Adam Rosales signs with the A's

Adam Rosales is a capable middle infield-utility type player. Through his career, he has posted a pedestrian .227 batting average with an OPS of .665. He's an OK fielder with flexibility across several different positions. He's reaching his mid-30s at this point, so this is a depth move, and perhaps one to bring in a veteran voice to the turbulent Oakland A's clubhouse.
Oh, and also, Adam Rosales gets moved to the A's all the time.

This is the third time Rosales has been added by Oakland. It's just a matter of time until he ends up with the Rangers again. Hopefully the A's never leave Oakland, otherwise Adam Rosales won't know where home is.

The war with the snooze button

For some reason, in the last few days, I've heard a pair of debates regarding the snooze button, once on local radio station MyTalk, and one among coworkers at Real Job Inc. There are two sides to this debate, if you have never been involved in it. Half of the populace enjoys hitting the snooze once or twice, and those that can't figure out why you would do that. Just get up when it goes off! Better yet, set the alarm 9 minutes later.
I'll admit that I'm team "no snooze" but that might be because of how my life has gone. I never needed one at my last job, because I had a shift that started at 2pm, and simply woke up whenever I felt like it. Now, I have two dogs that get up with my early rising wife, and I'm up when they come back from their walk. I don't have a choice.
But I can definitely understand the other side of the argument as well. The most common response is that it just takes the person in question a while to wake up. I will say that there is no better feeling than waking up, looking at the clock and realizing you still have 20 minutes left. Maybe my inability to be cheery in the morning stems from the fact that I wake up too darn fast.
Of course, my wife is also a "no snoozer" and she is irrepressibly chipper in the early morning. And then there is the science, that says it's just better for you to just get up. Set the alarm later, if you are going to stay in bed for an extra 20 minutes every day. So what do you think? How does your day start?

News and Notes from across the internet

This isn't going to be a daily feature here at the revitalized Rhino and Compass, but here are a few quick items from around the World Wide Web that intrigue me but aren't enough to write a post about.

The FA Cup replays were today. Sutton United and Lincoln City were the two lower tier teams with limited historical success that made it through to the next round. It's been 41 years since Lincoln City made it this far. 

The MLB Hall of Fame voting results are officially going to be announced tomorrow. It looks like Jeff Bagwell and Tim Raines are definitely in, while Pudge Rodriguez will be close. Some of the more controversial candidates will be close enough to remain on the ballot, to be considered again next year. 

Edinson Volquez' brother, Brandy, was stabbed to death in the Dominican Republic on Monday. Volquez tragically lost his father shortly before he started Game 1 of the 2015 World Series, so this is another terrible time for the pitcher, who has signed with Miami over the offseason. 

One of the trades the White Sox made this offseason was the one that sent Chris Sale to Boston. Part of their return was Michael Kopech, who just hit 110mph on the gun. Yikes.

Minnesota United continues to build their team in preparation for their MLS debut in a couple of March. The Superdraft just concluded, and they grabbed 4 new players, including the first pick in the draft, Abu Danladi, a forward. 

The Timberwolves aren't even as close to as good as they were supposed to be. As a result, they feel comfortable paring down the roster mid-season as they look to the future. Ricky Rubio and Shabazz Muhammad appear to be on the block. 

The Cubs won the World Series, so before the President from Chicago left the White House, they had to go visit him. Of course, Obama is a Sox fan, so it was probably just to rub it in.

The game between Siena and Rider got testy, and Rider declined to do the post game hand shakes. That didn't stop Siena coach Jimmy Patsos from trying to be sportsmanlike. 

This is how good Kansas is

Kansas State is ranked number 24 or 25 in the country, depending on the poll that you subscribe to. They jumped into the polls for the first time this season. What were the results that pushed them over the edge?

That's right, last week, the Wildcats won at home against the unsurpassed worst team in the Big 12, but was ranked on the back of their road loss to Kansas. Not many teams can cause their opponents to move up in the rankings by beating them, but the Jayhawks have that effect.

