July 31, 2005

THE hostess was standing inside a taco stand covered in cheap wood paneling when two guys approached. Had she heard of a new restaurant, hidden somewhere below the triangular crossroads of SoHo, NoLIta and Chinatown? ''What are you talking about?'' she replied, clutching a reservation list behind her back. The men, perhaps a bit too uptown in their tucked-in shirttails and khakis, walked off into the night. There's no point in pleading with the velvet rope when you're not sure it exists.

WALL STREET analysts have taken a lot of heat in recent years from regulators and this columnist for being incessantly, unjustifiably upbeat about the companies they follow. Cheerleading from the sidelines was, of course, a proven way to generate investment banking revenue for analysts' firms. Incompetence also played a role in many reports, where a corporate outlook was always rosy. But last week, it became clear that there may be another explanation for analysts' unreasoned optimism: fear of retaliation from the companies they follow.

IN the event the Red Sox masterminds Larry Lucchino and Theo Epstein failed to notice, their baseball team awoke today as the defending World Series champion, in first place in the American League East and, as presently constituted, with Manny Ramirez, at worst a pick 'em choice between them and the pitching-starved Yankees this season to make the playoffs. The Red Sox were in this position despite foolishly allowing Pedro Martínez to slip away to the Mets last winter, Curt Schilling's carryover ankle problem from his bloody-sock heroism of last October, closer Keith Foulke's physical breakdown and, yes, the occasional pouting by Ramirez.

There is probably no more infuriating sight for drivers than their car attached to a tow truck. But some motorists, prosecutors and lawmakers think some towers are going a little too far. In one case here, a church's pickup was towed from its own parking lot; in another, a 4-year-old boy was towed away in his mother's car after she went inside her apartment for a few minutes to drop off groceries and a younger child.

IF you're a sports fan -- more specifically, a basketball fan -- you may already find it hard to avoid Stephen A. Smith. He is the emerging face of hoops talk at ESPN, a fierce, confident, at times bombastic presence whose brash, clamorous style not only punctuates his reporting and analysis but sometimes eclipses them. In less than two years at the sports media empire, the lean, goateed Mr. Smith has become one of its best-known personalities, and arguably its most renowned African-American. He may not be as well known as ESPN lifers like Chris Berman, Dick Vitale or Dan Patrick, but he makes more noise, issuing emotional, emphatic riffs about coaches, players and owners. So much noise, in fact, that he has earned the nickname Screamin' A. Smith.