANCISCO (Aug. 30) - The driver in a bloody hit-and-run spree that killed one man and injured more than a dozen people was mentally unstable and feeling stress from a recent arranged marriage, according to relatives.
Omeed A. Popal, 29, was taken into custody Tuesday following a rampage that terrorized pedestrians, bicyclists and motorists. Authorities believe it began more than an hour earlier when his black Honda Pilot fatally struck a man in the East Bay area.
"He drove on sidewalks, streets, hit people on crosswalks. It runs the gamut," said police spokesman Sgt. Neville Gittens.
Popal was arrested on suspicion of 14 counts of attempted murder and a charge of willful flight after causing serious injury or death, Gittens said.
Witnesses said the driver did not slow down.
He then crossed the bay into San Francisco, where he injured at least 14 people in various locations around the city before police boxed him in with their cruisers around 1 p.m. near the Presidio.
The victims were taken to three area hospitals. One was in critical condition at San Francisco General, where Mayor Gavin Newsom met with victims and their families.
"These are the things, these are so senseless. They're utterly inexplicable. They're impossible to rationalize," Newsom said afterward. "The fact that this individual felt compelled for whatever reason to be determined to do what he did is beyond imagination."
Some of the injured were pedestrians and some were motorists. Victims' ages ranged from 18 to 84, authorities said.
Neighbors said Popal was living with his parents in Fremont, home to the nation's largest Afghan community.
No weapons were found on the suspect, though the car had not been searched, Gittens said. There was no information on whether drugs or alcohol were involved, and it was unclear how fast he was driving, he said.
"It was very chaotic," he said. "Fortunately, we were able to take him into custody."

Caught with his paws in the cookie jar!

Lately, I've noticed that we've been coming up short on the dog food. Now I know why! Ratdog has figured out how to go directly to the source. That little thief. No wonder he's been gaining weight. From now on, the dog food is under lock and key.

My Interview with Ernie Broglio

Ernie Broglio

Ernie Broglio played eight years in the big leagues, staring with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1959 at age 23. He went 7-12 that year – not bad for a rookie – and became a fixture in the team’s rotation for the next four years, winning 70 games and losing 55 overall for the Cardinals. His finest year was 1960, when Broglio went 21-9 with a 2.74 ERA, 2nd best in the National league, behind only Mike McCormick of San Francisco. He finished third in Cy Young voting that year (behind only Law and Spahn) and 4th in strikeouts behind a trio of LA Dodgers (Koufax, Drysdale and Stan Williams). In 1964, after going 3-5 for the Cards, he was traded to the Chicago Cubs with Doug Clemens and Bobby Shantz for Lou Brock, Jack Spring and Paul Toth. But, day baseball and the cramped quarters of Wrigley Field didn’t suit Ernie, and his career went into a tailspin. After 2.5 years and a 14-31 record, Broglio retired from the Cubs at the age of 30.
I contacted Ernie through a mutual friend and we hit it off instantly. Sitting in his den, one of the first things I noticed was Ernie’s picture on the cover of Sports Illustrated – from his moment in the sun – his 15 minutes of fame in 1960. Broglio’s career stats are pretty unspectacular, and he’ll always be known for the one-sided trade with Lou Brock. But, Ernie has gained a lot of notoriety for that trade, now considered one of the most lopsided in baseball history. What I didn’t know until talking with him, however, was that both Ernie and the Cardinals knew he was damaged goods when they shipped him off to the Windy City that fateful day in ’64.

Talking about the day of the big trade: “Well, I was in Houston and Johnny Keane (Cardinals’ manager) brought all three of us in and said you guys have been traded and you’re going to Chicago and I thought, great okay fine, day baseball, but when I got there I ended up not really liking day baseball. So, nothing else could really be said, so I said, when do we have to be there? Because I never really had any rapport with Johnny Keane, so in some instances I was glad. The Cardinals were in seventh place at the time I was traded – Lou Brock brought them the pennant and the World Series that year.”

“Trades are made to better your team In some instances it works out and in other instances it doesn’t. It just so happens with this trade it worked out for them.”

“I knew I had arm problems. Nowadays, they’d have you go in and get checked out by a doctor before making a trade, but that wasn’t how things were done back then. The Cardinals knew. They were keeping it quiet. In 1961, I took 20 cortisone shots in my shoulder – before every other start. They thought they were getting away with something.
What was told to me originally was that Ray Wasburn was supposed to be traded for Lou Brock, but I got in the doghouse with Johnny Keane and so I got traded.”

