Now that it’s September, apple season is in full gear and there’s one Western New York establishment that’s been open now for more than 150 years YNN’s Jon Dougherty has the story.

by Ryan

Somehow this never really got finished. Considering his debut last night, let’s give it another shot.

When you’re touted as the 30-million dollar man, you have to look the part. For 22-year-old Aroldis Chapman, that means on the mound as well as off it.

Everyone came to Coca-Cola Field expecting to see big numbers in the outfield, but they weren’t looking at the main scoreboard. Fans were looking for triple digits on the radar gun from the Reds pitching prospect, and that’s exactly what they saw. His first four pitches were right on script: 97-98-99-100. K looking.

For three innings, everything was working perfectly for Chapman. He only allowed one hit, a walk and struck out four. He hit a stand-up double and had an RBI. His command was there, his velocity was unreal and his breaking pitches were terrifying.

The Louisville Bats roughed up Bisons starter Tobi Stoner for ten hits and six runs over 2 2/3 innings, and relievers Adam Pettyjohn and Kiko Calero only made things worse. The final score would end up a gaudy 20-7 win for the Bats, but it was the five innings with Aroldis on the mound that really mattered.

After the fast start, however, he got himself into trouble. He started the fourth by hitting Fernando Martinez with an 82 MPH breaking ball. He followed that with a strikeout of Mike Hessman after an eight-pitch at bat, but then things got strange. A string of singles got Chapman rattled and his control started to waver.

The lefty gave up five runs on six hits in the fourth, giving up much of that big lead and taking some of the shine off what was an impressive start.

“I don’t think it’s an easy game,” Chapman said of the trouble he got into in the fourth. “You go to an inning like the one I had where everything went different. But I was able to come back and make the adjustment and get out of that inning.

“There are no easy games.”

Maybe not yet, but there are certainly easy stretches for the lefty. There is clearly nothing wrong with his fastball, and early in the game his breaking ball was working wonders, dropping 16-20 MPH off for a slider or changeup. Control was the main issue the rookie has battled, but those first three innings were a flash of greatness.

“I thought he threw the ball well,” said Bisons manager Ken Oberkfell. “He had the good fastball but he was also getting the off-speed pitches over the plate.” When he was first asked about Chapman’s outing he jokingly said “He’s a pretty good hitter,” but the manager was obviously impressed.

It was interesting to see how the Bats evaluated that fourth inning from Chapman. It was obviously a problem that his control went away, and it appeared that he was a bit rattled by the runs scored, but he certainly settled back down to finish the outing strong.

“He’ll learn from that,” Bats manager Rick Sweet said. “Until he experiences something, we can’t teach. We definitely had that experience tonight.”

It may be damage control, but it is certainly an interesting point. For a raw talent like Chapman there is just so much to learn. One of the things I just couldn’t get over was how young he is, how much he just doesn’t know yet. For example, take what he said when asked about the fanfare that has surrounded his signing and minor league starts.

“I think any player would like to have that experience,” he said. “Any player wants to be chased by the media, by the fans, being asked for autographs. I think any player wants to be like that.”

It’s nice to see him handling all of the attention so well, but I don’t think that’s the typical answer you get from most players. Call it “a part of the game,” say you don’t pay attention to any of it; that’s the ballplayer’s response. But Chapman said he was “proud” of the attention, something you rarely hear from a player.

This is a guy who is just starting to chart pitches between his innings, who is still developing control on pitches to support his ridiculous fastball and is still getting used to a brand new country.

Sweet later said Chapman wasn’t sure what to do when he was handed a jacket on the basepaths after his hits. He thought his teammates were playing a joke on him, but they just wanted him to keep his arm warm. Just another lesson learned, I suppose.

Still, it was very clear that Aroldis Chapman knows what’s at stake here: he knows the drill. The 22-year-old walked into a room of waiting reporters dressed to the nines: Luis Vutton sneakers, True Religion jeans and a blue-gray Armani Exchange track jacket. Gold jewlery dangled from his hands as he spoke confidently through a translator about his experiences as a minor leauger.

