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Encore Boston Harbor was awarded five-star standing by Forbes Journey Information on Tuesday, making it the biggest U.S. gaming resort outdoors of Las Vegas to earn the celebrated score.
These 5 native accommodations are among the many world’s finest, in keeping with Forbes Journey Information
The property, which has 3,300 staff, achieved the designation regardless of been totally operational for less than 16 months up to now three years as a result of coronavirus pandemic, in keeping with Jenny Holaday, president of Encore Boston Harbor. Different native accommodations with a five-star distinction embody the Boston Harbor Lodge, 4 Seasons Lodge Boston, 4 Seasons Lodge One Dalton Avenue, and Mandarin Oriental, Boston.
“It’s simply by far my most proud profession achievement,” Holaday stated. “Nothing will high this. The truth that we bought [five stars], on this scale, our first yr, below these situations, is simply thoughts blowing to me.”
The situations included coping with a pandemic whereas juggling 5 working fashions for the reason that firm’s grand opening, she stated.
“That is our first full second quarter,” she stated. “So there are issues that you just study that the majority hoteliers round city and different resorts perceive about their seasonality and their market that we don’t perceive but as a result of we’re nonetheless studying. So it’s unusual and a bit of funky that in some methods we’re nonetheless very, very new.”
Encore Boston Harbor, which first opened in June 2019, wouldn’t see a full first yr in enterprise as a result of the pandemic pressured a shutdown in early 2020. Throughout the closure, employees ready for a reopening with restrictions.
“We are able to’t simply take away tables like a restaurant can,” she stated. “We needed to reconfigure all of our pits, all of our slot machines. We truly turned inner fabricators of plexiglass. It was loopy among the issues we found out as a crew in the course of the 4 months that we had been closed.”
Then Encore Boston Harbor reopened at 50 % capability and the resort was solely open 4 days every week, she stated. Holaday referred to as the staffing selections “heartbreaking.”
Encore Boston Harbor wound up furloughing 3,000 employees and shedding 385 staff.
That fall, a statewide enterprise curfew went into impact, the on line casino went on a 12-hour working mannequin, and the resort briefly closed.
“Casinos aren’t designed to shut,” she stated. “So closing every single day at 9 o’clock was bizarre, to say the least.”
The closing procedures took hours every night, she stated.
“However we bought via it. Our solely aim throughout these very darkish 4 months was to interrupt even and we did,” she stated.
Subsequent, Encore Boston Harbor totally reopened for twenty-four hours a day, however at 50 % capability, Holaday stated. Lastly, this previous September, the property was as soon as once more totally operational.
Company who go to this season will discover that well being and security measures stay in place.
“We are going to all the time have hand sanitizer stations all through the resort,” she stated. “Masks will all the time be accessible upon demand. We nonetheless use all the electrostatic cleansing gadgets in between stays within the resort rooms. I feel that simply could be the brand new regular in hospitality.”
The employees has needed to consistently pivot via every part of the pandemic, Holaday stated.
“That’s why the 5 star award is such an incredible achievement and recognition for this crew,” she stated.
Forbes Journey Information has been score luxurious hospitality for greater than 60 years. Forbes “incognito” inspectors secretly e book lodging and full an unbiased inspection technique of as much as 900 requirements primarily based on 75 % service and 25 % high quality of facility.
A number of the standards for a five-star property, in keeping with Forbes, are rooms with extra than simply luxurious beds for a restful night time’s sleep (together with blackout curtains and soundproofing measures), considerate visitor facilities (corresponding to jogging maps and yoga mats), and useful housekeeping that goes past cleansing, (a microfiber material in your sun shades and a bag of your favourite sweet, for instance). The property ought to provide memorable meals and distinctive drinks. And repair ought to be supreme. As Forbes places it: “Does the employees appear to magically know what you need, even earlier than you ask it?”
“Usually five-star resorts are very boutique,” Holaday stated. “To coach a employees to truly care that a lot and love caring for visitors that a lot, that’s a major endeavor for any operator. And so to take action on our scale was clearly daunting.”
Encore Boston Harbor’s spa additionally acquired a five-star score from Forbes.
The employees at Encore Boston Harbor is “utterly overjoyed and thrilled” by the five-star designation, she stated.
“This crew — I get choked up after I speak about this, you’ll have to forgive me — this crew has simply been via the ringer,” Holaday stated. “And I do know everyone in Boston has.”
