Jose Told You So

BUY THE KEYS BOOK, STILL ON SALE: STILL WITH A HAPPY ENDING

It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO SPRING TRAINING.

1. A truck? You people are excited about a freaking truck? We won the World Series and you have the audacity to be excited that a glorified moving van has headed on down to Florida signifying the beginning of the end of the winter of our content?

You want something to be excited about, be excited about the fact that after, as the boxing announcers would put it, his longest period of inactivity, Jose Melendez is back!

Jose hasn’t written at all in two months, and only three times since the World Series, and you know what it garnered him? An endorsement deal. That’s right after begging and pleading for folks to buy his books, after spending years forcing out cruddy winter columns in order to have a chance to plug his latest volume, Jose was rewarded for his sloth by an actual advertiser, paying him in actual money. If other advertisers want to reward Jose you know what to do.

Now, a lot of you may be asking why Jose didn’t write much during the Hot Stove season past. The reason, simply enough, is that there wasn’t that much to write about. Aside from the Santana saga and the steroids imbroglio, both of which warranted a few clicks of the keys, what was there to write about?

Did the Sox make any big free agent signings? Did they make any crazy trades? Did they do anything that would warrant Jose stepping lively?

Nope, that left Jose to dwell on the Patriots, at least until 10 days ago, and the election. Sure he could have written, but what would he have written about? You want to know what you missed. Fine, but don’t say Jose didn’t warn you.

• Is Santana coming to Boston?
• Is Santana coming to Boston?
• Is Santana coming to Boston?
• Is Santana coming to Boston?
• Is Santana coming to Boston?
• Is Santana coming to Boston?
• Santana is not coming to Boston.
• Which was worse the 1994 Baseball Strike or the Hollywood writers strike? (Note: This actually had the potential to be good, hell it still could be. The baseball strike was good because it screwed up a possible Yankees Championship run; the writers’ strike was good because it screwed up a season of Grey’s Anatomy. The baseball strike was bad because it screwed up Tony Gwynn chasing .400. The writer’s strike was bad because it screwed up Lost. Wait, no it didn’t. It ended in time. Thank God.)
• Sean Casey: The next J.T. Snow or the next Mike Marshall?
• Jose’s reflections on the assassination of Benazir Bhutto: If her husband is called Mister 10% does that mean she’s married to Craig Grebeck. (Note: See, it’s a batting average joke.)
• The Giuliani Candidacy vs. The 2004 Yankees vs. the 2007 Mets, Triple threat match to determine the Greatest New York Collapse of the Century

Jose will stop there. He might actually need to use some of these if he is going to stagger through another season.

2. Let’s see where did Jose leave off? What was it that he wrote the last time he put finger to key?

Here it is:

“Jose is just wondering but did the Mitchell report say anything about Debbie Clemens and steroids? Have you seen her/him? If she's not on steroids, the only other possible explanation is a y chromosome.”


Now we have learned that Mrs. Clemens was, if fact, using human growth hormone, a fact confirmed by Mr. Clemens in his testimony to Congress yesterday.


Jose, of course, is not one to say, “I told you so.”

He is, however, one to say, “Jose told you so.”

JOSE TOLD YOU SO! JOSE TOLD YOU SO!


Dear God that feels good.


There is good news in all of this for Roger, however.

Sure, he is disgraced, he may never make the Hall-of-Fame and there is a reasonable chance he will be indicted for perjury or witness tampering, but rest assured it does not turn out that he has been married to a man for all these many years. Given that the only explanation other than drug abuse was androgyny, Roger should really be pretty happy that another guy gave his wife an injection the glutes.

3. Funny thing is that Jose was actually in the Rayburn Building for a meeting yesterday at the same time that Roger was testifying before the committee.

Jose had a number of conversations that day with his colleagues, who are not quite the same baseball fans he is, and they kept saying things like “Doesn’t Congress have better things to do? What a waste of taxpayer money.”

This got Jose thinking, what would he rather have his tax dollars spent on? Sure, there are a lot of things that the federal government does that are important to him like defense, roads, human services and aid to Kosovo, but don’t they do lots of other things that are far less important to him?

Doesn’t seeing his tax dollars go to the public humiliation of Roger Clemens, whom he loathes, seem like a pretty good deal?

Let’s think about this. Has Jose gotten more utility from these hearings or the MX Missile? The hearings have definitely been more valuable, though he thinks that the Midgetman Missile might have been a slightly better use of funds than the Clemens hearings because it has a funny name.

I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO SPRING TRAINING.