Best Baseball Memorabilia 2000 | Charles Monfort | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Miami | Miami New Times
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Best Baseball Memorabilia

Charles Monfort

Monfort's passion for baseball has its roots in Cuba, his homeland. As a ten-year-old kid, he began collecting mementos from his favorite teams and players. Later he embraced America's baseball heroes as well. Today he can boast of a private collection he accurately refers to as his "mini-Cooperstown." Hanging on the walls of his Westchester home are autographed photos of each and every baseball hall-of-famer. Mounted on plaques are images of America's best players and obscure Cuban peloteros from the island's professional leagues of the Twenties, Thirties, and Forties, each emblazoned with the player's name, the seasons he played, and his achievements -- from the incomparable Sandy Koufax to that master of versatility Martin Dihigo, the only Cuban inducted into baseball's Hall of Fame. Monfort's collection is a multiethnic treasure trove of rarities, some of which still are boxed up in his closet. He owns a 1932 photo of a young Joe DiMaggio eating spaghetti at the kitchen table, and the wedding portrait of famed Cuban baseball manager Adolfo Luque. In Miami baseball circles, the 70-year-old Monfort is considered both wise man and historian. He says he's just a fan. Although he does lend items to special exhibitions, Monfort's collection remains private, for the time being. Maybe someday we'll have a Cooperstown by the bay.

Best TV News Anchor

Angela Rae

In little more than a year, Angela Rae has helped turned WFOR from a ratings joke into a serious contender. In the last ratings period, Channel 4 was the number-one station at 11:00 p.m., an advance largely owing to Rae's presence at the anchor desk. She is bright (packing a law degree from the University of Virginia), articulate (a rarity among anchors in these parts), and quick-witted (even rarer). When Rae joined the station in 1995, it was immediately apparent she was someone who could make an impact. The only thing standing in her way were the pinheads who manage Channel 4. They refused to promote her. Only after she made it clear she was ready to leave the station did they move her into the anchor slot with Steve Wolford, a pleasant enough fellow but hardly a reason to stay up late. Rae, on the other hand, is more than enough reason to lose a little sleep.

Best Dolphins Player

Olindo Mare

Of all the blame for the sham of a disaster of a debacle in Jacksonville that ended this mind-numbingly disappointing Dolphins season, none can be laid at the golden right foot of the team's kicker. In fact if it hadn't been for good ol' No. 10, the Fins wouldn't have won enough games to earn the right to drive up to Jacksonville and get punked. Remember that Chargers game where a crappy San Diego squad kept the Dolphins offense out of the end zone all afternoon, but couldn't stop Mare from dropping 4 field goals on them? Remember how he set an NFL record during the regular season with 39 field goals? Mare is a restricted free agent. Let's hope Dave Wannstedt keeps him around as an insurance policy during Year One of the Fiedler/Huard Era. Three points are better than none, after all.

Best Heat Player

Alonzo Mourning

Alonzo Mourning is so good it's dangerously easy to take him for granted. The All-Star center was the NBA's defensive player of the year in 1999. He has diversified his offensive game, making his midrange jumper more reliable while improving his post-up skills. He rebounds well. He runs the floor. His shot blocking remains incredible. And though he's a little undersize to play center, he can use his foot speed to drive on bigger, slower guys while his strength allows him to hang with them on defense. He's really, really good. Unfortunately he can't win a championship all by himself. But then, neither could Michael Jordan.

Best Weathercaster

Don Noe

You know, the funny thing about Don Noe is that you can't really tell by looking at him how bad the weather is. The screen behind him could be showing a sunny summer day with light chop on the bay, or a huge killer hurricane that might hit us (Floyd), or a not-so-big hurricane that will hit us (Irene), and Channel 10's first-string weatherman will still tell you exactly what you need to know without embellishment or hand-wringing. Last hurricane season he literally was calm before and during the storm, especially in the category 5 hysteria surrounding Hurricane Floyd. And he isn't doing a smarmy empathy act like some weatherdudes we know. A veteran of 21 years in South Florida and a certified meteorologist, he's always the consummate pro: Noe glitz, Noe nonsense, Noe contest.

