Today's column is dedicated to my old friend, Ralph Baumgarten.

It all started at Dodger Stadium. Ralph and I were watching the Dodgers whomp the Orioles when we decided to head inside and get a snack. "I'd like a Dodger dog," I told the food-service clerk, prompting Ralph to roll his eyes.

"We're in Dodger Stadium," he complained as we headed back to our seats with our food. "What other kind of dog are they going to give you? Dude, if you were in Chicago, would you go to an Italian restaurant and order Chicago-style pizza? Of course not, because in Chicago all pizza is Chicago-style. Whenever you're in a place and you want something named after the place, you don't ask for it using the whole name."

I didn't mention it, but I'd actually run into this problem a few times in the past. Once in a Berlin deli I asked for German potato salad and everybody looked at me like I was nuts. Then at a fish shack in Maine I ordered New England clam chowder. "As opposed to?" the waitress asked.

Still, I wasn't going to completely concede. "I don't think it's a hard-and-fast rule," I replied. "I mean, maybe sometimes it's true, but there are probably a few exceptions."

"Suit yourself," Ralph countered. "But that's the way I've always done things, and every single time it's worked. I get what I want, and I don't look like an idiot. I go to Poland and order a sausage. I go to Belgium and ask for a waffle. I go to France and order fries."

I clammed up, now determined to find exceptions. I called him back a few days later with a belated reply. "Sure, but could you go to Russia and order a salad with dressing?" I asked. "Or go to Chile and ask for a pepper? Could you go to a California sushi bar and just ask for a roll? Could you go to a Spanish sex shop and buy some fly? If you were wherever Eskimos live, would they have a frozen treat just called 'Pie'?"

He thought for a second, then told me to go fuck myself and hung up. We didn't speak for many years after that, each convinced we were right. Then the news came to me this weekend that his stubbornness finally did him in.

He was staying at a hotel in China when construction in the basement set the building on fire. His room filled with smoke and a bell labeled "FIRE DRILL" warned him to get out, but Ralph just ran out one side of the building and ran right back in the other side.