Trades that Changed the World

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

1. The Boston Metro did a nice little retrospective the other day on the Slocumb for Lowe and Varitek trade to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the swindle. Jose thought this was a sort of neat idea and though he would steal it and commemorate another great moment in Red Sox trading history.

It was August 2, 1989, 18 years ago today. The Soviet Union seemed invulnerable, discontent was growing among Chinese students and Americans everywhere were commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Summer of Love. In the little corner of Boston called the Fenway. Red Sox General Manager Lou Gorman, was desperately trying to devise a strategy to allow the Sox to keep pace with the now Jimyless Toronto. Joe Morgan’s men needed bullpen help to prop up Lee Smith, Dennis Lamp and friends, so Gorman swallowing hard on his post-sunrise, pre-sunset lunch, made a move.

The commodity, he was dealing, like so many shares of Digital stock, was a young outfielder from West Virginia, Dana Williams, who could not break into the formidable outfield of Burks, Greenwell and Miscellaneous. In a cool calculation, every bit as Lee Atwater’s still fresh dissection of Mike Dukakis, Gorman sent the man who would go down as the second greatest Dana in Red Sox history west, to the South Side of Chicago. In return, he received a righty reliever named Ray Chadwick, who Gorman had coveted since getting a “belly buster” at Chadwick’s ice cream in Waltham. Had there been a Williams’ ice cream, perhaps history would have been different, darker.

While neither man would play in the big leagues again, just two short months after the deal, the Berlin Wall had fallen. And that’s how Lou Gorman won the cold war.

Mr. Gorbachev, how about taking Rob Murphy.

2. The Red Sox today honor legend Bobby Doerr, who is making his final trip to Fenway this afternoon from his Oregon home. The Red Sox began the tribute with a full page ad in this morning’s Boston Globe honoring the great second baseman.

But Jose does have a question. Jose knows Doerr was known as a strong hitter, a great bunter and a first-rate fielder, but was he also known for poor punctuation?

The reason Jose asks is the text of the Red Sox ad reads

WE SALUTE OUR FRIEND AND MENTOR,
BOBBY DOERR.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR YEARS OF
SERVICE AND DEDCIATION TO THIS CLUB.
YOUR CLUB.

THE BOSTON RED SOX

As you can see, “your club” is used as a separate sentence even though it lacks a verb. It should read “service and dedication to this club, your club” or perhaps “this club—your club.”

Now Jose yields no quarter when it comes to using sentence fragments to make dramatic points. Important points. But is seem to Jose that unless Doerr was actually known for bad punctuation, this is just poor form. Awful form.

Even as Jose writes this, MS Word is picking this up as a grammatical error. An odd mistake.

So Jose will offer his own tribute to the legendary Doerr that offers elegant punctuation. Proper punctuation.

KEYS TO THE GAME SALUTES BOOBY DOERR:

SECOND BASEMEN,

HALL OF FAMER, ALL-STAR;

JOSE HONORS YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS TO THIS CITY—

THE CITY ON THE HILL.
JOSE OFTEN CANNOT REMEMBER (OR AT LEAST CAN’T BE SURE IF HE REMEMBERS) WHETHER NUMBER ONE IS YOUR’S OR JOE CRONIN’S;

CRONIN IS FOUR, IT TURNS OUT.
BUT NOW HE WILL REMEMBER—AND SO SHALL ALL OF RED SOX NATION.

JOSE MELENDEZ

3. While it currently looks like the Red Sox will not be one of the two teams opening the 2008 season in Japan, Jose still hopes that they will. And, in the event that they do play in the Tokyo Dome, Jose insists that The Vapors come out of retirement and write a series of songs for various Red Sox pitchers to enter to:

• 
  
  St. Josh a Beckett—Turning American


• 
  
  Julian Tavarez—Turning Dominican


• 
  
  Eric Gagne (note: not that he’ll still be with the team)—Turning Canadian.

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