The Broglio and Keane feud: “I don’t really know how it got started. Something happened when he was a coach. I came into the dugout after getting taken out of a game, and I was mad at myself. I kicked some bats and one of them landed right on Keane’s leg and he didn’t care for that much, I guess. Because after that we just never seemed to see eye to eye.”

Talking about the early years: “I signed out of high school. I had every Major League team after me, and three Coast League teams. And in those days, there were only sixteen major league teams. And Oakland, San Francisco, and Sacramento and the Coast League were after me. And it was funny because the Boston Red Sox were really hot after me, and they were going to send me to Montgomery, Alabama. And I looked on a map and couldn’t find it and I said, “No, I’m not gonna go there!” So, I decided to sign with Oakland because Pumpsie Green, who I went to high school with, was there. He was the first black ball player to play for the Boston Red Sox. And we all ended up with the Oakland Oaks organization. And then in ’54, Charley Dressen was our manager, and he sent me down to get some seasoning with Modesto and I was 9 and 3 down there. And then they brought me back up; I think I ended up 5 and 8 for the year. And then the following year Lefty O’Doul was our manager, and I stayed with the ball club for about a month when he sent me to Stockton and I won 20 games there. Roy Partee was our manager down there. Auggie Guland was an important guy in those days. He was from El Cerritos, and he was instrumental in getting me signed with the Oaks.”

Talking about Charlie Dressen: “Oh, he was tough. But, I mean, I’m 17 years old! Then I signed with the Oaks, I turned 18 in August, and I signed in July. So, I was eighteen when Charlie came there. And he kinda took me under the wing. “Cause I got in a little trouble down in Modesto. I got out in the water, sunbathing and got almost a second-degree sunburn. I had bubbles all over. I slept in a bathtub for about three days. So, Charlie sends a message down to me saying the next time it happens, it’ll be a thousand dollar fine. I’m thing -- $1,000? I didn’t know what a thousand dollars looked like, all I knew was it had a bunch of numbers, you know, a bunch of zeroes, behind a “1”, and I said, “oh boy, I’d better watch out for that!” And then he brings me in and says, “Don’t ever do that again.” He sent a clear message down to me to make sure that I never done it again.”

Why the Cardinals labeled him “Not tough enough:”: “ Cardinals coach Harry Walker didn’t think I was tough enough as a pitcher. He would yell at me and try to fire me up, and I would say hey, that’s not my nature. I’ll take care of stuff when I get out there. Because I’d always walk to and from the mound with my head down, you know? Evidently, Harry didn’t think I had the tenacity to be a major league pitcher. My ability was there, they knew that, but I guess some people show their emotions more. Like Bob Gibson or Larry Jackson -- they were real battlers. I’m just not made up that way.”

Stan Musial: “ I first met him in Japan. Just a neat guy. He’s one of the few I still communicate with. He is so gracious to me. If I’m in a golf tournament and I need something signed, he always signs it and then asks me if there’s anything else I need.
I’ve got nothing but good things to say about him. When they won the World Series and I was, of course, with the Cubs, I got a call from Stan’s restaurant. When they won it, I was sitting home having champagne with them.”

On Chicago Cubs fans: They were all right, but much different than St. Louis fans. They were so used to losing all the time they handpicked certain players and booed the living heck out of them for not having a good year. And they kind of got on me.

Talking about his life-long attachment to Brock: “One incident, many years later, they had an old-timers game there in St. Louis and they brought Lou Brock and I in, and it was a full house. And they introduced Lou Brock first, you know and he got a standing ovation. And they were still standing and booing me when I was introduced. I have to be the only guy in the world to get a standing/booing ovation!”

The New Zoo Review

I’ve been to a lot of zoos in my life, including the famous San Diego Zoo and the Central Park Zoo in New York City, and I truly believe that the San Francisco Zoo is right up there with the best. Back in the late 80’s when I first visited it, I couldn’t honestly say that. It was antiquated, with those old animal warehouse-type buildings and all of the animals were inside these rather uncomfortable-looking cages, or out in these environments that looked like bad sections of the Tenderloin. But, since then, the SF Zoo has gone through a complete remodel, and the results are so wonderful and animal-friendly, that the place just has a whole new attitude about it. They’re calling it the “New San Francisco Zoo”, and for good reason. It’s like a modern zoo in so many ways, with great habitats for all of the animals, new exhibits and new species of rare and not-so-common beasts.

