Yesterday’s notice about the long-overdue return of the Red Hook ball field food vendors elicited comments from disgruntled eaters who were disappointed by the new carts, which limit the vendors’ cooking space and caused massive, hour-plus lines. Commenter sofabait seems to reflect a growing consensus that the new Health Department oversight has changed things for the worse: “The exhaust fumes from their constantly idling trucks totally killed my appetite. Not sure if that is better......

David Beckham returns to NYC area with the LA Galaxy to play the Red Bulls tonight....

New York pitching finally allowed the Giants to score, but the bats made up for it. Fernando Tatis put on a hitting show, providing two big hits in the game. With the Mets leading 1-0, Tatis hit a two-run double in the third. In the seventh, with the game tied at 3, Tatis hit a two-run homer to left that put the Mets back in front. ...

Yesterday's charity mini-soccer game, "Showdown in Chinatown," organized by NBA superstar Steve Nash turned out to be the hot (free) ticket. People were crowded almost a dozen people deep, standing on cars, and clinging to fences and poles to catch glimpses of NBA players like Jason Kidd, Leandro Barbosa, and Baron Davis and soccer players Claudio Reyna, Salomon Kalou, Robbie Fowler, Steve McManaman, Rob Jones, Jozy Altidore and Gregg Berhalter playing in Sara Roosevelt Park......

The Phoenix Suns' Steve Nash is organizing a mini-soccer match for charity today at 5 p.m. Billed the "Showdown in Chinatown" (the game is at Sara D. Roosevelt Park, at Chrystie and Stanton Streets), other professional athletes expected to attend are soccer players Thierry Henry and Claudio Reyna and the NBA's Jason Kidd, Baron Davis and David Lee, Leandro Barbosa and Raja Belland. And could Nash's former coach and current Knicks coach Mike D'Antoni stop......

Photo of Dutch fans in Basel, Switzerland, by Matt Dunham, AP The European Cup soccer tournament heads into the quarterfinals this weekend and it's shaping up to be one of the most exciting and highest-rated international tournaments in some time. For those who contend that soccer is too boring to watch, one should try watching it surrounded by football fanatics who can not only clue you in on the finer parts of the game,......

Yankees 8 Houston 4: So far, a trip to Houston seems just like what the Yankees needed. Down 3-0 early, New York stormed back to win the game. Alex Rodriguez got the Yankees onto the board with a home run to right that got some assistance from an Astros’ fan who got his glove in the way. Jose Molina provided a huge double in the third that gave New York a 5-3 lead. ...

Mets 3 Los Angeles 2: For seven innings it looked like the Mets would lose and Tim McCarver’s yammering about their lack of passion would come true. Inning after inning had passed and the Mets had blown several scoring opportunities, but the eighth inning proved to be a difference maker. Down 2-0, David Wright got things going with a double. Carlos Beltran followed with his fifth home run of the year, tying the game and......

Photograph of a fan in Denver by David Zalubowski/AP Rockies 4, Mets 1: The thin air of Denver will not be missed by the Mets. Sunday's loss was their second in three games there and their sixth in seven games overall. John Maine was inefficient, needing 121 pitches to scrape through six innings. Jose Reyes didn't help the cause by committing an error on a double-play ball that preceded a Seth Smith three-run homer,......

Yankees 5 Detroit 2: It’s only two starts, but Darrell Rasner has given the Yankees exactly what they needed, quality pitching. Rasner was impressive on Saturday, holding one of the more dangerous lineups in the league to only two runs and four hits over six innings. Most importantly, he didn’t beat himself, issuing only one walk. Derek Jeter got things going with a solo shot in the first and was one of five different Yankees......

Mets 4 Phillies 2: The Mets pulled out the win thanks to a home run by Jose Reyes and some nifty relief work from Aaron Heilman. Heilman came in with the bases loaded and only one out in the eighth and allowed only one run to give the Mets a 4-2 margin heading into the ninth. Billy Wagner took things from there with a perfect ninth. David Wright had 2 RBI’s and 2 hits in......

Tampa 6 Yankees 3: After five games the biggest question in Yankeeland is what happened to the offense? 15 runs scored in five games is not what anyone expected from this team, but that’s where the Yankees stand thanks to some anemic hitting. It’s a collective slump with every regular not named Abreu, Rodriguez or Cabrera struggling. Some of the noteworthy failures right now are Jason Giambi is 1-for-12 (.083) Johnny Damon 2-for-18 (.111) and......

The New York Red Bulls open their season with a lot of questions. The biggest is how long will Jozy Altidore remain with the team? Altidore, who has an impressive blogging gig, is probably going to be the subject of intense bidding among European clubs sometime this summer. Altidore’s departure would put a big dent in the playoff hopes of Juan Carlos Osorio”s squad, but there are other stars who could fill that void. Juan......

ESPN International’s Tommy Smyth is an International soccer analyst and New Yorker by way of County Louth, Ireland. Today, Smyth will serve as the 247th Grand Marshal of the St. Patrick's Day Parade and become the first Grand Marshal to march with his native contingency. Tommy has called Irish football games for years and years in Gaelic Park (Bronx), along with Irish dances for that matter. He calls himself "a New Yorker with an Irish......

Rangers 2, Devils 1 (SO): Petr Prucha did enough to finally earn a second "E" for his name. He set up the only goal in regulation and scored the only goal in the shootout. Scott Gomez struck against his former club. The Rangers had other chances, including Chris Drury's breakaway in overtime, so this win helped them sleep better at night. Islands 3, Penguins 2: This could have been a Pyhrric victory. Rick DiPietro got......

