Bronx

NEW YORK - Arthur Avenue in the Bronx is the kind of place where you might be bribed with a cannoli. Many years ago, my father, a teacher, was begged by a student not to tell his parents he'd been caught fighting. "I'll bring you a box of cannolis every Friday," promised the student, who worked at a pastry shop in this old-school Italian American enclave. My dad did not accept the cannolis. But as a kid growing up in nearby suburbs, I often had treats from Arthur Avenue that he brought home.

With Danny Almonte - perhaps the hottest name in baseball - on the mound, the Rolando Paulino team from the Bronx, N.Y., has captured the imagination of the Little League World Series in South Williamsport, Pa. But rumors continue to swirl about Almonte and his teammates, accusing them of being too old to play Little League and of living outside their team's district. "What can I do?" exasperated manager Alberto Gonzalez asked yesterday, a day before his team faces Apopka, Fla., for the U.S. championship.

Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and the New York Yankees yesterday denied a report that team owner George Steinbrenner has told the mayor the club will leave the Bronx. "I wasn't formally notified, I wasn't informally notified," Giuliani said last night. "It wasn't hinted or suggested. " The New York Observer, a weekly newspaper that concentrates on local real estate and the arts, yesterday released a copy of a story it will publish tomorrow. The paper said Steinbrenner faxed a letter to City Hall on Jan. 12 formally notifying Giuliani the Yankees "will definitely abandon the Bronx for a new home, possibly in New Jersey.

A strip of old flypaper, pale yellow and thickly crusted with dead flies, hung from the ceiling of the cramped room. The people in the room in the Bronx saw flypaper. "Flies are not all that we have here," Elsie Ortiz said. "Rata," a boy with huge eyes said. Rats. This caused the others in the room, and there were many of them, to laugh. This was in an apartment in the Bronx the other day, which looked out onto vacant buildings and an empty lot. The kid with big eyes sat on a box. He had on a gray shirt and pants.

The algebra teacher who has failed one too many students walks along a street in the Bronx. Suddenly, an arrow thuds into his back and he falls lifeless to the ground. Contemplating this homicide, a world-weary cop notes that there used to be Indians in the Bronx. His partner wants to know what happened to them. "The neighborhood changed," he replies. Add to this the case of the dead penguin, and a Saint Bernard who's a better detective than the real cops, then blend in what can only be called an affectionate melodrama and you have Five Corners.

The New York Yankees are close to reaching an agreement with city and state governments to build a new stadium, the New York Daily News reported yesterday. Citing unnamed sources, the newspaper reported that lawyers from the city, state and team are completing a "memorandum of understanding" and that an announcement is expected around May 1. "We're working very closely with the city and the state and trying to finalize our current plan," Yankees president Randy Levine told the Daily News.

I Like It Like That brought Darnell Martin back to the downtrodden Bronx streets where she used to live to shoot her first feature. Martin's skills as a filmmaker are obvious, if a little raw around the edges, but her gift for dialogue is already finely tuned. She writes lines that pulse and, above all, she knows when to pull back and recognize that words are sometimes superfluous: Lisette Linares, young Latino mother, eking out an existence that has gone from hand-to-mouth to outright desperate when her husband is imprisoned, confronts her son. He is just 8 years old but already feeling the powerful lure of gangs and peer pressure.

From the beginning, this was where the big baseball highway always seemed to be pointing the New York Yankees: Toward an off-ramp into October paradise. Toward another World Series at Yankee Stadium. And last night, they reached their inevitable destination with a 9-5 victory over the Cleveland Indians on a quirky, drizzly, electrified evening in the Bronx. That finished off the Indians in six games in the American League Championship Series. And it will bring the World Series to baseball's ultimate cathedral for the 35th time.

Those who thought the Rolando Paulino team from the Bronx was a one-man show got their answer yesterday. Luilly Vinas pitched a three-hitter as the New York team beat Davenport (Iowa) East, 7-4, at the Little League World Series. In other games, Mexico defeated Canada, 6-5; Brownsburg (Ind.) edged Oceanside (Calif.), 2-1; South Lake Charles (La.), topped Lincoln (R.I.), 5-2; Guam beat Russia, 5-0; and Panama defeated Japan, 6-1. Vinas' effort followed Danny Almonte's perfect game in the Bronx's opener against Apopka, Fla. Tommy Guzman hit a two-run double, and Rolando Torres hit a two-run homer in the fourth inning for the Bronx, and Vinas, who was perfect in the first three innings, struck out all three Iowa batters in the sixth to secure the win. The outburst was a surprise to Davenport East manager Matt Kolar, who had pictured the Bronx as a defensive team.

If there's one thing Rudy Giuliani fears, it's becoming the mayor who lost the New York Yankees to New Jersey. And if there's one thing Yankees owner George Steinbrenner wants to avoid, it's going down in history as the most loathed man in New York City. Add to this equation the fact that almost every Yankees fan wants the team to stay in its historic ballpark in the Bronx, and the future of Yankee Stadium is assured. Right? Of course not. With the Yankees' lease on the city-owned stadium set to expire in 2002, debate over where the team should play has been simmering for years, driven chiefly by Steinbrenner's unconcealed desire to relocate, preferably with somebody besides the Yankees footing most of the bill.