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Fisher and Braun are two students moving this weekend, a notorious one in Boston when 70 percent of the city’s leases start on the same day. Trying to move in a cramped city at the same time as thousands of others is exasperating. Even those who aren’t moving feel stressed by the congested traffic and piles of junk on sidewalks.
Adding to the moving confusion is Allston Christmas, an unofficial Boston holiday during which Allston/Brighton students leave their unwanted goods out for people to take. The holiday has grown over the years, expanding well past Allston, and sidewalk piles pop in areas like Fenway, Mission Hill, East Boston, and other neighborhoods with high populations of students.
The holiday has a chaotic yet jovial atmosphere, with students walking the streets hoping to find free home goods or furniture treasure amid piles of junk. Though the city warns against picking up stuff from the street for multiple sanitation reasons, including the spread of bed bugs and the sidewalk piles being ideal for rats.
Other renters prefer listing their odds and ends on Facebook Marketplace.
Northeastern graduate Becca Miller carried her mattress down from her home to the SUV of a buyer she connected with through the online platform. The mattress was one of 13 items Miller sold on the app over the past three days.
Selling the items online was stressful. Miller estimated she talked to around 70 people, many of whom ghosted her or didn’t offer the right deal, before finding buyers for her belongings. She said the process was like having a full-time job.
She was trying to get the belongings sold by her move-out date. Her roommates were already gone, having left the country to study abroad in Indonesia. Miller is scheduled to meet them there in a month for a post-grad opportunity.
Despite the stress, Miller liked the process of buying and selling used goods. Most of the items in Miller’s apartment were second hand because she and her roommates were environmental studies majors.
“Buying new stuff, I have a block around it,” she said.
For Ian Furst, 28, a project manager of a local biotechnology company, moving from the Fenway area was a family affair. His fiancée’s family; his parents, Andy, 60, and Samantha, 54; and his brother Nate, 27, came to help the couple move out.
Furst lived on the sixth floor of his building, something that wasn’t a huge problem until the elevator broke down. It hasn’t been fixed for 15 months, so his family helped him carry boxes, bags, crates, and bulky items down the stairs.
“We love the neighborhood, Fenway is very much our home, but Jamaica Plain was calling,” he said.
Samantha said that last weekend, when they got a head start on moving, her two sons did 110 flights of stairs each. This weekend, she said, it’s somewhere around 50.
“This sucks,” Nate laughed as he lugged three tote bags of stuff into their minivan before going back up to do it again.
Furst lived in Brighton in 2019. He bounced around apartments in the area before finding the Fenway spot that he’s currently leaving. His parents live in North Reading, but during their college and young adult years, they also rented apartments in and around Allston and Fenway. They were all familiar with the standstill traffic and double-parked streets that fill up this time every year.
“It’s an adventure,” said Andy, of the busy weekend.
Furst was grateful he had some help on that adventure.
“It takes an army to move out of an apartment on a Sept. 1 timeline,” he said.
Izzy Bryars can be reached at izzy.bryars@globe.com. Follow her @izzybryars.
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Detroit Tigers’ Tarik Skubal favorite for 2024 American League Cy Young
“Days of Roar” podcast on Aug. 26, 2024, evaluating Tarik Skubal’s AL Cy Young campaign with Nick Pollack of PitcherList, who explains nasty changeup.
The Detroit Tigers refused to quit.
Still, they were overpowered by big swings from the Boston Red Sox in the top of the 10th inning.
The Tigers lost, 7-5, to the Red Sox on Friday in the opener of a three-game series at Comerica Park. A three-run home run in the eighth inning from slugger Kerry Carpenter snapped a 21-inning scoreless streak, but the Tigers — despite forcing extra innings — were unable to complete the comeback.
In the 10th, right-hander reliever Shelby Miller allowed a two-run home run to Ceddanne Rafaela on a two-strike elevated fastball. The next batter, Jarren Duran, hit a solo home run off left-handed reliever Tyler Holton, crushing a first-pitch sinker.
Right-hander starter Casey Mize gave up four runs across six innings in his return from the injured list. He hadn’t pitched for the Tigers since June 30 because of a left hamstring strain.
“A little sluggish, a little slow,” said Mize, who completed four rehab starts with Triple-A Toledo. “I think I finished better than I started, but certainly not good enough. I need to be better. Obviously, not good enough.”
The Tigers (68-68) have lost two straight following a six-game winning streak. As a result, the Tigers have slipped to 5½ games out of the final spot in the American League wild-card race, with 26 games remaining in the 2024 season.
As Mize battled, the Tigers were shut out until the eighth inning, when Carpenter hit a three-run home run off Red Sox left-handed reliever Brennan Bernardino.
