Highbridge News: We Need Cops!

Highbridge News: We Need Cops!: Hey Blaz: We Need Cops! Too Many Shootings, Too Few Cops! COMMUNITY BOARD NEWS N’ VIEWS by Father Richard F. Gorm...

We Need Cops!

Hey Blaz: We Need Cops!

Too Many Shootings,

Too Few Cops!

COMMUNITY BOARD

NEWS N’ VIEWS

by

Father Richard F. Gorman

Chairman

Community Board #12 (The Bronx)

BRONX, NEW YORK, MAY 22- Our newly arrived Commanding Officer at the Forty-seventh Precinct, Deputy Inspector Raul R. Stephenson, is certainly receiving his “baptism by fire.” The number of shootings as of late has placed our Precinct in the top tier of shootings in our beloved Borough of The Bronx and the entire City of New York.

I trust that the good Deputy Inspector has not, and will not, become disheartened. I suspect not. Something tells me that he is fired up to make our numbers in this category go down and stay down. I can tell you that my colleagues and I on Community Board #12 (The Bronx) stand ready to support our Commanding Officer in any way that we can. I can tell you that one course of action for which the Community Board will be advocating will remain sizably increasing the number of Police

Officers in our Forty-seventh Precinct.

Traditionally, our local Precinct has been routinely short-changed when it comes to the assignment of new and/or additional Police Officers. In terms of territory required to be policed, the “4 – 7” ranks right near the top in our Borough. I hasten to add that the confines of the Precinct are by no means contiguous and compact. The Woodlawn Heights neighborhood juts out on the northwestern margins of Bronx Community District #12 and the Pelham community that includes that portion of The Bronx that bears a Pelham Manor / Westchester County Zip Code and that one must traverse through Westchester in order to access correspondingly hangs out like an appendage along the District’s northeastern boundaries. This geographical idiosyncrasy, with its nonconforming peculiarity, does not make for easy patrolling.

Add to this the fact that the population of Community Board #12 (The Bronx), thanks to the haphazard, pro-development-despite-the-detriment policies of the prior Municipal Administrations of Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, has substantially shifted upward and you have, in my humble estimation, a cogent and reasonable argument that more cops are called for in the “4 – 7,” and sooner rather than later. Nevertheless, One Police Plaza, “1 – P – P,” as it is affectionately called, the Headquarters of the New York City Police Department (N.Y.P.D.), stubbornly clings to the outdated and specious argument that the Precinct is adequately staffed by a sufficient number of cops.  Maddeningly, the powers-that-be at Police Headquarters cite alleged scientific and statistical support for this rather unscientific determination that totally and obviously ignores the aforesaid significant facts. They routinely allude to the rather mysterious and not-ever-to-be-faulted “RAND FORMULA” that supposed provides a systematic, precise and infallible methodology for assessing how many Police Officers are needed and justified in any given command.

“RAND FORMULA” be damned! Whatever it is, it does not suffice for our Forty-seventh Precinct. We genuinely and straight away need more Police Officers and we should not continue to be short-changed. A new Administration sits tall in the saddle at City Hall. It has promised to be more attentive to the needs and concerns of our neighborhoods.

Let it hear this concern of Community Board #12 (The Bronx) and be attentive to this need.  Mayor Bill de Blasio has promised and signaled that he is neither enamored nor bound to the priorities and approach of Administrations past. This issue of ours would be an excellent opportunity and venue to so demonstrate.

Our men and women in the Laconia Avenue stationhouse do an outstanding job protecting us day in and day out. It is about time that they got more help to do so. They deserve it . . . . . . and so do we! What do you say, Your Honor? May we have more cops . . . . . . PLEASE?!?!?

Until next time, that is it for this time!

Highbridge News: Bronx Week Parade

Highbridge News: Bronx Week Parade: See More Parade Photos: Click Here

Bronx Week Parade

See More Parade Photos:

Click Here

Highbridge News: Doubleheader

Highbridge News: Doubleheader: Yanks-Pirates Split Doubleheader By Howard Goldin BRONX, NEW YORK, MAY 19- For the first time in a decade, a single-admission ...

Doubleheader

Yanks-Pirates Split Doubleheader

By Howard Goldin

BRONX, NEW YORK, MAY 19- For the first time in a decade, a single-admission doubleheader was played in the Bronx. The last time Yankee fans in the Bronx could see two games in one day for the price of one was on September 29, 2004. A very large crowd of 46,858 took advantage of the fine weather to flock to Yankee Stadium on Sunday afternoon.

Game One

The Yanks continued their domination over the Pirates in the Bronx with a 4-3 win in game one of the twin-bill. The victory raised the Yankee mark to 8-0 in their inter league games played in the Bronx.

A first inning solo homer by Pirate second sacker Neil Walker was answered by three Yankee runs in the bottom of the inning. The first five Yankee batters reached base successfully. Brett Gardner walked. Derek Jeter followed with a single. Jacoby Ellsbury was hit by a pitch, which loaded the bases. Mark Teixeira drove in two runs with a single, which increased his hitting streak to eight straight games. The third run was knocked in by Brian McCann who singled. 

In the second, a single by Kelly Johnson, augmented by a stolen base and a throwing error by the Pirate catcher brought him to third. He was driven across the plate by Gardner’s double.