The SF Zoo is more than 72 years old, and was started by a man named Herbert Fleishhacker, a San Francisco banker who believed that every major city needs a zoo. One of the zoo’s most famous animals during the zoo’s formative years was Monarch the Grizzly Bear, who lived in captivity for 16 years. He sired two cubs, and was the darling of the City by the Bay for a long time.

The zoo’s first major exhibits were built in the 1930’s at a cost of $3.5 million. You can’t even build a Costco for that anymore! Those early structures included the Monkey House, a lion exhibit, Elephant House, a sea lion pool, an aviary and bear grottos. These spacious enclosures were among the first bar-less exhibits in the nation.

In 1984, the SF Zoo got its first Pandas from China, and starting in 1993, the place went through a series of major renovations. It is estimated that the Pandas bring an additional 300,000 visitors to the zoo each year. Every time I go to see them, they’re sleeping. How can they be so tired? They only mate one day a year!

In May of 2004, the spacious new African Savanna exhibit opened, featuring giraffes, zebras, kudus, ostriches and other African wildlife roaming together in an amazing 3-acre habitat. This mixed-species exhibit is more culturally diverse than the Mission District! What’s great about it is that you can get really close to the animals. Just last week I had a wonderful conversation with a zebra. He got mad at me when I told him wearing stripes made him look fat!

The Lipman Family Lemur Forest opened in the summer of 2002, and features five different species of Lemurs in a large outdoor setting. Who even knew there were five species of Lemurs? They also built the Leaping Lemur Café, with a great outdoor dining area featuring a lot of food that is actually surprisingly quite good for a zoo. Zoo food is notoriously bad, and this is at least edible faire, including pasta and pizza. When they put in the Lemur Forest, the zoo also took the opportunity to re-locate the entrance to the zoo so that it now faces the ocean, and constructed the Friend and Taube Family Entry Village, with an expensive gift shop, restrooms, and membership and information booths. I guess if you donate enough cash, you can have zoo buildings and exhibits named after you. If I ever have that kind of money to donate, I want to sponsor the “Ed Attanasio Sea Slug Savanna.”

The SF Zoo has also expanded their Children’s Zoo, Dentzel Carousel, the Connie and Bob Lurie Education Center (Bob Lurie used to own the SF Giants) and the Koret Area Resource Center.

The new zoo is getting great reviews, and one reason for this is that they’ve taken a “conservation through interaction” approach. They believe that if people can see these animals in their wild habitats, that they’ll see the value in them. Education and conservation go hand in hand, and that is what the SF Zoo is preaching right now, which I think is excellent.

I would particularly recommend going when you can see them feeding the lions or the penguins. The lions get better meat than you’ll find in your standard Quarter Pounder with Cheese and the Penguins gobble down fish faster than hungry tourists at Fisherman’s Wharf.

Visit the new San Francisco Zoo soon. It’s a lot of fun! We bought one of their membership cards, which is actually worth it if you plan on visiting the place more than once and/or plan on bringing friends or relatives from out-of-town there. I have one uncle who looks like a big gorilla, and every time we take him there, he bonds with the primates. I just wish he wouldn’t scratch himself so openly!

For more information about the SF Zoo, visit: http://www.sfzoo.org/.

Little League WS Final: Go Georgia!! My Prediction: USA Wins 4-1!

The Little League World Series Final is later today, and frankly I'm more excited about this game than I am about any MLB or NFL game this weekend or in the immediate future. The LLWS is a blast to watch, and this year's tournament has been a classic! When you realize that these kids have been playing in this thing for the last 10 weeks (pretty much their entire summer), and that the whole shabang started out with 7,000 teams, it's an amazing test of durability and fortitude for these two teams to have made it this far. I think it's going to be tough for the U.S. team from Columbus, Georgia to overtake the kids from Japan, but if anyone can do it, they can. The Japanese team really impressed me by beating a very good squad from Mexico. But, I am hopeful, and that's why I'm predicting a U.S. victory.