The three runs in the eighth inning were sparked by Andy Ibáñez’s walk and Matt Vierling’s single. Carpenter hasn’t been successful against left-handed pitchers in limited opportunities, but he pushed Bernardino’s first-pitch sinker — located up-and-away — for an opposite-field homer to left field.
It was Carpenter’s first homer off a lefty pitcher in 2024.
“It’s a tough matchup,” Hinch said of Carpenter, who entered Friday’s game hitting .048 (1-for-21) in 24 plate appearances against lefties this season. “He did a good job of hanging in there and taking a good approach.”
After making it a one-run game, the Tigers opened the ninth with Zach McKinstry’s leadoff single off right-handed reliever Kenley Jansen. McKinstry immediately stole second to advance into scoring position. With one out, Jake Rogers smoked a first-pitch cutter at the top of the strike zone for a double to score McKinstry and tie the game at 4-4.
The Tigers had a chance to walk-off the Red Sox, but Riley Greene struck out swinging on Jansen’s cutter way above the strike zone to strand Rogers at third base.
In the top of the 10th, the go-ahead homer from Rafaela snapped Miller’s streak of nine relief appearances without a run. Miller threw three elevated fastballs in a row to Rafaela, who whiffed at the first two before driving the third one to left-center, into the second row of seats.
“I’ll stand by that decision all day,” said Rogers, who called the three fastballs in a row. “Obviously, it’s not the right call. We’d be in a different position if I made a different call. We went up, went up higher and went up even higher. I’m not mad at that one. It sucks to go down there, but it’s obviously the wrong pitch call. I need to be better about that. But it’s impressive, honestly, that he hit a ball like that.”
Greene, who served as the free runner in extra innings, scored in the bottom of the 10th inning on consecutive outs, making it 7-5, but it was too little, too late for the Tigers.
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The Tigers fell behind in the first inning.
Mize, the 2018 No. 1 overall pick, allowed four runs on six hits and one walk with four strikeouts in six innings, throwing 85 pitches. He has a 4.36 ERA in 17 starts.
“I thought Casey was good, in his own way,” Hinch said. “He was pretty efficient because they were swinging early. He’s going to be frustrated with the way it ended. From a volume standpoint, it was very positive. I thought he was good at times and also misfired at times.”
In the first, Mize surrendered a leadoff double to Duran on the first pitch of the game. Two batters later, Duran scored on a groundout for a 1-0 Red Sox lead.
The Red Sox grabbed a 2-0 lead on Wilyer Abreu’s sacrifice fly in the third inning, soon after another double from Duran. The Red Sox then made it 3-0 with Connor Wong’s double after Mize walked Tyler O’Neill on six pitches in the fourth inning.
He registered three of his four strikeouts in the sixth inning, but with two outs and two strikes, Wong pulled a down-and-away slider for a solo home run, the fourth and final run against Mize.
“I wanted that one to be off the plate,” Mize said. “It catches some plate, but it’s at the bottom rail of the zone. Not a horrible pitch, but in the context of 0-2 and two outs, probably needs to be better, for sure. It was a gut punch of a home run there.”
Mize generated nine whiffs on 40 swings — a 22.5% whiff rate — with four fastballs, one splitter, two sliders and two curveballs. There was a lot of hard contact on the 20 balls in play from the Red Sox.
His fastball averaged 93.9 mph, down 1.7 mph from his average fastball velocity in the 16 starts.
“The velocity has been in line with what the rehab outings have been,” Mize said. “Definitely a little bit down from pre-injury. My body feels great. I think it’s just a little bit of my brain catching up, realizing my legs are OK. It’s going to take a little bit of time to move the exact same way I was pre-injury, but physically, I feel great. I think we’ll get there.”
Red Sox right-hander Tanner Houck carved up the Tigers for most of Friday’s game. He fired six scoreless innings on three hits and two walks with six strikeouts, using 95 pitches.
The Tigers didn’t get a hit against Houck until McKinstry’s leadoff single in the fifth inning.
McKinstry was later thrown out while trying to advance from first to third on Parker Meadows’ single, ending the inning. Hinch wanted to challenge, but umpire Chris Guccione determined Hinch didn’t decide to challenge within his allotted 15 seconds.
“Yeah, we ran out of time,” Hinch said. “The information afterwards, it’s probably a coin flip that it even gets overturned. That’s why he pointed to his watch.”
Contact Evan Petzold at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him @EvanPetzold.
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