6/17/05 – The Pirates’ 102 year Boston Boycott ends

It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE GAME.

In some ways this is a tough time of year for Jose. Yes, work is slowing down, the weather is warming up and there’s baseball every night, by all reckoning this should be the best time of year, but it isn’t… not for Jose. As the sweet pollen of summer fills the air, as the choking haze overwhelms the ocean breezes, Jose’s sinuses fill with fluid, his throat constricts and breathing becomes a laborious chore. Every day the simple act of inhaling grows more and more difficult. And with each breath Jose gasps for the little air that will sustain him. Actually, Jose in June bares remarkably similarities to the June 2005 edition of the New York Yankees, with the gasping, the struggling, and the just hoping to hang on. Heck, Jose even uses steroids to treat his allergies.

But Jose knows that in time the struggles will cease, that the air will clear and things will resolve themselves. The Yankees do not know this. They cannot wait. If George Steinbrenner had hay fever the last thing that would occur to him would be that it might just go away, or that it could be resolved with a mild course of medication. No, in Geroge’s world hay fever would require radical steps. First he’d yell at it. “I paid good money for this body,” he’d scream. “And I don’t expect it to react to particles of nothing in the air like it’s a genuine threat.” After yelling failed, he’d remove the offending organ, Steinbrenner would chop his nose clean off, in the mistaken notion that removing the symptom will solve the problem. Finally, he would get desperate; he’d panic and make a trade. He’d go directly to the medical encyclopedia and decide that his best option was to trade hay fever for colon cancer. Yes every action would make the problem worse.

And this is where the Yankees are now readying themselves for a dizzying course of ill advised quackery. By the end of the season, Jose fully expects to see A-Rod and Jeter walking around with leeches attached to their skin.

For the complete KEYS visit www.wallballsingle.com