This appeared on the AP wire yesterday evening:

SOUTH WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. (AP) -- Clutch hitting and timely defense -- the Little Leaguers from Columbus, Ga., sure are well-schooled in the art of playing winning baseball.
Good pitching and colorful home-run trots are the hallmarks of the undefeated team from Kawaguchi City, Japan.
Should be interesting when the two teams meet for the Little League World Series championship.
Go Matsumoto homered and got starter Seigo Yada out of a sixth-inning jam with some sharp relief pitching in Japan's 3-0 win on Saturday night over Mexico to capture the international championship.
Earlier, Brady Hamilton drove in two runs and J.T. Phillips struck out eight to help Columbus defeat Beaverton, Ore., 7-3 to win the U.S. title.
The kids from Georgia and Japan will play for the title Sunday.
Hamilton broke a 3-3 tie by flaring a pitch from starter Jace Fry just out of the shortstop's reach to score Phillips from second in the fifth inning. Columbus got some breathing room with three more runs in the sixth.
Cody Walker tracked a popup in foul territory and stumbled to the ground on his back just after catching it for the final out. Jubilant teammates started piling on top of him as parents cheered and snapped pictures.
"It's a dream come true," 12-year-old outfielder Ryan Lang said.
After receiving their championship banner, the Columbus boys raced to the Beaverton dugout and invited their opponents to accompany them on the honorary victory lap around Lamade Stadium.
But only Columbus gets to play in the title game Sunday.
"I said after the semifinals that everything is gravy," happy Columbus manager Randy Morris said.
The Columbus Northern league team looked like it'd be an easy winner at first against Beaverton's Murrayhill league team. The Georgia fans chanted, "Here we go Southwest, here we go!" as their team returned to the dugout after a three-run first inning.
Momentum changed in the fourth.
Beaverton's Austin Perry had an RBI single to cut the lead to 3-1 before Trevor Nix homered to left. The 13-year-old pumped his fist after watching the ball land over the fence for a two-run shot that tied the game.
Beaverton's fortunes changed quickly when Columbus returned to the plate in the fifth and Hamilton's looping single over shortstop Derek Keller drove in the go-ahead run.
"You couldn't place that ball any better," said Derek's father, Beaverton manager Jeff Keller.
Columbus put the game away in the sixth. Josh Lester's RBI single highlighted a three-run inning and made the score 7-3.
Lester also made a nice stab of a liner by Beaverton's Sam Albert to help douse a scoring threat in the first inning, one of several nice defensive plays in the game. With runners at first and second, Albert hit a shot up the middle. But Lester quickly took a couple of steps to his left, made the catch and fell to one knee.
Keller said he thinks his son will get over the loss quickly.
"Football starts in three days," the manager said. "When he gets under center and starts throwing the ball around, I think he'll be OK."
In the nightcap, Yada started for Japan and dominated until the sixth, when Mexico managed three straight singles to load the bases with nobody out.
In came Matsumoto to close the door. The lanky, 5-foot-10 reliever with the long delivery and nice fastball struck out the first two batters he faced, then ended the game by getting a weak groundout to first.
Mexico starter Josue Barron was good early, striking out six and retiring the side through the first three innings. Fans waving the green, white and yellow flag of Mexico shouted "Josue, Josue, Josue" often drowning out the rhythmic clapping of Japanese fans.
Japan's sluggers got to Barron in the fourth. Leadoff hitter Yada sent a 1-0 pitch over the left-field wall. Two batters later, Matsumoto hit the first pitch he saw from Barron into a grassy patch just before the hedges beyond the center field fence for a two-run blast.
After each shot, while rounding the bases, the hitters would nearly lean to the ground on one knee and pump an arm in front of them. After Yada reached the plate on his homer, he was greeted by awaiting teammates who did the same move.

(Blog edit: Well, it's the day after the game now, and I wasn't too far off with my prediction! The kids from Georgia beat the Tokyo tots 2-1. What a great game. I almost missed it because they moved the game time at the last minute, but I was channel surfing while eating lunch and I found it. This is only the third time that the U.S, has won it back-to-back. Hats off to the Little Leaguers, all of them. It was a great LLWS!)

There Gone Be Some Malice in Dat Palace!

If you have never seen a mixed martial arts cage fighting event like this, you are missing out. Sure, it’s violent! But, no more than trying to walk in San Francisco and not getting hit by a taxi cab or a pizza delivery car! Malice at the Palace is taking place on Saturday night, September 9th at the Cow Palace in San Francisco, and will feature some of the top fighters in the sport, including Urijah Faber, Nam Phan, Jake Shields, Spence, Gunderson, Ebersole Murphy, Metcalf, Sims, Guillena, Coronel, Marks, Wray, Solis, Baca, Dietz, Cordosa, Humphries, McMillian, Crispim and Werneck. There will also be a special appearance by super cage fighter Chuck Liddell, although he's not fighting. (I only put the last names of the lesser-known fighters in here, but I made sure to put all of them in there to avoid one fighter getting pissed and kicking my ass!) Tickets range in price from $45 for working stiffs like you and I, all the way up to $250 for high-rollin' play-ahs!

