Tuesday, April 24

Low Energy Day

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

1. “It was kind of a lethargic day today.” Doug Mirabelli told the Globe. “We just didn’t feel like we had that same energy.”

What? WHAT? What, exactly are you so tired from? From not playing for the last four days? Are you so exhausted by your inactivity, by the awful burden of having to pop out each inning and catch eight warm up pitches (note: unless you can find someone else to do it for you) that you can’t be persuaded to give full intensity to your work on the one our of every five days you do perform?

This was like Jose’s brother, a school teacher, lamenting how he was going to be so tired his first day back from April vacation following Sunday night’s ball game. Not too sympathetic. Sure, it may be technically true, but God knows you can’t actually say it to someone who’s not finishing vacation and expect any sympathy.

You see Doug, some of us, Jose for instance, have these jobs where we actually have to go and work FIVE WHOLE DAYS EVERY WEEK. Really. It’s exhausting. They make you come in every day and, get this, do stuff. What Jose wouldn’t give to have a job where he watched more talented people do stuff for four days, and then did the same thing as them but worse on the fifth. You would never hear him complain about lethargy, if he had that sweet deal. Never. Except if he’d stayed up too late drinking, or maybe if there had been something good on TV late. But aside from that, NEVER!

But let’s say you are really lethargic, maybe you’re not just a lazy bastard, you know there are things you can do about it right? You could meditate, you know get your chakras in alignment. Or maybe try drinking coffee. Dunkin’ Donuts has these big iced coffees full of caffeine and more sugar than a Jamaican cane field. Or you get some of what Julienned Tavarez is using. He’s always peppy. Or what about greenies? You could be just like Mickey Mantle except with one-tenth the skills and ten times the liver. Also you would still be alive.

2. In these tight economic times, wherein they must compete with the new media, most newspapers are pushing aggressively to cut costs by trimming expenditures on luxuries like foreign correspondents and ink. As a fan of newspapers, Jose would like to see them continue to exist, thus he is happy to be able to offer at least one cost saving measure to his colleagues who put pen to pulp. Don’t delete those Boris Yeltsin obituaries from the hard drive quite yet. Sure he’s dead, he’s even dead officially now, but those obits may be useful again soon when John McNamara dies.

John McNamara and Boris Yeltsin were, for all intents and purposes, the same person. Had McNamara been born in Ural region of Svredlovsk there is every reason to believe he would have become the first elected president of Russia, just as if Yeltsin had been born to she-goat in the fires of Hades, as McNamara was, he most certainly would have become manager of the Red Sox. Flip sides of the same coin.

Just look at these quotes from the obituary in today’s Globe with “McNamara” substituted for “Yeltsin” and “Red Sox fans” substituted for “Russians.”

“Mikhail Gorbachev… referred to Mr. McNamara as one ‘on whose shoulders are both great deeds… and serious errors.’”

“Red Sox fans look at the [McNamara] era as chaotic and humiliating”

“McNamara was widely ridiculed in his later years in office for a halting walk, a puffy, pasty complexion, and a slurred way of speaking that led to rumors of more heart trouble, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, alcoholism or a combination of the four.”

Of course, the analogies are not perfect. For all of the corruption and cronyism, even with the needless carnage of Chechnya and the disaster of economic “shock therapy” never, never did Yeltsin do anything as foolish as failing to use Dave Stapleton as a defensive replacement.
Boris Yeltsin addresses accusations that he was
too chicken to make Calvin Schiraldi his lead
economic advisor.

3. Okay, with yesterday’s quiet dignity out of the way, Jose is prepared to give a brief assessment of what exactly does and does not warrant a halt to beer service at Fenway Park.

Does: Moment of silence for fallen heroes (Note: Not really, they serve right on through it.)
Does not: Moment of silence for fallen centerfielder when he misplays a shot over his head.

Does: National Anthem
Does not: National League opponent.

Does: End of seventh inning
Does not: Mike Piazza’s outing (Note: This is not homophobic, it is long rumored and Belle and Sebastian have a song about it and everything.)

Does: Good Friday.
Does not: Good infield defense.

Does: Strike by teamsters.
Does not: Strike to batter.

Does: Cancellation of game due to inclement weather.
Does not: De facto forfeit of game due to (In)Clement pitching.

I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.

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