Standing at just under 2 feet tall on a "tower" display stand, and containing around 800 pages -- there's a new book in town! And it's not going to fit in many people's apartments. The pages contain 1200 photographs that capture the city, including shots from Henri Cartier-Bresson and Annie Leibowitz. As an accompaniment to the visuals there's written word provided by folks like EB White, John Updike and Tom Wolfe. While there's no price......

The Giants are fortunate that Sunday’s game will be played in London. Fortunate because the venue should help them avoid taking the week off against a team that has nothing going for it. The Dolphins are winless and last week lost their best offensive player, Ronnie Brown, for the season. Brown’s injury came two weeks after the Dolphins lost their starting quarterback for the year and to make matters worse, one of their top......

Maroon 5 Not Terrible Anymore, Played MSG We're sure to take a bunch of flack about this, but bear with us for a sec. Maroon 5? Not so bad. In fact, at least judging by the first two singles off their latest album, they've moved past the tasteless soccer-mom rock into a legitimately perverted cocaine-sex territory (Exhibit 1: Their amazingly over the top video for 'Wake Up Call'). And that's a good thing. Combine that......

IIndians 12, Yankees 3: Well, that didn't go as planned. Chien-Ming Wang didn't have his sinker, gave up a ton of two-out and two-strike hits, and the Yankees got buried. Their patient bats wore out C.C. Sabathia, but they only got three runs for their efforts against him, and that wasn't nearly enough given the way Wang pitched. Then they stunk up the joint against the Indians bullpen, but by them the game was......

September 15 & 16: Party at the Red Hook Ballfields Celebrate the extension of the vendors' permit through the end of their season in October and add on extra festivities for Mexican and Central American Independence Day. Caesar Fuentes, the organizing force behind the vendors, promises that "the food vendors committee will host a livelier than usual weekend event - more soccer games, pinatas, music, and a 2 day art exhibit featuring photographs taken by......

Mets 4, Dodgers 3: The performance of the Mets bullpen and of Carlos Delgado haven't exactly inspired fear recently, so when Orlando Hernandez pitched deep into the game and Delgado actually hit, things were going pretty well. Hernandez threw for 7 great innings, allowing only 2 runs by the Dodgers and retired 12-straight at one point. Delgado used the game to break out of a 0-19 slump at the plate. Dropped all the way down......

Yankees 8 Angels 2: Don’t let the final score fool you, this was a much closer game. The Yankees scored in the fourth and the Angels scored in the sixth to make it 1-1 heading into the seventh. That’s where the starting pitching diverged. Andy Pettitte continued his brilliance while John Lackey ran into trouble. New York scored twice in the seventh and four-times in the eighth to blow the game open. The win moved......

Red Bulls 5, Galaxy 4: Giants Stadium fills up for plenty of events, but Red Bulls games don't usually rank among those. Saturday's did, if only because David Beckham's Los Angeles Galaxy was in town. Those fans, who were there for Beckham and not the Galaxy, found another rare treat: goals in a Major League Soccer game. Soccer doesn't need frequent scores to be exciting, but the rare 5-4 game never hurt anyone. Not......

British tabloid mainstay, fashion icon, and fabled footballer David Beckham will make his first appearance in New York City today since the former captain of England's national team started playing with the Los Angeles Galaxy. He is spending the afternoon in Harlem coaching the 33 teenage members of the FC Harlem Lions, intending to highlight the need for more soccer fields in the neighborhood. Tomorrow the captain of the Galaxy will take the field......

Londonist are starting to think their city is getting just a little bit too expensive, when even Christian Slater can't afford to go out there. And there's no escaping, as local singer Lily Allen discovered when she was barred entry to the US. The British mapping agency caused further bad karma, by blocking a 3-D representation of London in Google Earth. But the smiles returned to Londonist's faces as they interviewed Baroness von Reichardt,......

Major League Baseball really wants the public to get excited for the post-season, so it has created an Actober promotion, which has the slogan "You're a fan. Act like one!" Actober, which has been up since the All-Star game, is mainly a contest to encourage fans to "create and submit the best original video that reenacts a famous Major League Baseball postseason moment" and fans will vote on their favorite. The three winners will......

Banner week for SFist as the site's new editor introduced himself -- hooray for Brock! While the NY Times weighed in on SF's mayoral race, only SFist had the (insert tongue firmly into cheek) hard-hitting latest on candidate/activist Josh Wolf. Coverage of a protest vs. gentrification spawned a fantastic debate amongst SFist's readers. Finally, from the sublime to the ridiculous: video of a man that confused a Board of Supes meeting with "open mic......

Yankees 7 Minnesota 6: The Yankees showed some grit Thursday, overcoming another lousy start from Kei Igawa and a lack of clutch-hitting to get the win. Things looked great in the first couple of innings as New York rebounded from a two-run deficit take a 5-2 lead thanks to home runs from Cano and Cabrera. But, Igawa was awful again, giving the lead back in the fourth by allowing three runs to score with two......

New York's own floating pool is opening tomorrow! The concept was that of Ann Buttenwieser, founder of the Neptune Foundation and a former manager of City Parks. The water on water can be found at Brooklyn Bridge Park, it's free and open from 11am to 7pm (the beach is open from 9am to 9pm) - seven days a week. The park's website tells us how to have fun whether you're floating or land-bound: "Take a......

Oakland 7 Yankees 0: Not only did the Yankees lose on Saturday, but they managed only a single hit in the game, Johnny Damon’s single to center in the sixth. Apart from that, they were totally embarrassed, giving a half-assed performance in another utterly forgettable game in an utterly forgettable season. The Yankees’ offense is completely off the tracks and it won’t matter what trade they make if players like Damon, Abreu, Cano and......