It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEY TO THE GAME.
1. Yeah, that’s not a typo. From now on Jose is only going to do a KEY TO THE GAME. Why? Well has this edition of the Red Sox shown any ability to handle three things at once? Certainly not hitting, pitching and defense. So Jose is just going to simplify it. Think of it as a not writing prevention strategy.
Every day, if Jose is going to post KEYS. He has to do three things:
1. Produce KEY 1.
2. Produce KEY 2.
3. Produce KEY 3.
That’s a lot. Too much really. Every day Jose would look at the burden, sigh and shake his head mournfully, saying “Not today, maybe tomorrow.” So from now on Jose is going to use himself as a short reliever. He’s going to try to be available most days, but only available for a little bit of the game. He will be kind of like Manny Delcarmen, but without the frequent bouts of sucking. Or maybe with them. Who knows? We’ll have to see how Jose adjusts to his new role.
But that’s not today’s KEY. Nope. Coming in with an explanation of what one is going to do and then declaring that the action is done makes no sense. Doing that would be like having to count each time Tito visits the mound as him having faced a batter.
So here is what Jose is going to talk about—John Edwards.
You see John Edwards, former Senator and Vice Presidential nominee and current subject of national scorn crashed the semi-formal function of Jose’s public policy school on Saturday night. We were just sitting around, a group o exceptionally good looking 23-40 year olds (note: Really. There are just terrific looking people in this program) and up comes Senator “I don’t need fidelity, fidelity needs me.” The next thing we know, he and two other middle-aged friends are hanging around at our private party. Now, this in and of itself is not such a big deal. It’s funny, which is why Jose got a snappy photo with Edwards. If Edwards had been walking down the street, no big deal, but when he shows up and your party? Well, it’s so pathetic as to be hysterical. What did bother Jose is that Edwards appears to have drank, albeit it in moderation, on our tab. The guy is worth millions of dollars and yet he goes off of a grad student groups bar tab. Not cool.
He stuck around for about two hours, drinking white wine (note: yes, probably Chablis) and watching people dance until finally he was on his way. All in all, it was among the most pathetic things Jose had ever seen.
But it bothered Jose. There is something sad about seeing someone fall so far, and trust Jose, running with a policy crowd is pretty damn far. You know how exhilarating it was watching Darnell McDonald win the game the other night, how thrilling it was to know you were seeing the highlight of someone’s life? Well, this was the opposite of that. This was watching a man in the throws of wretched defeat, absurdly tanned, perfectly coiffed, extremely wealthy defeat, but defeat nevertheless.
It is Jose’s worst fear.
Oh, it’s not Jose’s worst fear for himself. You have to get awfully high to fall such a spectacular distance, and thus far at least, Jose’s life trajectory is afraid of heights. It’s Jose’s worst fear for David Ortiz. You watch Papi night after night swinging that slow, heavy bat, pile on the positive drug test that we learned about last August, and it is impossible not to feel like you are watching a man fall off a cliff.
But it’s not the same for Ortiz and Edwards. It isn’t. It can’t be. First there is no way Papi would ever show up at a grad student function and go home alone as Edwards did, Jose supposes to his credit. Papi has way too much duende. Second, Papi, as low as he may fall, as far back as his glory days may recede into history, still accomplished great things. What happened has happened. What was, at the very least, used to be. For Edwards what was was that he snookered a lot of people who not only believed what he said, but thought he was a man who could address the evils he described. He wasn’t. Papi, whatever he is now, will also be the man who was as responsible as any other, for bringing a title to Boston.
So weep not for David Ortiz. He can drink white wine to moderation on Jose’s tab any time. On the other hand, if Roger Clemens shows up at Jose’s graduation party, Jose, for one, is not getting a picture.
I’m Jose Melendez and that is my KEY TO THE GAME.
Showing posts with label Ortiz. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ortiz. Show all posts
Monday, April 26
Sunday, April 4
Opening Day--Asserting the Unsupportable
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. For the past two seasons Jose has been… relaxed? No, negligent in writing his daily musings. Ostensibly this has been because he has spent the better part of the last two seasons in some of the world’s most remote and isolated places, Malawi, Uganda… Durham. This year, however, things have changed. Africa is not calling and North Carolina is not confining, and Jose is once again free to try to chronicle, if not the entire season, at least some portion thereof.
But travel is not the whole story of Jose’s two years of negligence. While his world was expanding, in many ways his worldview was contracting. As some of you know, Jose returned to school last year. Jose had assumed that the experience would be broadening, that it would refresh the intellectual capital that had been spent over four years of writing.
Jose was wrong.
