9/6/05 — Jose Goes for 12-1

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

1. If you had it all to do over again would you change a thing? Would you have looked both ways before crossing the street? Would you have looked before you leapt? If you are the Boston Red Sox, the answer, apparently, is no. Given a second chance to play yesterday’s game against the White Sox after the initial contest was called with the score of 5-2, the Red Sox did not change a thing and bowed 5-3.

Jose supposes there is something sort of admirable about this, about the Red Sox willingness to accept what has happened, to refrain from fantasizing about changing the past. One can be reasonably sure they would be good time travelers. They wouldn’t screw up the space time continuum by trying to change events or anything.

Still, failing to change the past means accepting the consequences for the future. This was like wagering the rent on black, letting the wheel spin, losing, being given a second chance and then picking black again. It is like John Kerry saying that if he could rerun the 2004 election, he would let the Swift Boat ads linger just as long without a riposte. (Note: Or George W. Bush saying he would do things the exact same way in Iraq. Oh… he really did do that.) It is like offering the French a do-over on World War II, and then watching as they leave the Maginot line as their primary defense. “Ah, but monsieur, it is invincible,” they would say. And what about you? If you had the chance to go back and skip over this KEY and go directly to the second key would you? Yes, you probably would, but you are not the Boston Red Sox.

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