This type of fighting only became legal in California earlier this year, with the first mixed martial arts cage fight in the state having taken place in San Jose’s HP Pavilion. To view the TV commercial for the Malice at the Palace, visit: http://youtube.com/watch?v=UeV08606MeQ. This is no-holds-barred mano vs. mano fighting – the real s—t! Not like some boxing matches where guys waltz around the ring like ballroom dancers and hug each other for 12 rounds. This is like the old Roman days in the Coliseum, except that the losers don’t get fed to the lions. (That’s not legal yet, but just wait!) Hope to see you there!

My Interview with Jesse Gonder

JESSE GONDER

Jesse Gonder died on November 14, 2004 in Oakland, California at the age of 68. Although his role in MLB was basically that of a journeyman catcher, Gonder found relative success in 1963 and ‘64 as the starting backstop for that hapless new gang of lovable dolts known as the New York Mets. After having started the ’63 season with the Cincinnati Reds, Gonder was shipped off to the Mets, where he hit .302. In 1964, he batted .270 in 131 games. Having begun his career with the New York Yankees in 1960, Gonder became one of the first players to play for both the Yankees and the Mets during his major league career. More notably, Gonder built a reputation over the years for being outspoken at a time when most African-American athletes were reluctant to do so.After he retired from the game, Gonder became a bus driver for Golden Gate Transit in the Bay Area, remaining in that position for over 20 years before retiring in the mid-1990s.

A great baseball high school: “I graduated from McClymonds in 1955. That team went undefeated the last three years I was there. We had a group of guys here in Oakland that could play ball. Frank Robinson, Vada Pinson, Curtis Flood….myself. I went to school with all of them. A guy named Curt Roberts was there before us, as was Charlie Beamon. We were all good athletes. And Frank was the first one to sign and he went to the big leagues. And after he signed professional, we all figured we had a pretty good chance of going. We had one guy, a scout, named Bob Madic. He ended up being the General Manager for the Toronto Blue Jays. He signed us all into the Reds’ organization. He cleaned up financially, too. We saw small bonuses, but from what I heard, he made quite a bit for signing us.”

Racism: “Back in those days, being black, if you couldn’t accept being humiliated, or insulted, I should say -- if you couldn’t accept being called ‘nigger’ or ‘watermelon eater’, ‘Amos ‘n Andy”, any racial insult that they could possibly throw at you – then you couldn’t make it.”
“I had some good times, but with what I had to go through in baseball, it really wasn’t that much fun. Once I got into the game and I found out how political it was, I realized what was gonna hold me back. It ceased being fun, it really did. There was really nothing fun about it.”
“In Cincinnati, we were the first team to integrate spring training. We stayed at the same motel with the white players in 1962.”

“Only the guys with the thick skin made it. Maybe we weren’t the best athletes, but we had thicker skin. We knew what we had to do to survive. There was really nothing fun about it. Everywhere you ran into racism. Everywhere. In a lot of the places we couldn’t even go in and eat with the white players. We had to sit out on the bus, while they brought us hamburgers and things like that, you know, after they had eaten.”

“Jerry Jacobs, a white player from McClymonds High, signed with the Reds a year before I did. Jerry signed a year before me, and then the next year when I signed, we all left here together from the 6th Street railroad station to go to Douglas, Georgia – that’s where Cincinnati had their spring training. We all grew up together; we all went to school together in West Oakland. And everything was fine until we got to Chicago. And once we got to Chicago and headed South, Jerry Jacobs and I got on the train. I saw all the black people sitting in one place, so I just went and sat with them. It never occurred to me what was going on; I just went and sat with the black people. Jerry came and sat with us too. And the porter came back there and told him, “You can’t sit here. You have to go and sit with the whites. And that was our first taste of racism like that.”

The Great Yankees: “They told me, “Casey wants you.” And I said, “What? “ And they said, “You’re going to New York.” And I said, “No, I’m not. I don’t belong to the Yankees.” And they said, “You do now. They just bought you.” That night, I’m in Yankee Stadium, google-eyed. I guess that was the biggest thrill I got out of baseball at the time, you know? I’m there with Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle. Then, we go on a road trip, we go to Boston. They had already clinched the pennant.”

Mickey Mantle: “Mickey drank a lot. We were talking in Atlantic City at a memorabilia show one day (in the 80’s.) And he told me, “If I had known I was going to live this long, I wouldn’t have drank so much.” And I told him, “Mickey, the liquor is probably what’s kept you alive.” And he thought that was funny.”

