ALDS GAME 2: Angles in the Outfield, History on Parade

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

1. Let’s review how we got here from there shall we? Yes, it will be as confusing one of those mapquest maps that directs you to go from Back Bay to Allston via the Callahan, Sumner and Holland tunnels, but this is important; it is the playoffs after all, and we need to do it.

So let’s get to work and review the series of appalling events that led to Joe Melendez, your humble servant, starting the Sons of Sam Horn game thread for the first game of the American League Division Series and now to him starting the thread for the second game.

(Note: Since most of the historical record has been destroyed in Nixonian fashion (subnote: by a secretary), it is particularly important for Jose to document the tragicomic events of October 3. It is also the reason that most of the of the times are wrong.)

1:00 AM Jose is haunted by demons.
1:02 AM Jose contemplates whether he is really being haunted or accidentally took peyote.
1:30 AM Jose writes about demons.
1:45 AM Jose writes clever comparison of ALDS and Norman Conquest of England. People will love this!
1:55 AM Jose throw together crappy third KEY as usual.
2:00 AM Jose checks to see if SoSH game thread is up yet.
2:01 AM Jose checks to see if SoSH game thread is up yet.
2:02 AM Jose checks to see if SoSH game thread is up yet.
2:03 AM SosH server is down
2:20 AM Jose checks to see if SoSH game thread is up yet.
2:21 AM Jose checks to see if SoSH game thread is up yet.
2:22 AM Jose decides that if no one is going to start a game thread he might as well proofread KEYS.
3:00 AM Proofreading complete. Errors found 1,600.
3:01 AM Jose ponders how there can be 1,600 errors in a 1,500 word piece?
3:05 AM Jose concludes that he had at leas 700 distinct errors in spelling Houshmanzadeh alone.
3:06 AM Jose checks to see if SoSH game thread is up yet.
3:07 AM Sleep, blissful sleep.
8:00 AM Jose wakes up .
8:01 AM Jose smiles. There’s a game today.
8:05 AM Jose checks to see if SoSH game thread is up yet.
8:30 AM Jose leaves for work
9:00 AM Jose arrives at work
9:01 AM Jose checks to see if SoSH game thread is up yet.
9:02 AM Coffee break.
11:00 AM Return from coffee break.
11:01 AM Jose checks to see if SoSH game thread is up yet.
11:32 AM Posts KEYS on keystothegame.blogspot.com
11:35 Jose checks to see if SoSH game thread is up yet.
11:36 AM Jose contemplates starting game thread on SoSH.
11:36 AM Jose concludes that only a complete moron would start the game thread when it has been made abundantly clear that Curt Euro is going to start it. Moreover, why would Jose want to have game starting responsibilities when it means he has to rush through writing KEYS rather than posting them at 2ish on game day?
11:37 AM Jose rewards his clear thinking with additional coffee.
12:00 Noon Lunch meeting.
1:40 PM Unbeknownst to Jose some guy he has never heard of starts game thread declaring the start of the Red Sox-Indians series.
1:41 PM 60 posters point out that unless this guy has invented a way back machine and taken us to 1995, 1998 or 1999 match up in thread title is wrong.
1:42 PM Thread starter claims he will take us back to 1999 in his DeLorean, so thread title will be correct.
1:43 PM Same poster starts “Views and News” thread called “Iraq: Putting down the Indian insurgency.
1:44-2:45 PM Abuse. Constant abuse.
2:00 PM Jose returns from meeting
2:01 PM Jose checks to see if SoSH game thread is up yet.
2:02 PM Jose sees game thread, concludes that yes, he must have inadvertently taken peyote, because that is the only explanation for why he is seeing that some guy he never heard of has started the playoff game thread and why is throwing up.
2:03 PM Jose waits patiently.
2:04 PM Jose sends moderator Sille Skrub message asking if this is going to be the game thread.
2:05-2:45PM Jose waits impatiently.
2:46 PM Jose says to hell with it and posts KEYS in idiotic, now seven page thread.
2:51 PM Curt Euro posts in now eight-page thread saying. “I was going to stop by and start the game thread since we did it back in 2004, but once Jose posts his keys, in my mind, that game thread is on.....
Let's put together a nice streak, win, say, 11 games before anyone else and I'll throw alcohol all over those of you that attend the parade.....”
2:52 PM Jose blushes.
2:53 PM Jose sends Curt Euro message to everyone he knows
2:54 PM Jose posts message from Curt Euro on keystothegame.blogspot.com
2:55 PM Jose fantasizes that if Curt Euro has read KEYS there is a chance, just a chance, that Red Sox players also call Papelbon strike outs “pap smears.”
2:56 PM Jose contemplates sending Curt Euro evite to candlepin bowling party.
2:57 PM Jose starts telling liberal colleagues he has a Republican friend now.
2:58 PM Jose draws stick figure picture of Jose and Curt in sailboat. They are having fun!
2:59 PM Jose thinks about pointing out flaw in Curt's slide step to him.
3:00 PM SoSH moderator AlNipper49 deletes thread.
3:01 PM Jose feels like Sean Connery in movie “Medicine Man” after finding, then losing cure for cancer.
3:03 PM As he cannot prove that Curt knows who he is any more, Jose contemplates spending life chasing after ants or whatever like Connery in stupid movie.
3:04-3:24 PM Crying, lots of crying.
3:25 PM First suggestion that Jose start the game thread.
3:27 PM Gay community declares support for Jose starting game thread.
3:32 PM Jose starts game thread, leads with Curt Euro quote
3:33 PM First complaint that Jose has spelled Angels “Angles.”
3:34 PM Jose comes to jarring realization that either most Americans are woefully undereducated about pre-Norman England or most people don’t actually read KEYS, Jose concludes that either way, country is doomed.
3:34 PM Panda!