After the contest, Yankee starter Hiroki Kuroda explained the benefit of the early scoring of his teammates, “They gave me an early lead in the game [and] I was more aggressive.”

Fortunately for the Yanks, the four runs were sufficient for the win as the team’s sole offense after the second inning was a single by Zoilo Almonte in the fourth. He was the only one of the last 20 Yankee batters to reach base and he was picked off first. 

Kuroda earned his first winning decision since April 14. He yielded three runs, five hits and two walks in his six innings on the mound. 

Yankee relievers, Matt Daley, Matt Thornton, Adam Warren and David Robertson blanked Pittsburgh in the final three innings. Robertson earned his eighth save of the year by retiring the last four Pirate batters, three by strikeout. 

The two day, three-game visit to the Bronx was a home coming for Pedro Alvarez, the Pirate third baseman. Alvarez, a native of the Dominican Republic, lived in the area as a teenager and attended an academically prestigious school in the Bronx, Horace Mann, before enrolling at Vanderbilt University. In the stands supporting the Pirate clean-up batter in his first MLB games at Yankee Stadium were his parents, sister and other relatives and friends. 

Alvarez’s single in the fourth gave him a hit in 18 of his last 20 interleague games.

Game Two

Thirty minutes after the first game concluded, the second began.

The rare opportunity to be in a ballpark for seven hours may be more difficult for some than they would have realized. The length of time affected both the crowd in the stands and the players on the field. 

The vast majority of the crowd left the park early. The starting lineup for each team in each game was quite different. The sloppiness was more apparent than usual. Each team committed two errors in the second inning, which allowed runners to score. Two base runners were thrown out trying to stretch and a runner was picked off base. 

Each starter, Vidal Nuno for the Yankees and Garrit Cole for the Pirates, pitched effectively for six innings. Interestingly, Cole was originally drafted by the Yankees, but did not sign so he could attend college. 

In the seventh, Yankee reliever Alfredo Aceves gave up a home run to Josh Harrison, the first batter he faced. The homer broke a 3-3 tie to give Pittsburgh the lead and eventually the win. The Pirates scored an additional run, but the Yankees did not. 

The 5-3 win by the Pirates ended the Yankee Stadium winning streak over Pittsburgh in the Bronx.

Yankees

Five Yankee Home Runs Produce a 7-1 Victory over the Pirates

By Howard Goldin

BRONX, NEW YORK, MAY 18- Not since October 10, 1960, in the fifth game of that ill-fated World Series for New York have the Pittsburgh Pirates won a game at Yankee Stadium. The two teams have not again met in the World Series, but have competed against one another in interleague play.

The Yanks won all three games in the Bronx in 2005. The Pirates lost all three meetings at Yankee Stadium again in 2007. The Pirates returned to the Bronx this weekend and played at the new Stadium for the first time on Saturday afternoon. The 7-1 win by the Yankees was the seventh loss in a row by the Pirates in the Bronx.

The difference was the home run ball. All seven Yankee runs were scored via the home run and the Pirates only run also came by a four bagger. It was the first game in more than one year, April 29, 2013, that five different Yankee players hit home runs in the same game.

The Yankee offense began in the first frame as Derek Jeter singled to center with one out. The base hit was #3,350 for the Yankee captain. He now needs only 70 to pass Carl Yastrzemski for 7th place in MLB career rankings. The next batter, Mark Teixeira knocked in the first two runs of the game with his ninth homer of the season. It was the eighth in the last 17 games for the hot hitter. After the game, Yankee skipper Joe Girardi happily remarked, “It’s great having him back.”

Two innings later, Zoilo Almonte became the first of three Yankee batters to lead-off an inning with a home run. In his second game and second at bat of the year, the native of the Dominican Republic hit the first pitch he saw into the stands in right.

Brett Gardner began the Yankee sixth with his third homer of 2014. Alfonso Soriano led-off the seventh with a home run on a 1-1 pitch.

In the final go-around at the plate for the Yankees in the eighth, catcher Brian McCann hit a two-out homer with Gardner on base by a walk.

After the game, Teixeira, who started the home run attack, commented, “It’s good to see us break out today."

Girardi explained a baseball truism to reporters, so they could better understand the success of the team at home, “Our team is built for this park. You know you’re going to play 81 games here.”

The lead-off home run by Sterling Marte off reliever Dellin Betances in the sixth is the only run given up by Yankee pitchers in the last 27 innings.

With three of the Yankees five starting pitchers on the disabled list, Nova, Pineda and Sabathia, David Phelps was assigned his third start of the season, all in May. Phelps had a strange start but earned the win. In the first three innings, he didn’t surrender a hit, but walked three and hit a batsman. He gave up three hits in the fourth and two in the fifth, but no one crossed the plate.

The righty spoke about his performance. “It’s a really weird game when you throw 100 pitches in five innings and don’t give up a run. Mac [catcher Brian McCann] did a great job today keeping me in his glove.”

Girardi spoke more positively of the starter, “He made pitches when he had to. Our defense played pretty well behind him. We got him up to 100 pitches [his longest outing of the season]. We know he’ll continue to improve.”

The Yankees and Pirates will play a doubleheader on Sunday, starting at 1 pm. It is the first single admission doubleheader to be played at Yankee Stadium since September 29, 2004.