Casey Stengel: “ESPN wanted to interview me, Johnny Blanchard and Clete Boyer for SportsCentury about Casey a few years back. Clete declined to be interviewed. He said, “I don’t have anything to say about the so-and-so.” ‘Cause Casey was not a good players’ manager, period. He was a media man. He was an ambassador. Blanchard told the guy from ESPN. “Casey did this to me. He told me when I first came up that I could really hit. And I said, “Yeah, skip – I can hit pretty good.” So, Casey asked me, “Can you catch?” And I said, “Yeah, Casey, I can catch pretty good, too.” So, Casey said, “Well, if you can really catch, then, catch that 12 o’ clock plane to Denver. Blanchard had been optioned to Denver.”

One of My Favorite Restaurants in SF is L'Osteria del Forno

L’Osteria del Forno

There is an Italian restaurant in North Beach (what other kind are there?) that is really wonderful, and I am inspired enough by the great food, atmosphere and service to write a review about the place. Its name is L’Osteria del Forno, located on Columbus Street right in the heart of North Beach’s Little Italy section. I have been to many restaurants in North Beach, and while some are average and a few are quite poor, this place is outstanding. I would send any of my friends there without hesitation, because every time I have eaten there, it has been a spectacular experience. The restaurant is tiny, with maybe a dozen tables inside and a couple outside. It has an open kitchen that looks cramped and crowded, but that doesn’t stop the chefs there from putting out some of the tastiest authentic Italian cuisine I’ve ever eaten. They have a brick-lined oven at L’Osteria del Forno where they bake the kind of pizzas and focaccia bread that causes a foodie like myself to drool like Pavlov’s dogs. The pizza crust is not thick or doughy. It is almost cracker-like in its consistency with a texture that can only be described as indescribable. I hate chewy pizza and this is anything but. At $10 to $19 apiece, these magnificent discs of delectability come with toppings that complement them perfectly. They are simple and not stacked to the ceiling with a bunch of stuff that shouldn’t go on pizzas, like Canadian bacon, pineapple, pine nuts, and hamburger meat (Gag!) The other day I told somebody on the street, obviously an out-of-towner, about the place and how good their pizza was and he asked me, "Is it as good as Round Table?" I just walked away! Try the Tre Formaggi with imported gorgonzola, ricotta and mozzarella cheeses. Or the Porcini topped with sautéed imported porcini mushrooms, ricotta, mozzarella and olive oil. You can also add extra toppings for two dollars each, but why would you want to? Leave the pizza making to the experts. You don’t get under the sink and help your plumber when he comes over to fix the pipes, do you? Let these professionals do their job and order these wondrous creations of love the way they were designed to be eaten. If you aren’t in the mood for a pizza, try the focaccine at L’Osteria del Forno. They bake the bread for these classic Italian sandwiches themselves, and they are simply divine. For six or seven dollars each, these masterpieces blow away burgers and deli sandwiches in a major way. I always order the Arrosto, which features the restaurant’s thinly sliced roast of the day (usually ham, beef or chicken) with tomatoes and lettuce, and that’s it. If I see another bean sprout, cucumber slice or green bell pepper on a sandwich, I think I’m going to lose it. Or maybe try the Boscaiolo focaccine sandwich with smoked prosciutto, porcini mushrooms, fresh mozzarella and lettuce. These aren’t just sandwiches, they’re statements! If pizza and sandwiches aren’t on your wish list, the pastas and specials at L’Osteria del Forno are superb as well. I’ve had the Ravioli di Zucca, which is a pumpkin-filled ravioli served with clarified butter and sage, and the Gnocchi di Patate, potato dumplings served with organic tomatoes, butter and basil. These dishes don’t come drowning in red sauce like you’ll find in many supposedly authentic Italian restaurants. Entrees and specials range in price from nine to 20 dollars, and they’re worth every penny. There are a lot of tourist trap restaurants in North Beach that claim to be the real thing. Don’t get sucked in by their checkered table cloths and chronically rude waiters. Real food made with love the way it’s made in Italy itself is what’s important – and L’Osteria del Forno is the real thing!

L’Osteria del Forno
519 Columbus Avenue (Between Green & Union Streets in North Beach)
(415) 982-1124
Reservations not accepted
Open for lunch and dinner every day but Tuesday
Credit cards not accepted

I give this place 4.75 burps (out of five)
To find out more about L'Osteria del Forno and check out their menu, visit their Web site at: www.losteriadelforno.com.