Correction

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

1. Today is only the second game of the season, and already Jose needs to run a correction. Absurd and pathetic isn’t it? A skilled journalist like Jose making a terrible error in on of the biggest KEYS of the year? Well, Jose is nothing if not honest about his flaws (Note: For instance, his left hand is almost useless. He can’t dribble with it, nothing. It’s like he’s Casey Fossum.) And unlike newspaper types who would correct their page 1 error on page D35 special advertising supplement for Trans-Dniester “Land of Intrigue,” Jose will correct a first KEY error in a first KEY. Ready? Okay, here goes.

CORRECTION: In the KEYS TO THE GAME feature on Monday, April 2, 2007 Anno Domini, the author wrote “as bad as yesterday may have been, today will be, it must be, better, because today there will be baseball.”

Many KEYS readers sat down to watch Opening Day assuming that the reporting was accurate. It was not. Monday, April 2 was not better because there was baseball. It was worse. You know; you saw the game. The text should have read “as bad as yesterday may have been, today will be, it must be, better, because today there will be baseball. Unless Curt Euro totally implodes, in which case the day and the day after it will be total crap.” The management of KEYS TO THE GAME apologizes for any distress this error may have caused readers. On the other hand, grow up, it’s not like we poisoned any dogs.

2. Today is the season’s first start for St. Josh Beckett as he tries to put a difficult 2006 season, wherein he sent more men home happy than Hazel Mae, behind him. The problem, most have theorized, is that Beckett was so enamored of his marvelous fastball that he couldn’t stop throwing it… ever. Narcissus on the Charles, if you will. Jose thinks there is a lot of truth to this. Doing the same thing over and over again without variation is a) a sign of mental illness and b) leaves one exposed to all kinds of threats. A monoculture crop gets completely decimated by a new pest. An undiversified stock portfolio is rendered worthless by one company’s collapse. And an unwavering fastball, 97 mph though it may fly, is launched into the night.

If you need more proof that variation is essential to success, consider the case of Wade Boggs. Boggs was brilliant hitter, but he was known for his compulsive routines, most famously eating chicken every single game day, without fail. And you know what that got him? Well, into the Hall of Fame. But do you know where it got him after that? To the WWF Hall of Fame. That’s right Wade Boggs, a legend, a master hitter, was reduced to inducting the late Mr. Perfect Curt Henning into the WWF Hall of Fame last week, and all because he only ate chicken before games. Pathetic. An actual Hall of Famer went to the induction ceremony of the only Hall of Fame that would admit Pete Rose (note: in the Hall’s celebrity wing). (Additional Note: Actually, including Rose in the WWF Hall seems like a good compromise. He gets to be in a Hall of Fame, but he’s surrounded with other athletes who fix matches. If just once in a while, Boggs had mixed in a little lamb, maybe some moussaka, this never would have happened. Never.

Though maybe it’s not so bad. Boggs and Henning weren’t so different. They were both elite athletes who relied on finesse rather than power. Moreover, they were both managed by geniuses, Henning by “The Genius” Lanny Poffo, and Boggs by John McNamara.

Anyway, long story short, Beckett needs to mix in his curve ball more effectively this year or one of these days we’re going to see him in a tux talking about how much the legendary Issac Yankem DMD meant to professional wrestling and the dental community.

3. Jose is not, as you know, a religious man. He likes God. He has positive feelings towards God, but sometimes, when he thinks too much, he gets skeptical. Why do bad things happen to good people? Why would a just God allow the Red Sox to make the Bard/Meredith trade? That sort of thing drives doubt into his heart. But Jose has good news on this front. It turns out that God exists. Not only does he exist, but he is just, which is great, because justice in any of its non-David forms is absolutely terrific. And you know how Jose knows? Empirical evidence. That’s right, put that in your Sunday mornings uninterrupted by boring sermons about loving your neighbor but not making love too your neighbor, atheist scum!

“But what’s the proof?” you ask. “Is it Christ’s glorious resurrection? The 2004 ALCS? Billy Dee Williams making a cameo on Lost?” Nope. It’s so much simpler… and more profound.

On August 1, 2006 Jose wrote “How can there be a just God if skinny Jason Johnson has diabetes, and fat David Wells gets to keep stuffing his face with cakes and donuts and pies?”

It’s a great question isn’t it? But God speaks to us. He is still speaking to us. Not in words or visions, not in a burning bush or from atop a mountain, but in simple, every day acts of divinity, like giving David Wells diabetes.

