Did you hear the one about the breakout baseball player fueled by chicken parm?
It’s a story on my mind as I’m dining at New York’s Arthur and Sons. The art on the wall consists of Sinatra and Goodfellas, the wine is flowing, and the food is decidedly red sauce.
The mastermind of star chef Joe Isidori, whose family is behind a multitude of New York Italian eateries of the past, including Villanova Restaurant, a Midtown staple back in the early '60s. Fast forward to the modern era, Arthur and Sons is known for an entire section of the menu dubbed the classics: that is, chicken and veal. And the star of the show here is chicken parm.
Isidori's team pounds the chicken thin, fries it in vegetable oil, and uses Mutti tomatoes for the red sauce. As I devour my dish, I wonder if it'll give me the powers it gave another New York-area Italian...
It was two years ago when Anthony Volpe, a Manhattan-born 24-year-old who grew up in Morristown, New Jersey, started playing for that great baseball team in the Bronx.
A fervent, life-long fan of the Yanks (he even scored a picture with Derek Jeter when he was a kid), Volpe became one of those rare tri-state natives drafted by his hometown team. He hit the ground running, and a legion of Pinstripe fans pinned their hopes on the new kid.
So, where does this praiseworthy parm come into play?
Well, like a good Italian boy, Volpe invited some teammates over to his house in New Jersey in June 2023. While there, according to Sports Illustrated, they “hung out, dined on chicken parm and reminisced while going over old at-bats.” It was during this red sauce-soaked summit that they noticed something wrong with Volpe’s batting stance that he was, subsequently, able to correct.
With the parm-fueled revelation flowing in his head, Volpe’s numbers exploded on the field. The legend of the “Chicken Parm Boys” was born complete with t-shirts and memes.
I’m thinking about the ongoing fandom as I sit down at another place known for parm. Brooklyn’s Jr and Son, which reopened this spring as an ode to old school Italian American food and libations.
During the current season, Volpe’s play, especially at the plate, has fluctuated from red hot to what can fairly be described, at the time of this writing, as cool.
I wonder if Volpe and the boys should pay a visit to Arthur and Sons or Jr and Son for some plates of chicken parm and, perhaps, another breakthrough at home plate.