Best Alternative Medicine

East-West Health Alliance

All those new-age clichés about nurturing and caring and sensing energies and auras? They apply here, but it's the real thing. East-West is not a huge, bustling operation; the office is intimate and tranquil. You will not find every specialty under the sun here, but you will find gifted and skilled healers who incorporate conventional and alternative medicine within both Eastern and Western traditions. Acupuncture physician and herbalist Lori Alexandra Bell received her early training in China and has wide experience diagnosing nonphysical causes of illness and treating immune-system diseases. Santiago Sifre, acupuncture physician and herbalist, specializes in pain management, sports injuries, and neurological disorders. Cora Lira is billed as a "holistic chiropractor," and her approach indeed goes deeper than spinal adjustments, even to the body's cellular memories. Lesley Anne Gilbert is a massage therapist who concentrates on deep-tissue massage for neuromuscular "re-education."

Best Fish Tank

Seahorse Bar at Beach House Bal Harbour

The bar's name blatantly announces what placidly swims in the showcase aquarium: live sea horses. The gracefully curved creatures add whimsy to the long, narrow lounge and give new meaning to the term captive audience. The tiny fish bedazzle barflies who are gulping martinis as if they were downing water. Kudos to the hotel's owners, the Rubell family, for deciding against stocking the tank with the other animals also known as sea horses -- walruses.

Best New Performance Space

lab6

From postmodern tributes to the Cuban orisha Babalu Aye to the monthly "hood crawl" through Little Havana, the artists at lab6 have taken up a kind of anti-gentrification of Little Havana. Never content to confine art to the walls, visual artists Carlos Suarez de Jesus and Vivian Marthell traffic in the wacky and disturbing, often inviting dancers and other conspirators to make this space more than just a gallery. The outdoor stairs leading from the exhibition space on the ground floor to the performance loft upstairs make the surrounding neighborhood part of the show. As more conservative elements attempt to make Calle Ocho and its environs ever friendlier for tourists, count on lab6 to keep the street alienating -- but in a good way.

Best Local Artist

Edouard Duval-Carrié

Since moving to Miami in 1992, painter, sculptor, and installation artist Edouard Duval-Carrié has forged some of the city's most enduring symbols. Ailing souls in the waiting room of Overtown's Jefferson Reeves Health Center can find temporary relief in the artist's renderings of vodou sirens and snakewomen that float in an ethereal sea of green across the atrium above their heads. Earlier this year art enthusiasts who visited the two-day show in the now-demolished Espirito Santo Bank building on Brickell found a strong political statement among the sand and sequins of the Haitian-born artist's "INS cemetery." While Duval-Carrié plays an important role in populating Miami's public spaces with sensuous and socially significant images, his worldwide reputation brings much needed prestige to our local visual culture. In collections and exhibitions from Port-au-Prince to Paris, from São Paulo to New York, Duval-Carrié's body of work challenges the limiting characterization of Caribbean-influenced art as "primitive" or "naive" without ever losing sight of the profound resources provided him by Haitian history and popular culture.

Best Banquet Hall

Coral Gables Woman's Club

This venerable coral-rock edifice is on the National Register of Historic Places, and deservedly so. Built in 1935, it features numerous stately bas-reliefs on its pockmarked walls, and a fountain alive with sculpted sea creatures. Indoors the club has two large meeting halls, one with terrazzo floors and murals of roseate spoonbills, the other with a lofty ceiling and impressive fireplaces. If you're planning a medium-size wedding, reception, quince, or graduation party, this place beats the hell out of any top-of-the-strip-mall joint, and has more of a rustic, Old Florida touch than your fancy-schmantzy hotel ballrooms.

Best Of Miami®

Best Of Miami®

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