Multitasking

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

1. Believe it or not, there is a problem with baseball.

It’s kind of boring.

It is. Let’s stop fooling ourselves and admit it.

Jose loves baseball as much as anyone— no more than anyone, but the critics are right, the game is boring. Jose has always known this, and sometimes he has even admitted it. Indeed, from time to time, Jose has been known to argue that baseball is the greatest of sports precisely because it is boring. In football or basketball if you are distracted for a moment or two you can lose the entire flow of the game. Also, they angry up the blood. In soccer, looking away for a moment at any time can result in missing the sum total of the day’s scoring. But baseball, with its leisurely pace and long season lends itself to a lacksidasical approach to watching in all but the most important of games, and Jose is nothing if not lacksidasical.

The historical notion is that this relaxed tempo has made baseball the most old-fashioned of sports, a leisurely pastoral game designed for the slow pace of the late 19th century. Jose could not disagree more. While baseball may have been born in a more plodding age, it is the absolute best game for the information age. You know why? Multitasking.

Baseball fandom was made for multitaskers. Because baseball, unlike other sports, does not require one’s undivided attention, it is the perfect sport for the era of blackberries, connectivity and all of that other techno-Al Gore- mumbo jumbo. Who can do one thing at a time anymore? Who dares to drive a car without listening to the radio and/or shooting out the window? Who would imagine washing dishes without talking on the phone? Who would ever walk to work without trading on the Hang Seng wirelessesly? Suckers and back numbers, that’s who. And baseball is perfect for this on-the-go lifestyle.

It used to be that Jose would read a magazine or the paper while watching the game. But those days are long gone. Jose has now taken to watching DVD’s on his laptop while watching the game with the sound off (note: this has the added benefit of ensuring that he does not hear the gyroball song ever again.) As a result, Jose is able to entertain himself twice as efficiently. Hell, you could blow through an entire season of Weeds in the time it takes to watch one Red Sox-Yankees game. (Note: Though of course, Yankees games are one of those categories that require undivided attention.) Sometimes, Jose will even go for the trifecta and watch a DVD with the game on while reading a magazine.

Jose’s only regret is that computer-based video systems did not exist in the early 1990s. He’s pretty sure he could have watched entire episodes of Lost in between Jeff Gray pitches.

2. There is enough bad news in sports today, what with dog killing quarterbacks, crooked refs, juicing sluggers and pro wrestling deaths by the fistful. Jose would like to focus on the positive. He really would. But just when you think you’ve found a great story, something uplifting to focus on, that pedestal crumbles to dust.

Jose was going to use this space to write about Brandon Webb’s remarkable pursuit of Orel Herschiser’s consecutive scoreless innings record. Webb has pitched 42 straight without yielding a run, stilly two complete games short of Herschiser’s number. But then he checked his email last night. Scandal city.

Waiting in Jose’s Inbox was an email from none other than Brandon N. Webb advertising Jose incredible low, low prices on prescription drugs. The drugs available included the typical assortment of male prescriptions in addition to Ambien and Xanax. The best part was that one gets four free Viagra with every order!

If Webb is running an internet pharmacy, that is not only a gross violation of U.S. law, but circumstantial evidence that he might be involved with some of the more pernicious substances floating through the Major League ranks.

Now you’re probably asking yourself “Why would a Major Leaguer making big money risk it all by running a pharmacy business on the side?” Well, first it’s not unprecedented. MLS star Joe-Max Moore ran an internet pharmacy with his father. Second, it is not as though Webb did not take precautious to disguise his identity. In the email, Webb cleverly changed his middle initial from “T” to “N,” which would through most professional journalists off track, but not someone with Jose’s keen investigative senses.

So there you go. Brandon Webb, you are a crook and possibly a cheat. Jose is onto you and he will rarely, if ever buy prescription drugs from you. If Jose absolutely must get his prescriptions from a major leaguer, he will get them from Jason Giambi like everyone else.

3. While the Doug Mirabelli injury on Friday was disappointing, it did give a chance for upstart Kevin “Kid” Kash to make his Red Sox debut. According to wikipedia and a few other sources, Kash learned to catch the knuckleball under the tutelage of former tag team champion and Rock ‘n’ Roll Express legend Ricky Morton.

So what does Kid Kash bring to this team? Well, aside from having the 4th worst OPS plus among hitters with 300+ plate appearances since 1967 (note: thanks to SoSher CaptainLaddie for that stat), he offers decent skills at throwing out runners and a whole slew of humorous Kash-themed wrestling maneuvers such as the Money Roll, Bankruptcy , K.O.D. – Kash On Delivery, the Money Drop and the Bank Roll.

Keeping with the carefully crafted Kash persona, Jose suggests that every time he throws out a runner we refer to it as “foreclosing on a subprime mortgage,” every time he gets a hit, which will be rarely, we can call it “paying dividends,” and each strikeout will be known as selling short.

Also, when he uses the men’s room, we’ll call it liquidating his assets.

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