Indian Movie Three Brothers

[Isabella Kells]

Justweeks after signing B.J. Upton, the Braves traded for his brother, Justin. As anyone who remembers my fawning over Justin Upton in November already knows, I'm something of an Upton groupie, so my initial reaction was jealousy. When you factor in that I've also got something of a crush on Jason Heyward (we Jasons have to stick together), clearly I'm quite taken with Atlanta's new outfield, which I think is probably the second-best in baseball now, after only Anaheim.

Last August both Upton brothers hit their 100th career home run on the same night, a pretty neat coincidence (and quite a night for Mother Upton, I'm sure). At the time, I wrote about where the Uptons ranked among all the siblings in MLB history. There are a lot of impressive families on that list, and I don't think the Uptons have done enough to even crack the top twenty yet. Now that they're teammates though, they join a more exclusive list.

According to Baseball-Almanac (and my own counting skills) since the National League began play in 1876 there have been 100 sets of brothers that played as teammates, on Opening Day the Uptons will become the 101st. I thought it would be fun to pick out some tidbits of information about those who've played on the same team as their brother(s) and then rank the brothers who played together for the Indians.

* The Alou, Cruz, and Wright families are the only in history to have three brothers play as teammates at the same time. George, Harry, and Sam were all together on the 1876 Boston Red Stockings (they eventually became the Braves), Hector, Jose, and Tommy Cruz were on the 1973 St. Louis Cardinals, and Felipe, Jesus, and Matty Alou were all teammates on the 1963 San Francisco Giants.

* Arthur and John Irwin, Roberto and Sandy Alomar, and Lloyd and Paul Waner are the only brothers to play as teammates on three different teams. The Irwins spent one season together with the Worcester Ruby Legs, one with the Washington Senators, and one with the Boston Red Stockings. The Alomars spent time together on the Padres, Indians, and White Sox. The Waners spent most of their careers as teammates on the Pirates, but also played together on the Braves and Dodgers.

* The Braves have had the most sets of brothers, with 9 (the Uptons will be #10). The Pirates have had 8 different sets and the Cardinals have had 7. The Giants have had 6 sets, including the Alou trio. The Athletics lead the American League with 6 different sets.

* There have been 137 seasons since the National League was organized in 1876 (the American League dates to 1901). There has been at least one set of brothers playing as teammates in 112 of those 137 years. The longest streak of such years was from 1911 to 1945, 35 straight seasons with sibling-teammates. From 1957 to 1965 there were at least two sets of brothers playing as teammates. The longest stretches without any brothers playing together lasted just three seasons, first from 1899 to 1901 and then again from 1949 to 1951.

* In 1884 there were six sets of brothers playing as teammates, which is the most ever: Dan and Dennis Casey, Larry and Mike Corcoran, Bill and Ed Dugan, Barney and Frank McLaughlin, Jimmy and Lou Say, and Fleet and Welday Walker.

* Lloyd and Paul Waner played together for a record 16 seasons. Joe and Luke Sewell were teammates in 10 seasons, while Hank and Tommie Aaron, Mort and Walker Cooper, and Billy and Cal Ripken were all together in 7 different seasons.

*Lloyd and Paul Waner are the only brothers to play as teammates and both be inducted to the Baseball Hall of Fame as players (George and Harry Wright were both inducted, but Harry was inducted as a manager).

* All told there have been 19 players inducted to the Hall of Fame as players who spent time during their career playing with their brother(s): Hank Aaron, Roberto Alomar, George Brett, Fred Clarke, Dizzy Dean, Ed Delahanty, Buck Ewing, Rick Ferrell, Tony Gwynn, Barry Larkin, Christy Mathewson, Phil Niekro, Gaylord Perry, Cal Ripken, Joe Sewell, Lloyd Waner, Paul Waner, Zack Wheat, and George Wright (Tom Glavine, Vladimir Guerrero, and Pedro Martinez all stand a good chance of joining that list in the next 5-10 years).

2) Roberto and Sandy Alomar (1999-2000) - Sandy played catcher for the Indians from 1990 to 2000. Roberto was the Tribe's second baseman from 1999 to 2001, so they were together on the team for two full seasons. During 1999 and 2000, Sandy played just 134 games, but was still a league-average hitter, as catchers go. Roberto's time in Cleveland was arguably the peak of his career. In the two years he played with his brother, Roberto had an OPS of .903, played in two All-Star Games, won two Gold Gloves and two Silver Sluggers, and finished 3rd in the 1999 A.L. MVP voting.

