Gonzalez Gorges on 'Steaks' in San Diego

Maverick Mets announcer Keith Hernandez did not appear to make the trip to San Diego with the club this week, so we weren't treated to one of our better-liked baseball-slang terms in the past few days: the Rib-Eye Steak.

The Rib-Eye Steak is longhand for an RBI, which is of course shorthand for a Run Batted In. I think I first heard Hernandez--who I got to interview last year--mention Rib-Eye Steaks as RBIs toward the end of last season. (Of course, some baseball purists drop the 's' in the plural and use RBI to denote multiple runs batted in, as you don't say "runs batted ins".)

I googled the Rib-Eye Steak and RBI and found mostly steak recipes, some seemingly delicious, along with one relevant listing on baseball.wikia.com. It reads: RBI are sometimes referred to in slang as ribbies or ribs, or as steaks (as in 'rib eye steaks.')

The key middleman in this equation is the Ribbie: Ribbie of course is the phonetic pronunciation for RBI, and Rib-Eye Steak takes the "Rib" from Ribbie--sort of like God making a woman from a man's rib in the Book of Genesis--and stretches it out into a new and funny term.

The post-game spread is never far from players'--or announcers'--minds. Witness some of the more flavorful baseball lingo: as we learned in recent weeks, a string of shutouts is a bagel; a four-run homer, such as what 1st-sacker Adrian Gonzalez used to thwart the Mets last night; is a grand salami; an easily gloved pop-up is a can of corn;and a home run is a tater.

I probably should've written this post after lunch--now I'm starving.

Anyone know a place in midtown Manhattan that serves Rib-Eye Steaks on bagels?

[image: MetsToday.com]