“When you come to the opposite team’s house and (see) the crowd, how well they treat me, how they root for me, I feel really happy,” he said. “I’ve been seeing this in every city I go, people come to the game to see me throw.

“I really feel proud.”

Still, there is a lot to learn for Chapman. He is still very much a kid with so much left to experience. When a reporter asked about his start in baseball, Chapman suddenly became downright shy.

His translator had to prod him into telling the story: a baseball coach walks into the local boxing gym and asked if anyone wanted to play. Aroldis Chapmon, the kid who can throw 100+ MPH for the Reds, was a boxer long before he picked up the glove.

Either way, he sure knows how to throw ‘em.

friendsofsaintanns.org

In a debate for the 58th State Senate District longtime incumbent, Bill Stachowski, debates challengers Michael Kuzma, Thomas Casey and Tim Kennedy.

New York State will not be able to start collecting taxes on some Indian cigarette sales as it intended to today. A federal judge has temporarily blocked enforcement for up to two weeks. The judge will meet with lawyers again tomorrow. In the meantime, the state will not be allowed to start the tax collection of Indian sales to non-Indians. The last time the state tried to enforce the taxes during Governor George Pataki’s Administration, violence broke out as tribes blocked the Thruway. The state says the tax collection is fair and will bring in 200-million dollars a year in revenue. Native American tribes have said the taxes violate their sovereignty.

Buffalo landmark restoration projects received extra help from the state. Governor David Paterson signed Assemblyman Sam Hoyt’s bill to amend historic rehabilitation tax credits on Tuesday. The bill will allow banks and insurance companies to use tax credits to help fund projects like the Lafayette and Statler hotel buildings restoration. City leaders have yet to say when the credits will be available for use.

Five Orleans County teens have been charged with disrupting a Muslim prayer service at a mosque. Authorities say the 17 and 18-year-olds from Holley honked their car horns and shouted obscenities outside the religious site in the Town of Carlton at about 11 p.m. Monday. The teens have been charged with disrupting the service at the World Sufl Foundation Mosque on Fuller Road. For one of the teens, police say it’s not the first attempt at disrupting a mosque. Investigators say 17-year-old Mark Vendetti, faces a gun possession charge for allegedly firing the weapon while trying to disrupt a mosque back on August 27th. He is behind bars on ten-thousand dollars bail.

A Niagara County judge is allowing a Niagara Falls couple accused in the death of one of their kids to visit with their other children. Prosecutors say 25-year-old Randy Colucci and 24-year-old Nicole Colucci have been allowed to have supervised visits with their other four children. The couple is charged with murder in connection with the death of their two-year-old daughter. Authorities say on March 30th, the two put a mattress weighed down by a television set on top of a playpen to keep the little girl from climbing out. She was found trapped between the guard rail and the mattress the next day. While the Colucci’s are allowed to visit with the other children, they must be supervised by a Child Protective Services supervisor and they must not talk about the court case with the kids. The two have been free on 75-thousand dollars bail since August 16th.

Buffalo police say a woman allegedly attacked a store worker over a refund she thought she deserved. Cops say it happened at the Masten Sales and Service on Masten Avenue Monday afternoon. Investigators say the woman began throwing things before she grabbed a coffee pot and smashed it against the wall. Authorities say the flying glass cut a worker. The male victim told police the woman broke the coffee machine and slammed another pot into his stomach. The investigation continues.

Police continue searching for a suspect in a shooting earlier this week which sent one man to the hospital. Cops say shots were fired Monday night just before 9 on Plymouth Avenue. Investigators say they found a shirt with blood on it and were searching for a possible victim. Police say a short time later the man arrived at Women and Children’s Hospital. The wound was said to be non-life threatening. Authorities say the man told officers he was walking in the area when a fight broke out and he was hit by gunfire.