Justin Townes Earle "Hear my father on the radio, singing . . . " Thus Justin Townes Earle begins his fourth album, Nothing's Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now . That's not the only time Steve Earle is alluded to in the 10-song set. Not that the son is trying to ride the father's coattails. Since his 2008 debut, the younger Earle has authoritatively established his own musical identity. This time, young Earle brings in some horns to add a Memphis soul feel to his Americana.

NEW YORK - A freak parkway accident that wiped out three generations of a Bronx family is being touted by some transportation advocates as more evidence that New York City's aging highway system needs major upgrades. Seven people died, including three children, when the family's SUV hit a concrete divider on the Bronx River Parkway, veered off a bridge, and fell onto the grounds of the Bronx Zoo. Speed was a factor in the crash Sunday. Police said the vehicle was going 68 m.p.h. in a 50-m.p.h.

NEW YORK - Arthur Avenue in the Bronx is the kind of place where you might be bribed with a cannoli. Many years ago, my father, a teacher, was begged by a student not to tell his parents he'd been caught fighting. "I'll bring you a box of cannolis every Friday," promised the student, who worked at a pastry shop in this old-school Italian American enclave. My dad did not accept the cannolis. But as a kid growing up in nearby suburbs, I often had treats from Arthur Avenue that he brought home.

DETROIT - Curtis Granderson made two spectacular catches against his former team, and A.J. Burnett came through when the Yankees needed him most, leading New York past the Detroit Tigers, 10-1, Tuesday night to send their AL division series back to the Bronx for a decisive Game 5. Derek Jeter rebounded from a game-ending strikeout Monday, putting the Yankees ahead to stay with a two-run double in the third inning. Granderson also had an RBI double, and New York broke it open with six runs in the eighth.

If the "Mad Men" crisis has got you down - shutdown averted, but no new episodes until 2012 - I would like to offer a little perspective. First, even in a year that is not A Year Without "Mad Men," it is only a "Mad Men" year for 13 out of 52 weeks; presumably, in the normal course of things, you are all right the other 39. Second, there is a lot of other television to watch, new and old, some of which touches the same bases as "Mad Men," if not...

Home run derby New York and Detroit combined for seven home runs - five to right - on Sunday, the flags above the lights blowing out toward right field at Yankee Stadium. "I felt good," said the Tigers' Miguel Cabrera , who hit two - both to left - while the Bronx Bombers had four. "With the wind, they felt better. "   The way the pros do it Sometimes, a great play is the result of long experience and endless practice. Sometimes, it's like Cleveland's triple erasure against Chicago on Sunday.

NEW YORK - A cobra has vanished from an enclosure outside public view at the Bronx Zoo, and its Reptile House remained closed yesterday as a precaution while zoo workers searched for the missing reptile. While the roughly 20-inch-long highly venomous Egyptian cobra has been unaccounted for since Friday afternoon, zoo officials say they're confident it hasn't gone far and isn't in a public area. Its enclosure was in an isolation area not open to visitors. Once the snake gets hungry or thirsty enough to leave its hiding place, workers will have their best opportunity to recover it, zoo Director Jim Breheny said.

Call it the Bronx connection. Villanova's Corey Fisher, Connecticut's Kemba Walker, and Drexel's Chris Fouch have been friends since childhood. Over the years, they have become perhaps the biggest supporters of one another. When one player has a stellar performance, it's not uncommon for him to receive a congratulatory text message from the other two. When things aren't going well, he can always count for an uplifting phone call or text from the others. The three close friends are collectively putting the Bronx back on the college basketball map. Former teammates at New York's Rice High, Fouch, 20, and Walker, 20, are best friends.

NEW YORK - It had been 223 days since the Phillies last stepped into Yankee Stadium, since Shane Victorino grounded out to second to set off a Yankees celebration, and since Charlie Manuel met with a silent group of 25 players in the visitors' clubhouse. "We didn't play our best baseball," Manuel told his players then. "We owe them one. " Leaning against the dugout railing before Tuesday's 8-3 loss to the Yankees, Manuel remembered the conversation. What stuck out, the manager said, was the silent clubhouse after experiencing the ultimate failure for the first time in more than a year.

Jewish boxing champion Yuri Foreman will defend his title at Yankee Stadium in June - unless a bar mitzvah gets in the way. The WBA junior middleweight champion would fight Miguel Cotto there June 5, promoter Bob Arum said, if the bar mitzvah plays ball. Arum said the Yankees "leased out some lounges for this bar mitzvah and part of the deal was for a half-hour or so, they could use the big screen in centerfield to show pictures and all that sort of stuff," Arum said. "Obviously you can't do that if there's fights going on. " The alternate date is June 12 at Madison Square Garden.