Minnesota moves to the big time

That was quite the roller coaster the Minnesota Gophers took us on, wasn't it? First, there was the suspension of 10 players, and the resulting protest. The players realized quickly the error of their ways, but not before they left their coach out to dry. Tracy Claeys was terminated, and the University hired Western Michgan's PJ Fleck.
The Minnesota Golden Gophers hired a coach coming off of a berth in a BCS game. The University of Minnesota hired the most sought after coach of the offseason. How in the heck did that happen??
There are two factors, even though they weren't necessarily working in concert. First was the stability Jerry Kill brought to the program. Whether or not you are pleased with how Kill backed his way into bowl games in order to earn extra practices, or didn't appreciate Claeys' play calling and low energy, you must admit that the Gophers are no longer a laughing stock. They are a competitive team in one of the top conferences in the country.
Then, there is the school itself. Finally, after so many coaches have come and gone, and so many people (nobody louder than Tubby Smith) clamored for the help, the U is investing in their athletics program. They have a huge student body, a great alumni association and no competition in state. They finally decided to lean on their advantages. New AD Mark Coyle seems to have convinced the administration that they can make a lot of money on their football team if they finally decided to invest in it. They've always been able to afford it.
I have to believe that Coyle and the administration knew that Fleck would be interested in the position before Claeys was let go. It's pretty gutsy to get rid of a coach who just won 9 games, and it takes some moxie to assume the top choice for the job will take it. The only way that it make sense to have that attitude is if you are a top flight program. I never would have believed it even a couple of years ago, but it appears that the University of Minnesota has forced their way into the upper crust.

Step number 3 is on the court

mattclapp: KU ONIONS ESPN 2 NFL Live https://t.co/g9YVDmaHVW pic.twitter.com/lNg6yBrcBv

— FanSportsClips (@FanSportsClips) January 4, 2017

There are two incredible things about this video that go beyond the missed call.

1)      There is a human being on planet earth named Svi Mykhailiuk

2)      He made the danged shot

The path to a better Reuben

The Reuben has its roots in a Jewish-American delicatessen, no matter the telling of its origin. It didn’t come from the biblical character Reuben, nor the tribe that bore his name, but rather a man, owning one deli or another in New York or Omaha, who had the sandwich named after himself, or the deli he worked in.

The name of a sandwich is one of those things best left to the Food Network to discern. It’s mostly folklore and local pride that dictates which story is out there to believe. I’m a man who loves sandwiches, though, and I don’t care who invented them, so long as I can get the best version of the sandwich possible.

 The various components of a Reuben, when constructed properly, are actually quite healthy for the digestive tract. Rye bread, Swiss cheese and sauerkraut are all alive with probiotics. The other two components, corned beef and Russian dressing may be lacking in the health department, though they do provide much of the flavor.

All combined, they produce a deli favorite. I am of the opinion that a system, like a batting order, a production line or even a sandwich, is only as strong as its weakest part. With that in mind, what is the best Reuben we can make?

Bread

Rye bread, aside from being the nickname of every Ryan the world over, is a low gluten, high protein alternative to the traditional slice. It is common in Scandinavia, and is often mixed with wheat in the baking process. Rye doesn’t rise like traditional breads, and mixing in an alternative flour is a way to make an attractive loaf.
Russian dressing is based on a blend of mayonnaise and ketchup, seasoned with, perhaps horseradish or hot sauce. Depending on what you mix with the ketchup and mayo, it could end up as Thousand Island, if that gives you an idea where we are going.
Kraut seems like one of those things one makes fun of for being awful. At least, that was my experience. My grandfather made his own sauerkraut in the basement of their home on the leak, and it smelled worse than the fish cleaning cabin. That’s MY experience with sauerkraut, as it is with my cousins. I’m sure that most others in the world view it more positively.
Despite having "Swiss" in the name, there isn't much Swiss about Swiss cheese. It was invented in the United States and called such because it looks like Emmental, which actually is Swiss. At least it's modeled after something Swiss, which makes it truer to its name than Russian dressing.
Finally, here we are at the literal meat of the matter. Corned beef is not named after corn at all. Instead, it is kind of like the world’s first Spam. The “corn” in the name likely refers to the large salt granules used in the preservation process. Corned beef was brined and preserved for shipment overseas, turning corned beef into one of the first mass produced lunch meats.

