And Now a Brief Intermission

It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE TO SPRING TRAINING.

1. They don’t come around too often any more, but Jose always loved going to single admission doubleheaders. As nice as drinking beers at the ballpark is while taking in a game, doing it while taking in two games is literally twice as nice. Actually, it’s 2.3 times as nice, economies of scale, you know.

As anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of economics knows, it is not a given that two, is twice as good as one. One could very reasonably expect the marginal utility of each inning to diminish as one creeps into the second game. But it doesn’t, and you know why? No intermissions. This is the genius of baseball. Other sports have lengthy breaks, but not baseball. Sure there’s the seventh inning stretch, but that’s barely more than a regular inning change, unless of course, it is a playoff game at Yankee Stadium, in which case, it is slightly longer than a Peking Opera, and only 20 percent as interesting.

The law of diminishing marginal returns became painfully clear to Jose as he went to an “Iced Hockey” double header at the Boston Garden on Friday. (Note: It’s like Iced Tea, right?) While Hockey is a great live sport and Jose was excited by the prospect of watching his state university take on UNH, and his alma mater BU take on BC, he lived in dread. Sure, six periods of hockey (note: Which period is the Jurassic? The second right?) is a lot, but what really scared Jose was the five intermissions. Five! That’s an hour and forty minutes of intermission, and more if one remembers that the intermission between games is 45 minutes.

It got worse. The first game went to double overtime. Sure it was “exciting” and “dramatic” but the intermissions, dear God the intermissions. To make matters worse, the game ended two minutes into the second overtime, so a twenty minute intermission was followed by 2 minutes of action and then another 45 minutes of intermission. That’s almost as much down time as in a Nomar Garciaparra at bat!

So based on this, experience Jose has created a sport hierarchy based on the number and duration of intermissions. Hockey is at the bottom because it has two intermissions. Then comes basketball because it has one. Above that is football, because it also has one intermission, but it has way better highlights than basketball. Next is soccer, which also has one intermission but doesn’t have commercials during the game. And then on top is baseball with its no intermissions, save for occasional moments to scratch, spit and go into the Green Monster to urinate. Actually, check that. Wrestling is above baseball, because it has no breaks at all, unless you count “rest holds” like the sleeper hold and reverse chinlocks. NASCAR would be at the top, because it has no intermissions at all, but then Jose remembered it’s just people driving in circles, so it’s actually nothing but intermission.


2. As part of an effort to maintain better control of their intellectual property, the Red Sox have announced new policies governing the use of Red Sox highlights from NESN, including demands that NESN receive credit on all Red Sox clips.

While this move generated significant publicity, it is only the latest in a series of moves by the Red Sox to protect their intellectual property. Among the less well know moves:

• Sued He-Man/Masters of the Universe for misappropriating John W. Henry’s likeness for Skeletor.
• Sued Kellogs for misuse of “Coco Crisp” brand name.
• Sent cease and desist order to makers of Spider Man movie, claiming “Green Goblin” is way too close to “Green Monster,” “Dr. Octopus” is what everyone called Wade Boggs when he was groping Margo Adams and “Mary Jane” is dangerously close to the type of cigarettes Craig Hansen likes to smoke. (Note: Jose has no evidence that Hansen is a doper aside from his droopy eyes.)
• Filed restraining order against Armando Benitez, claiming “save blowing gopher ball” is the intellectual property of Julian Tavarez.
• Filed suit against J.J. Abrams and ABC, stating that the Red Sox had already copyrighted “Lost” as the name of a series about Joe Kerrigan’s managerial reign.
• Filed gag order against Kevin Millar. Someone had to do it.
• Issued statement saying anyone calling Grady Little a “Forrest Gump looking douchebag” is using Red Sox trademarked material and must pay $50 in royalties.
• Bitched at Doug Mientkiewiecz about World Series ball. (Note: Wait that one’s real. What a dick move.)
  

3. The Texas Rangers have ended their relationship with Ameriquest Mortgage Company, changing the name of their ballpark from Ameriquest Field to Rangers Ballpark in Arlington three years into a 30 year deal.

The outcome of Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick’s call to the Rangers pleading with them to keep the Ameriquest name remains unknown.

I’m Jose Melendez and those are my KEYS TO SPRING TRAINING.