Chasing a speeder left a state trooper and an SUV driver hospitalized on Tuesday. Officials say the trooper was traveling southbound on State Route 16 in Chaffee when he observed a 2010 Audi R8 going 20 miles over the speed limit. The trooper pursued the driver but collided with a Jeep Cherokee that made a left turn in front of it. The trooper and SUV driver sustained minor injuries from the accident. The driver that was speeding has yet to be found.

A Buffalo state Assemblyman may try and oust Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver from power. Mark Schroeder admits he would probably not come close in winning a bid for the Speakership but he says the political effort could focus attention on Western New York issues. Schroeder blames Silver’s opposition to giving the SUNY system more financial control of itself as one of the reasons for the retirement announcement from the University at Buffalo’s president. The Assemblyman says upstate New York has come up short under Silver’s leadership. Schroeder says he might mount a challenge during the Assembly session in January.

New York State is now the first in the nation to have a “Bill of Rights” for domestic workers. Governor David Paterson has signed the measure into law providing labor protections for the state’s 200-thousand nannies, housekeepers and elderly caregivers. The measure provides protections against verbal and physical abuse as well as mandates for overtime pay, three paid vacation days annually and limits to six day work weeks. The Governor says the new law rights the wrongs of the labor laws of the 1930s when he says these workers were left out based partially on racial discrimination. Advocates hope other states will follow with their own laws.

Two top state officials revealed what they’ve deemed as internal corruption in the state prison system. State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli and Inspector General Joseph Fisch released a report stating that the former state prison director, Howard Dean, wrongfully traded gifts and food for millions of dollars in state purchases. Dean was the focus of a report by DiNapoli and Fisch earlier in the year and both men likened Dean’s actions to extortion. The Oneida County district attorney’s office is reviewing the report to determine if they’ll file charges or not.

Health insurance aid is being offered to state workers taking the early retirement incentive. On Tuesday the state announced that 346-million-dollars worth of federal funds will go towards containing the health insurance costs for early incentive retirees aged 55 to 64. The funding will last until 2014 until recently passed health care reform is phased in.

An early morning fire in Blasdell sends three people to the hospital.

There has been some chatter around the Internet that the Bills are one of three teams that may be interested in trading for Matt Leinart.

The first report came from Adam Schefter Twitter account:
@Adam_Schefter: Three teams have discussed trading for QB Matt Leinart — Bills, Raiders, Giants. Now we wait to see if any pull trigger by this weekend.

Leinart has two years remaining on a six-year, $50.8 million deal and hasn’t had much time on the field in the past few seasons, as he’s been forced to watch on the sidelines as Kurt Warner lite up the scoreboard.

But before you panic about acquiring another QB that hasn’t proved anything yet in the league, Chris Brown of Inside The Bills quickly put this rumor to rest.

Buffalobills.com has confirmed that the Bills have not had any discussions with the Cardinals in regards to Matt Leinart and aren’t anticipating any in the future. The report is simply not true.

With all the preseason talk that Chan Gailey was happy with the QB’s the Bills currently have on their roster, it is definitely interesting to see the Bills linked to the first ‘disgruntled’ QB of the year. With an abundance of talented running backs in place, perhaps a RB/QB swap isn’t far off in the Bills future.

Buffalo City Grill Shooting Suspect Riccardo McCray

Riccardo M. McCray  has been indicted by a grand jury in the City Grill killings.

McCray faces one count of second-degree murder; three counts of first-degree murder; four counts of first-degree attempted murder; and one count of criminal possession of a weapon, second degree.

If convicted, he faces the possibility of life in prison without parole.

He will be arraigned later this morning.

The Buffalo Bills are set to take on the Detroit Lions Thursday night in what many deem a meaningless preseason finale.  Generally speaking, starters and players with defined roles rarely see more than a brief cameo as their respective teams look forward to the regular season; rendering the contest to most observers as worthless.
While the [...]

The man accused of killing four people and injuring another four at the City Grill on August 14th will be arraigned today on an indictment charging him in the incident.

