Learning to Love Bonds

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

1. He like us. He really likes us.

Yes, it turns out that Barry Bonds “The Dirtiest Player in the Game” to borrow a epithet from Ric Flair, discovered that he likes Boston. During a press conference Bonds told the local media “This is a beautiful ballpark. This is a beautiful city. San Francisco’s streets are a little bit dirty and stuff like that. Being around here and walking around town it’s very clean and a nice town.” Funny, Jose would have imagined that Bonds decided he like our little burg after the Boston Police Department steroids scandal broke. Go figure.

Yes, Barry Bonds likes us, and Jose is so… so… happy?

Jose doesn’t exactly understand why, but he is grateful, genuinely grateful and relieved that Bonds has nice things to say about Jose’s beloved city. For whatever reason, when it comes to Boston, Jose is like a puppy desperate to be patted on the hand and scratched behind the ears, even if it is my a cruel and drugged up stranger, with an enormous head and well-beyond 700 home runs.

Barry Bonds may like Boston, but Jose does not like Barry Bonds. He doesn’t like that Bonds is a cheater, and the fact that he appears to be near universally disliked by his teammates makes it worse. To Jose, being a jerk is a far bigger sin than being a cheater.

Bonds is arrogant, self-righteous and cocky beyond belief. And yet when Bonds condemned Boston as a “racist city” when the Sox were playing in San Francisco a few years ago it stung Jose. It shouldn’t have. It is not as though some giant of justice like Andrew Young or Spiderman was condemning Boston. It was Barry Bonds, among the most privileged, and nasty, athletes in U.S. history. But it still hurt.

Still, the cloying praise has had its effect, and Jose has now turned the corner on Bonds, and adopted a new, pro-Bonds perspective.

Barry Bonds is not using performance enhancing drugs. Nope. Someone with such nice things to say about Boston can’t be using steroids. It’s impossible. So Jose has come up with an alternative theory.

Sometime in the lat 1990s, Bonds was inadvertently subjected to a huge blast of gamma rays. It explains everything. When Dr. Bruce Banner was subjected to gamma rays he gained huge strength as The Hulk? Barry Bonds has gained huge strength, check! When laborer and high school dropout Samuel Stearns was bombarded by gamma radiation his head swelled to enormous proportions and he became know as The Leader, The Hulk’s arch enemy. Does Bonds have a giant head? Yup.

It’s well know that radiation will shrivel one’s testicles, so Bonds incredible shrinking balls are covered by the gamma ray theory as well.

The only question that remains is why didn’t Bonds turn green from the gamma rays? But there is an explanation. Bonds was green before. He was green with envy for all of the acclaim that fellow dopers Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were getting for their home run exploits. Since Bonds was already green, the gamma rays wouldn’t make him any greener. That said, they did add a lot of green to his bank account.

So congratulations to Barry Bonds on being cleared of steroid use. Jose recommends that, in order to clear up further confusion you take a super being nickname. Unfortunately, “The Abomination” is already taken by another gamma powered villain.

Which is the real Barry Bonds?


2. As long as Jose is in a comics mood, he might as well address the new Fantastic Four film. Even though the first Fantastic Four film was a crime against comics, Jose was prepared to see the second one for no other reason than to see Galactus, the devourer of worlds who constantly eats planets to feed his ravenous hunger. Galactus is one of Jose’s all time favorite super villains, powerful and complex and with cool head gear. Also, he coined one of Jose’s favorite phrases “The Hunger Gnaws.” But then Jose learned several days ago that Galactus appears in the movie as just an enormous miasma of dust and debris. Thank God Jose found out before plunking down ten dollars to see the movie.

Do you know what that would have been like? It would have been like going to see a really horrible baseball team, let’s say the San Francisco Giants, just to see Barry Bonds play. You’re all excited and then when you get to the game, no Bonds. No, instead of Bonds, the Giants have a big cloud of dust batting cleanup. How lame would that be? Of course, the cloud of dust would play a superior leftfield to Bonds, but that’s not the point.

Now Batting Cleanup for the Giants

3. As you know, Jose is on his fourth year of writing KEYS now, and the rewards have been, modest, let’s say. A few books sold here, a T-shirt sold there. Maybe a grateful fan offers Jose a ticket to a game, which is nice, but Jose ends up always buying food and drink, because that’s the kind of guy he is. But now things are finally going Jose’s way. The world of public relations has finally gotten to the point where they have the wherewithal to do things like bribe Jose to write about their products.

Case in point, A&E television recently asked Jose to promote a number of
Red Sox products they are peddling at low, low prices. Here’s the email
they sent.

Hello from A&E Television Networks! I recently
came across your website http://www.keystothegame.blogspot.com/. I
think your visitors would appreciate reading a review or post about any of our
Red Sox DVD collections. You can view these products by clicking

I would be happy to send you a free DVD or a gift certificate, in exchange
for a review or post on your site.I look forward to hearing from you
soon.Thanks,

PR Flack

That’s right, they didn’t ask Jose to do a review, they flat out bribed him to do it. And Jose says kudos! Jose want’s to be as clear as possible that this space is absolutely for sale to anyone who will give him schwag. Jose especially reaches out to the PR department for the WWF who keeps sending Jose press releases but has not offered him so much as a Steve Austin foam middle finger for his troubles.

Anyway, the 2004 Red Sox ALCS/World Series DVD collection came to Jose absolutely free the other day, and let Jose say, it is fantastic. He hasn’t opened it yet, but he watched it when it happened, and he remembers it being great. If you want this handsome set, normally priced at $129.95, you can get it now from A&E at a tremendous discount. All you have to do is start a Red Sox blog and get on their press list and they will send it to you absolutely free. It’s a tremendous value!

That or you can click on this link and pay for the privilege.

Either way, the important thing is that PR Flacks take note and send Jose more free stuff.

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