That said, all rye flour makes pumpernickel, and Reubens aren’t generally made with pumpernickel. There are a lot of ways to make rye bread, and we will want to make sure we aren’t veering too far towards wheat bread. There are often seeds or other foreign bodies added to rye in order to give texture or accentuate the existing flavor.

There aren’t a lot of surveys as to the best rye bread in America, but there is one. Saveur, a food and travel blog, points to the rye from Zingerman’s in Ann Arbor, Michigan as having the best deli rye, thanks to a crisp surface and punctuated with caraway and caramelized onions. In fact, Zingerman’s uses their bread on a housemade sandwich that includes Russian dressing. It sounds like we have our bread.

Russian Dressing

It’s tough to call any mayo-ketchup blend better than another, thought we can account for what is mixed in with those primary ingredients. Martha Stewart has a fairly tame version of the sauce, with only pickle relish, a dash of lemon juice and Worcestershire sauce, with a sprinkle of salt and pepper. This won’t get in the way of the other strong flavors in the sandwich.

Sauerkraut

I'm not entirely sure how anyone boiled cabbage, pickled it, smelled it and still decided it would be good for eating. It is just cabbage, though, and the fermentation process brings out some of the probiotic elements of the food. Intentional or not, sauerkraut is mostly good for you, even if it sounds like something you would eat on a dare.

Most research I have found says that authentic German sauerkraut is the best, but when you look at recipes for it, one of the elements of making authentic German sauerkraut is to remove the kraut from the jar. I know my grandfather, rest his soul, made it from scratch. I have the still singed nose hair to prove it. Lets compromise and say that the best kraut is from an authentic German market, which you would likely find in rural middle-America. Failing that, Kuhne barrel sauerkraut gets good reviews.

Swiss Cheese

The cheese, like sauerkraut, undergoes a fermentation process, in which the bacteria naturally endemic to cheeses consumes the lactic acid, which release gasses like carbon dioxide, which in turn cause bubbles late in the manufacturing process. When sliced, those bubbles look like holes.

The longer cheese is allowed to ferment, the larger the holes become, so you might think that the best cheeses are the ones with giant holes. Those don’t exist, though, not anymore. The federal government actually restricts the size of the holes, which is probably not a bad thing for a couple of reasons. First, the large holes don’t slice in industrial slicers, and second, you migght end up with a bunch of holes on your sandwich, instead of cheese.

The reason that the hole restriction is in place is that there is a theory, so far bearing itself out, that the bubbles initiate around imperfections and particles. Be grateful that the cheese is cleaner, but be sad about the reduced fermentation time. Unless you go to Switzerland, you aren’t going to find anything as pungent as Emmental in America any more. Choose your favorite deli sliced cheese, because the government caps how delicious it can be.

Corned Beef

There are two different styles, a richer Jewish variety, and a more briny Irish variety. For the purposes of a Reuben, there are two solid reasons to opt for Jewish style corned beef. First, regardless of the story behind the Reuben’s invention, it was created in a Jewish deli. Second, sauerkraut on rye with briny meat sounds unpalatable.

Regardless of the variety of corned beef, USA Today insists that the Detroit area is a hotbed of quality corned beef. For some reason, all the best components for a Reuben seem to be found in Lower Michigan. If you want the very best of this American staple, it sounds like you might just want to head to the Wolverine State