Thank you God, thank you for making Jose believe again. Now, you can seal the deal by taking away Jason Johnson’s diabetes. And after that, you cold really seal the deal by giving Mike Lowell a second testicle again. You could just take it from David Ortiz. That guy’s got more balls than anyone in the league.

(Theological note: As it has been established that David Ortiz is God, would it make Mike Lowell at least a little divine if he got one of Ortiz’s testicles? Which chapter of Leviticus covers that?)

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

And Now a Brief Intermission

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

1. They don’t come around too often any more, but Jose always loved going to single admission doubleheaders. As nice as drinking beers at the ballpark is while taking in a game, doing it while taking in two games is literally twice as nice. Actually, it’s 2.3 times as nice, economies of scale, you know.

As anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of economics knows, it is not a given that two, is twice as good as one. One could very reasonably expect the marginal utility of each inning to diminish as one creeps into the second game. But it doesn’t, and you know why? No intermissions. This is the genius of baseball. Other sports have lengthy breaks, but not baseball. Sure there’s the seventh inning stretch, but that’s barely more than a regular inning change, unless of course, it is a playoff game at Yankee Stadium, in which case, it is slightly longer than a Peking Opera, and only 20 percent as interesting.

The law of diminishing marginal returns became painfully clear to Jose as he went to an “Iced Hockey” double header at the Boston Garden on Friday. (Note: It’s like Iced Tea, right?) While Hockey is a great live sport and Jose was excited by the prospect of watching his state university take on UNH, and his alma mater BU take on BC, he lived in dread. Sure, six periods of hockey (note: Which period is the Jurassic? The second right?) is a lot, but what really scared Jose was the five intermissions. Five! That’s an hour and forty minutes of intermission, and more if one remembers that the intermission between games is 45 minutes.

It got worse. The first game went to double overtime. Sure it was “exciting” and “dramatic” but the intermissions, dear God the intermissions. To make matters worse, the game ended two minutes into the second overtime, so a twenty minute intermission was followed by 2 minutes of action and then another 45 minutes of intermission. That’s almost as much down time as in a Nomar Garciaparra at bat!

So based on this, experience Jose has created a sport hierarchy based on the number and duration of intermissions. Hockey is at the bottom because it has two intermissions. Then comes basketball because it has one. Above that is football, because it also has one intermission, but it has way better highlights than basketball. Next is soccer, which also has one intermission but doesn’t have commercials during the game. And then on top is baseball with its no intermissions, save for occasional moments to scratch, spit and go into the Green Monster to urinate. Actually, check that. Wrestling is above baseball, because it has no breaks at all, unless you count “rest holds” like the sleeper hold and reverse chinlocks. NASCAR would be at the top, because it has no intermissions at all, but then Jose remembered it’s just people driving in circles, so it’s actually nothing but intermission.


2. As part of an effort to maintain better control of their intellectual property, the Red Sox have announced new policies governing the use of Red Sox highlights from NESN, including demands that NESN receive credit on all Red Sox clips.

While this move generated significant publicity, it is only the latest in a series of moves by the Red Sox to protect their intellectual property. Among the less well know moves:

• Sued He-Man/Masters of the Universe for misappropriating John W. Henry’s likeness for Skeletor.
• Sued Kellogs for misuse of “Coco Crisp” brand name.
• Sent cease and desist order to makers of Spider Man movie, claiming “Green Goblin” is way too close to “Green Monster,” “Dr. Octopus” is what everyone called Wade Boggs when he was groping Margo Adams and “Mary Jane” is dangerously close to the type of cigarettes Craig Hansen likes to smoke. (Note: Jose has no evidence that Hansen is a doper aside from his droopy eyes.)
• Filed restraining order against Armando Benitez, claiming “save blowing gopher ball” is the intellectual property of Julian Tavarez.
• Filed suit against J.J. Abrams and ABC, stating that the Red Sox had already copyrighted “Lost” as the name of a series about Joe Kerrigan’s managerial reign.
• Filed gag order against Kevin Millar. Someone had to do it.
• Issued statement saying anyone calling Grady Little a “Forrest Gump looking douchebag” is using Red Sox trademarked material and must pay $50 in royalties.
• Bitched at Doug Mientkiewiecz about World Series ball. (Note: Wait that one’s real. What a dick move.)
  

3. The Texas Rangers have ended their relationship with Ameriquest Mortgage Company, changing the name of their ballpark from Ameriquest Field to Rangers Ballpark in Arlington three years into a 30 year deal.

The outcome of Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick’s call to the Rangers pleading with them to keep the Ameriquest name remains unknown.

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