Adam Schefter from ESPN reports this morning that the Buffalo Bills are one of three teams that have at least inquired about the possibility of trading for Arizona Cardinals quarterback Matt Leinart, who clearly has fallen out with the Cards.
According to his report, the other two teams that have expressed interest are the New York [...]

Sushi joints are spreading through WNY like wild fire. In the Elmwood Village, independent restaurants are popping up left and right, while in the suburbs Wasabis and Fuji Grills are taking over, one strip mall at a time. It once felt as though only a small segment of the population in Buffalo truly enjoyed sushi, or even understood what it was. It used to be that a sushi enthusiast was required to venture to Saki's or Kuni's, where now it is available at nearly every supermarket. Sellers of chicken wings and subs might want to mind the influx of little shops, as sushi seems to be Buffalo's new favorite 'to go' option.

So who do you think serves the best sushi, and why?

Amongst the sushi cognoscenti, there are a few defining factors that must be attended to when answering such a question. Few of our area sushi bars or Japanese restaurants use formal steps of service (for example, the distribution of warm hand towels, etc.) that are in keeping with tradition. Without the regimen of such gestures, Buffalonians (and probably others in different parts of the country as well) seem to have lost the ability to tell traditional sushi from American-style sushi--or maybe we never really understood that there was a difference to begin with. That being said, there are many traditionalists who would turn their nose up at a spicy tuna roll or a California roll, and for them, the more blurred the line is between traditional and contemporary would certainly be an important consideration when choosing a favorite sushi establishment.

I also think that there is no comparing--forgive me if you disagree--quick, cheap sushi with the luxury and edible reward of sitting down at a sushi bar to enjoy omakase prepared by an itamae. At the very least, my response to the question of who serves the best sushi in our area would leave me in a position where I would have to choose a favorite high-end place and a favorite casual place.

For some, an even better way to frame the question of favorite sushi locale might be to strictly examine fish quality, which is especially important in a place where our sushi chefs don't have direct access to the catch of the day.

So in many ways, this question is asked with the reader left to weigh-in based on what considerations are most important to them, and I like that. It helps us better understand your answers. Of course, this is an informal poll with no trophy awarded, and you do have to be a registered user to add your answer, but that only takes a moment.

To aid you in your effort, here is a list of known sushi outlets in the city and surrounding suburbs. I hope we got them all, but please be sure to tell us if we didn't. And, if you'd like to learn a little bit more about sushi, I highly recommend that you read this book (or at least peruse the website for some lesser known facts and pointers).

Bangkok Tokyo Bistro
Encore
Fuji Grill (Amherst)
Fuji Grill (Hamburg)
Ichiban
Kuni's
Kyoto
Lexington Co-op
Orchid Asian Bistro
Papaya
Sake Cafe
Sakura
Samurai Grill
SeaBar
Shogun
Tokyo Shangahi Bistro
Tops
Wasabi (Blasdell)
Wasabi (Elmwood)
Wasabi (Williamsville)
Wegmans

It's not about race, though . . .

A majority of Republicans polled believe that Obama sympathizes with those who would impose Sharia law.  No, seriously:

No matter what President Obama says about his religion, the debate over whether he is secretly Muslim continues to rage within the GOP. And a new poll finds that Republicans are now taking that rumor one step further. A Newsweek survey released Monday found that a majority of Republicans believe that Obama “sympathizes with the goals of Islamic fundamentalists who want to impose Islamic law around the world.”

According to the poll, 14 percent of Republicans said that from what they knew of Obama, they thought such allegations were “definitely true”; 38 percent thought the allegations were “probably true.” Meanwhile, 33 percent of Republicans thought they were “probably not true” and 7 percent thought they were “definitely not true.” Asked whether Obama favors the interests of Muslim Americans over other groups of Americans, 59 percent Republicans said yes, whereas 34 percent said he has “generally been evenhanded.”

Yes, this is the same Obama who is currently trying to destroy the Taliban — you know, those guys who imposed Sharia law on Afghanistan? — with such vigor that dead children and bombed wedding parties are acceptable collateral damage.

