1.Crap.
Bleeping Dan Shaughnessy took the bleeping high road on Jon Lester.
If Manny had just returned after a bout with the big C, Shaughnessy would be questioning if he’d ever had cancer and making quips like “Did Manny have melanoma, or just melodrama? History would suggest the latter.” But since it was loveable Jon Lester, hard working white kid, Shaughnessy gives him the Le Monde on 9/12 treatment “Tonight all of us are Red Sox fans.”
So if Shaughnessy is going to play good guy in this storyline, what does the leave for Jose? Does he get stuck doing the cancer jokes, yet again?
Yes, apparently he does. Do five jokes about Mike Lowell losing a testicle to cancer, and suddenly you’re the cancer joke guy. G-reat.
Well, fine then. Here goes. Mike Lowell told Shaughnessy “Trust me, anyone going through this doesn’t want to talk about it. He wants to be a baseball player rather than a cancer survivor.”
Where does Lowell get off speaking for everyone with cancer? Shonda Schilling can’t stop talking about the evils of the sun. The nerve! Didn’t she see what melanoma did for Derek Lowe? Did he ever have a World Series ring before he lost part of his nose to cancer? Nope. And while he was probably banging reporters, he certainly didn’t get to brag about it in the newspaper. Cancer was great for DLowe. (Note: In German, the call cancer Krebs, which is the name of the constellation Cancer, but literally translates as “crabs.” This begs the question of whether Germans treat cancer with special shampoo rather than deadly intravenous chemicals. While this name may not make cancer any less deadly in German speaking countries, it definitely makes it funnier. Also, angina, means strep throat in German, which is confusing as hell.)
And what about Cancer Boy, the heroic tyke from Brain Candy, the Kids in the Hall movie, who battled through cancer to be nominated at the World Video Awards for the best rap, hip hop or folk video. He courageously talked about his cancer all the time, and whistled about it too.
In fact, when Lester first starts at Fenway, the Sox should play Cancer Boy’s “Whistle When You’re Low” as his intro music.
Alternatively, Jose vaguely recalls his friend Dan writing a song called “Metastasis, We’ve Got to Stop It” during ninth grade biology. That could work too.
Okay. Deep breath. Is that enough? Is Jose enough of a heel for you now? Has he scored enough points off of a freaking cancer survivor to entertain you heartless people? JOSE IS NOT YOUR JOKE MONKEY!!!!!!
Well, he is kind of, so let him settle with this side note. Welcome back to the bigs Jon, and have a great game. Don’t get too used to Shaughnessy writing nice things about you, and remember, keep whistling.
When Jose goes to hell for KEY 1,
he needs to keep whistling.
2. The promotion of Jon Lester, also means the end of the line for Joel Piñero in the grey and red, and despite his ineffectiveness, Jose can’t help but feel like the end came too soon. When J.C. Romero was designated for assignment Jose felt at peace. He’d written about Christian rappers calling their Lord JC, and he’d suggested the lefty was an amalgam of Jesus Christ and Ed Romero—he’d covered all the bases. But not so with Piñero, with so Piñero much remains undone. Yes, Jose got to call him Jor-El and do some father of Superman jokes, but so much never happened. Jose never got to write about how he loves those piñero nuts they sometimes use in Chinese food. Then he would have spent the next day writing how it turns out they’re actually called piñola nuts, and we would have laughed and laughed.
Jose never even wrote about loving Piñero Coladas, and getting lost in the rain. And now it’s too late.
The sadness flows through Jose’s veins like ethanol after SoSH bash weekend. He’ll never see Joel walk another batter, never see him give up a two strike hit, never see him make that frustrated little look he makes, when he realizes he can’t get anyone out.
Well, life, as they say, is loss, and for Joel Piñero life is loss after loss after loss.
So long, Joel, and may we meet again with you pitching for the other team.
3. Mike Lowell is a huge believer in the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defense when they have their opponents backed up against the goal line. How else could one explain Lowell’s comment that when he saw the 21-4 score in yesterday’s Yankees-DRays game he said “I though it was Jets-Buccaneers.”
The only way you can get four points in football is on two safeties, so he must love the Tampa D. Of course, it could also be that he thinks poorly of the Jets special teams. As someone who lived much of his life in Florida, he no doubt remembers the 1987 Sugar Bowl when Miami beat Florida 31-4, scoring only due to two botched snaps.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
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