Rays Disappear Over Horizon

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

1. Jose will be the first to admit that his lists of good and evil Rays were not his best effort. He somehow left Ray Borque off of the good list and James Earl and Rachel Ray off of the evil list. No, it was not a Tour de Force or even a Tour de France. It was more of a Tour de Farce. On the other hand, they were substantially better than his lists of the top ten good and evil Jays, which he meant to write for the Blue Jays series. (Note: Ray Jay Johnson would have been on both lists). Still, a correction is in order, and Jose has made it. Corrections of this correction will come tomorrow or possibly never

Now that the self-flagellation is over, Jose can get on to the business of flagellating others. Let’s try putting a cap on the Rays amazing season. Now that the Rays are tied with the Sox and are ready to fall into second, Jose feels like he needs a good headline to eulogize (note: euthanize?) their run. The leaders were:

Like Namesake, Rays think of Stay Puft, Have Problems
Like Ray Charles, Tampa Rays Arrested by Boston
You can call them Ray, and you can call them Jay, but you can’t call them champs.


But eventually Rays Disappear Over Horizon won for its sheer simplicity.

Still, we shouldn’t dismiss what the Rays have accomplished. Even if they ultimately finish in second place, they laid a stage for others to follow.

Before this season who would have believed that a loser from a small city, with no real history of accomplishment, stupid looking glasses and an association with people with absurd names like Aubrey, Midre and Delmon could ever hope to achieve success? And now those qualifications can make one a candidate for Vice President of these United States.

Truly, the Rays were the Mouse that Roared. You know, The Mouse that Roared don’t you? It’s a play and Peter Sellars movie about a tiny country, Grand Fenwick, which invades the U.S. in response to a trademark infringement in hopes of getting massive reparations. During the invasion of New York by chain mail clad long bowman, which is presumed to be a joke, Grand Fenwick captures the dreaded Q-Bomb making it a global super power. This is basically what Tampax Bay did. All they wanted was revenue sharing, but wholly by mistake, they ended up a feared and powerful team. Of course the Mouse that Roared was fiction and ended with the U.S. paying tribute to the medieval duchy. In reality, Grand Fenwick would have been nuked and overall destroyed. Since the Tampax Bay Rays are a true story and not fiction, that is pretty much where we are headed.

Nevertheless, kudos to the Rays on an extraordinary season, just next time, try not to think of the Stay Puft Marshmallow man.


2. According to the Globe’s Nick Cafardo, following a curiously short start yesterday Scott “Disputed Province of” Kazmir was “extolling the virtues of finishing first.”

Is anyone surprised in the least that a man who couldn’t last for as long as was necessary last night was extolling the virtues of finishing first? Mrs. Disputed Province of Kazmir must be so sad.


3.The Globe reported today that Mike Lowell is suffering from a partially torn hip labrum that may well require surgery after the season.

Some readers might be surprised to hear this, given Lowell’s home run yesterday, but Jose is not shocked in the least. Of course, Lowell is swinging hard, of course he is playing nearly every day because… get ready for this… the hip labrum does not exist.

Saying that Lowell has a torn hip labrum is like saying that Lowell has a broken funny bone and will need surgery on it in the off-season. (Note: Theo Epstein may actually have a broken funny bone.) It’s a joke, a clever way of distracting attention from the real problem, that he’s just not hitting that well.

This is all a very baseball thing to do, inventing a body part to injure. Take the rotator cuff. Had anyone ever heard of the rotator cuff before pitchers started throwing in the high 90s? Of course not. But suddenly there are all of these should be stud pitchers who throw 98 and still can’t get anyone out. How can that be? It must be an injury, but the MRI doesn’t show anything? Ah, it must be the rotator cuff.

Besides, just as there is no bone that makes you funny, there is no labrum that makes you hip. Hip, as everyone knows, resided in the fingers.

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