This kind of rightwing nuttiness is nothing new, of course.  Folks in the John Birch Society were sure that Eisenhower was actually a commie dupe, for example.  But those people were on the ideological fringe of the party.  They were a cadre of activists, not the majority.  The mainstream of today’s Republican Party is made up of the political descendants of those lunatic Birchers.  Not just the sad, embittered jerks who listen to Bauerle and Beck, but your everyday average Republican.

The majority.

Zack Kassian, I mean, Matt Leinart

(WECK 1230) — Could Matt Leinart be moving toward Hamburg instead of Hollywood?

Connecting the dots, if Pro Football Talk had a report that the Cardinals were interested in Arizona boy Ryan Fitzpatrick, and Adam Schefter is reporting that the Bills are looking into Matt Leinart, then they may have an edge on the other teams mentioning in Schefter’s report, the Raiders and the Giants.

Yet the reliable Chris Brown of BuffaloBills.com reports that Schefter’s report is erroneous, which genuinely means he’s been told such a thing. However, let’s assume the Bills are playing it close to the vest and proceed.

The trade makes more sense for the Buddy Nix’s Bills and the Giants than Oakland. Sure, the Raiders would be putting Leinart in his old USC haunt, but Jason Campbell is not only an investment they’ve made, but a more proven commodity. Out in New York, he’d be no more than insurance for Eli Manning, but the Giants have Jim Sorgi and Rhett Bomar backing up their prized quarterback. Would Leinart be better?

Forget better than Sorgi and Bomar, how about Edwards and Fitzpatrick. Sure, Leinart hasn’t ever been “handed the keys,” but numbers are numbers.

Edwards- 32G, 29GS*, 61.3 comp, 5498 yards, 24 TD, 25 INT, 77.9 rating

Fitzpatrick-28G, 24GS*, 57.8 comp, 4104 yards, 21 TD, 27 INT, 67.7 rating

Leinart – 29G, 15GS*, 57.1 comp, 3893 yards, 14 TD, 20 INT, 70.8 rating

*In our case, we used games of significance (GS) rather than games started, because Edwards coming in for J.P. Losman against the Patriots isn’t a game started, but he played a ton of it. The feeling is that will average out with the games in which a player is injured early.

There are reasons to try out Leinart, and reasons not to. One of the latter may be PR. Sure, the new guy in town is always a sexy move, but the first time he struggles you’ll see blue collar fans pointing out that when you do a Google Image search on the quarterback you’ll find way more pictures of Matt partying than Matt starting. Not only that, for some reason the media makes a bigger deal out of white athletes illegitimate children than other races, so you’ll hear a lot about Brynn Cameron and their child support woes/battle.

It does seem unfair that a guy that does this in his mid-twenties (which not many do)…

… gets more press for doing this in his mid-twenties (which many do).

Then again, Leinart’s only season with significant playing time was better than Edwards’ first campaign, so perhaps Chan Gailey can do something with the hunk. In two more games, Leinart threw for 900 more yards, four more touchdowns and four more interceptions.  Leinart has two years left on his rookie deal, which pays $5 million in each of the next two seasons, so there is more time to evaluate. Edwards, as well as Fitzpatrick and Brian Brohm, would be free agents after the season. A big issue regardless is that Leinart doesn’t have a super strong arm, and Ralph Wilson Stadium has super strong winds. Seems reason enough to avoid the move altogether.

So, I wouldn’t be totally against the move since this season is a “feeling out” situation in most fans’ minds. Although, if Gailey is really trying to give Edwards one more kick at the can, then it wouldn’t be right to shake up what is right now a perfectly content camp that No. 5 is their best option… at least from what we’ve heard so far.

Email: nickonweck@gmail.com

The preseason opponent Buffalo has seen more than any other in their history will be on the other sideline Thursday night as the Detroit Lions host the Bills for a 6:30 pm kickoff. This is the 29th...