1) Joe and Luke Sewell (1921-1930) - Joe began his career in 1920 with the Indians and played for them through 1930. Luke's career began a year later, also with Cleveland. They were teammates for ten years. From 1921 to 1930 Luke (a catcher) played in 767 games. While said to be a solid defender, he couldn't hit a lick. His line for those years was .259/.315/.335, good for an OPS+ of 67 (his career OPS+ of 70 is 15th worst in history among non-pitchers with 5,000+ PA). Joe, on the other hand, was the best shortstop in baseball during the 1920s, worth an average of more than four WAR a season during the years he played with Luke. He finished in the top ten of the MVP voting four times and his career OBP of .391 is third-best in history among shortstops. Joe's stellar play and he and Luke's long tenure as teammates makes them an easy choice for the top spot on this list.

Lynne Rossetto Kasper: I lost count quite a while ago of all the books you've written. You've talked about vegetarian eating before. What brought you back to the subject with this one?

Madhur Jaffrey: There are so many vegetarian foods that I don't know in India. I don't know India. People call me the great expert on India. Nobody can be an expert on Indian food because it's such a large country. Every time you go into a little crevice of India, you find a new cuisine, new dishes.

I thought, "This time I'm just going to go around all of India, as much of India as I can, all the nooks and crannies that I've heard about but have not visited, and see what good things are lurking."

This time I thought, "I'm not going to fly everywhere. I'm going to go by car. Anything that looks good on the road, I'm going to jump out, taste it and write about it. How are people eating vegetarian food? Who is eating it? How do they serve themselves? How do they eat lunch? If they're working, do they eat in their workplace? Do they go home? And if you're in an ashram and serving vegetarian Indian food in India, what do you serve? Is there a philosophy behind what you're serving?"

MJ: For example, I was in an area in southwestern India in the mountains, which are very tropical. They grow coffee in this area; they grow black pepper in this area; they have excellent honey in this area. It's very forested, this particular area. In the monsoon season, which is in the summer, it rains for about four months, so they can't really go about too much. They have to eat what they can forage.

What kind of recipes come out of this? Wonderful mushroom recipes. They have mushrooms growing in the rainy season that are as large as dinner plates and as tiny as little dots. They carpet the floor, they're on the boughs of trees, they grow on trunks of trees. They're everywhere.

People do different things with the different mushrooms. The very large mushrooms they grill and have with a very light seasoning, almost like a little salsa. The smaller mushrooms they make into different kinds of curries. For example, there's a wonderful curry with coconut milk. It is so easy to make. It doesn't require many ingredients. You can have it in the Indian way with rice or whatever, but you can also have it on toast.

There are other ways that are not fully Indian. You don't have to go the full Indian route and make a full Indian meal. You can keep your meal very simple, and that's fine. That's absolutely fine. I try and encourage people not to feel that they have to make a complete Indian meal all the time. Just use some things from the book to add to whatever you're eating.

MJ: They're very simple spices like turmeric. Turmeric is that yellow spice that comes from a rhizome. Turmeric and all spices in India are used medicinally as well as for taste. Turmeric is an antiseptic. It's a very good spice to know about because it's an antiseptic inside the body and outside the body. You can even rub it on a cut and it will heal the cut.

We put turmeric, you can rub a little chili powder, you can rub a little cumin or coriander on the mushrooms and then set them aside. Then just cook it very simply in the coconut sauce. It's really a simple dish.

MJ: There are actually three brothers, and they work together. In India what we call joint families stay joined at the hip. The families either live together or work together, and have their lives together. There are three brothers, then their wives and children will be together a lot of the time, sometimes in the same building.

What these brothers do is they run this jewelry shop in the Taj hotel. They run them together, but they meet for lunch. What they do in the shop is they have a big display case and they will just clear it off. They'll put a tablecloth on it, then food is sent from home, which the wives cook. It is taken out of tiffin carriers, put on display on the case, and you get knives, forks and plates. They sit down and eat on either side of the display case and talk about their day.

They're vegetarians. They would have some kind of bean dish. They would have lovely, Indian whole wheat flat breads like tortillas (we call them chapatis). The bean could be a chickpea dish. Then they would have a nice vegetable dish, which could be spinach or some other green. Sometimes they use newfangled things like soya grains to make a dish. They will put it all together and have it with water. The drink is always water. It could be buttermilk, but that's it. You don't go beyond water or buttermilk. No wine, nothing like that. Then they sit together and eat.

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