And that was pretty much how we got here from there. After all the chaos, all the madness, the Red Sox won, the Angles lost (note: no, Jose will not spell it right.) and Jose is writing this account while listening to the Yankees go down in flames, rather than yachting with super models, because, now Jose has all of this responsibility as a game thread starter.

2. Since there pathetic lack of knowledge about the Angles was exposed in the Game 1 thread, Jose has decided that he has a responsibility to use his position of high moral authority as game thread starter to educate you people about the importance of this quirky little tribe and what its history means for the rest of this series. Now, sit up straight and listen.

Did you know that according to wikipedia, the term Angle may originate with the form of fishing called “angling?” If this is so, doesn’t it mean that we need to be careful? Couldn’t it mean that perhaps Game 1 was nothing more than a juicy worm of victory used to entice Red Soxdom onto the barbed hook of overconfidence and ultimately into the frying pan of ignominious defeat? (Note: Frying pans of ignominious defeat are great for cooking on high heat, they are non-stick.)

Did you know that a legend proclaims that Pope Gregory I saw a group of Angles for sale as slaves in the Roman market and, impressed by their fair complexions said ““Non Angli, sed angeli” ("Not Angles, but angels") and resolved to convert them to Christianity? In 597 AD, Pope Gregory moved to fulfill his vow sending a monk called Bede who would start the gradual conversion of the Angles over the next 200 years. So what does this tell us about the Angles of today?

It suggests that perhaps the ultimate key to their defeat is the Christian faith. Bede arrived to convert the Angles in 597 and a mere 569 years later, their pagan beliefs extinguished and forgotten, they fell to the also Christian Normans. Could this possibly be coincidence?

In applying this lesson of history, the Red Sox appear to be off to a good start. The Los Angeles Angles squad appears to be completely devoid of pagans and animists. The critical thing then, is to ensure that the embrace Christianity wholeheartedly between now and game time. Maybe we can send the “Heaven or Hell” guy from Kenmore Square down to talk to them. He has pamphlets! And a sign!

Of course, maybe the fall of the Angles has nothing to do with Christianity? After all, there are lots of Christians in the world and they seem to be doing pretty well. Perhaps the most important event is when the Anglo-Saxon king Harold Godwinson is alleged to have pledged support for William of Normandy’s claim to the English throne after being shipwrecked at Ponthieu.

So here’s the plan:

1. Get Vlad Guerrero onto one of those harbor booze cruises or possibly the ferry to Hull.
2. Shipwreck him on Spectacle Island
3. Make him swear fealty to the Red Sox.
4. If he relents, shoot him in the eye with an arrow. Geena Davis can do it! She’s an archer and has Boston connections.

Look, Jose knows this is tedious, but it’s worth discussing. Just remember what Karl Marx said, history repeats itself “the first time as tragedy, the second as farce, the third as baseball.”

3. At about 4:00 on the day of Game 1, Jose received a call from his friend Mark.

“You’ll never believe it,” said Mark excitedly. “I have an extra ticket to see the bunraku.”

“What?” Jose replied.

“Bunraku, Japanese puppet theater.”

“Nice!” Jose exclaimed. “Jose loves puppets be they Japanese, sock or political. When we going?”

“Tonight.”

“You didn’t say that. Tell Jose you didn’t just say that,” Jose said channeling Booker T.

“Yeah tonight.”

“Nooooo. Dear God Noooooo. Why? Is there no God? You score Bunraku tickets and it’s tonight? Jose has Red Sox tickets.”

“You’re going to go with the Red Sox over the puppets?” said Mark skeptically.

Mark is not a baseball fan. He is like a baseball thermometer. He is so indifferent to baseball, that if he knows about a baseball event, it is proof that it has crept from baseball event to general cultural phenomenon. The 2007 Red Sox have apparently not reached the point of expanding the mercury yet.

“Look Mark, Jose loves baseball for the same reason he loves bunraku. Both feature chanting and Japanese people.”

“It’s still not the same,” Mark pouted. “Where in baseball do you get to see lifeless objects move?”

“You’ve never seen DJ Dru have you?” countered Jose.

“Well baseball still doesn’t have four foot tall creatures of amazing complexity.”

“Dustin Pedroia.”

“The manipulation of inanimate figures by grown men?”

“DeMarlo Hale with Doug Mirabelli on base.”

“Well, I guess it really can’t compete,” agreed Mark mournfully.

“No it can’t,” respond Jose, but neither can the Angles, so it’s all good.

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