As much as his undergraduate studies broadened Jose’s cultural horizon, graduated studies narrowed it. Whereas old Jose could comfortable discuss the implications of Durkheim’s Suicide on the squeeze play and the role of Berlin’s The Hedgehog and the Fox on the batting stance of Jimmy Foxx, new Jose is focused on the endless tedium of public policy. For two years, he has been able to think of nothing save how to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of the Julio Lugo contract (note: the costs outweigh the benefits), how to do a risk analysis of signing Jason Bay to a big deal (note: very risky) and how to use a stakeholder matrix to evaluate the ideal batting order (note: people killing vampires are not necessarily stakeholders). See. Narrow, boring stuff.
The other problem is that Jose has come to realize that his four years of writing here at KEYS lack intellectual rigor. Jose is eloquent, sure. But eloquence is not evidence. For four long years, Jose reveled in making assertions rather than argument, backing up his points with nothing more than an elegant tangle of verbiage. You can’t do that in the academic world. Claims must be supported and documented. This mindset infiltrated Jose’s blogging, leading to more structured, less frequent and far less fun posts. No longer could Jose make a simple assertion like “Jeter is the worst fucking defensive shortstop in baseball.” Instead, he would have to drag up the 30 or so defensive metrics that prove it. That takes time, and time, suddenly, was something Jose did not have.
But graduation is coming, and with it the sacred time that Jose has sacrificed like so much paschal lamb. And it comes, thank God on this Easter Sunday, just in time for baseball…
So let’s get to the unsubstantiated assertions.
2. Jose’s unsubstantiated assertions to start the new season.
• Jose has heard that the Red Sox signed Marco Scutaro because he has the sound “scooter” in his name. Apparently, Theo and company though this mean he would play like former Yankees short stop Phil “Scooter” Rizutto. Also, they were planning on hitting up the money store to pay salary. While this is profoundly stupid, it is far less stupid than the alternative, that the Red Sox thought they were getting Scooter the baseball from the Fox telecasts.
• David Ortiz is going to have a great season. (Note: Assertions are so great. See how Jose offered no evidence. He just said it and now is going to act like it’s true).
• It is not fair to call Dice K’s time in Boston a failure. He is only a failure in the sense that there were tremendous expectations of him, he failed to meet them in any way and the process has left fans feeling like management thought we were stupid. If you used this repressive standard for failure, you would have to call Cop Rock a failure, and as we all know now, Cop Rock was simply paving the way for Glee 20 years later. Look for the Red Sox to get some really solid work out of a Japanese starter in 2030.
• Watching Ronan Tynan sing while wearing a Sox jersey at the St. Patty’s day brunch was like watching video of Sadaam Hussein’s Bar Mitzvah. You know, except more anti-Semitic.
• Now that Mike Lowell will be sitting on the bench, Jose hopes his teammates taunt him with the phrase “no play for Mr. Gray” from that commercial for hair coloring with Keith Hernandez. Don’t take this the wrong way Mike but your beard is weird.
3. With the unsupported part of today’s program out of the way, let’s move on to the supported part. In this off-season, the Red Sox have paid a great deal of attention to improving their defense. Nay sayers in the media (note: or is the horse faced Shaughnessy a “neigh sayer?”) have attacked the emphasis on defense as nothing more than a propaganda campaign intended to cover up insufficient emphasis on offense.
This is asinine, though nothing one wouldn’t expect from the historically ignorant Boston media. Defense has proven absolutely critical throughout baseball and throughout history.
Consider Prague 1419, when radical Hussites, lacking sufficient offense used defenestration, which sounds enough like defense that Jose will assume they mean the same thing, to overcome opposition by the town’s Burgermeister.
Same city in 1618, more angry Protestants defenestrate regents who land on a pile of excrement. YES shows the clip for the next 380 years and comments on the selfless way the regents sacrificed their body, in contras to the brooding Nomar Garciaparra who sat silently watching.
Same city 1948, Prime Minister Jan Masaryk, is found dead, presumably defenestrated outside of a bathroom window at his office, giving new meaning to the phrase “dropping a deuce.”
Belgrade 1903, military rebels supporting the Karadjordjevic (George the Black) dynasty defenestrate King Alexander and Queen Draga, thereby ending the Obrenovic dynasty and bringing George Steinbrenner to power.
China 1968, Deng Pufang, son of Deng Xiaoping is defenestrated by Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution. To this day, no one knows what made the security force for the Cincinnati ball club so angry.
So after all of these successful applications of defenestration, local scribes still want to claim that defen(estration) doesn’t win championships?
Of course, the Protestants lost in Bohemia, the Czech Republic is no longer communist, the Karadjordjevic’s have no more control over Serbia than the Obrenovic’s and Deng Xiaoping remade China in his image. So maybe defen(estration) really doesn’t win championships.
That’s it. This entire theory of building a team around the ability to throw opponents out of windows is bunk. Jose insists that the Red Sox immediately acquire some players who are skilled with the poison tipped umbrella. Adrian Gonzales is good at that right?
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. For the past two seasons Jose has been… relaxed? No, negligent in writing his daily musings. Ostensibly this has been because he has spent the better part of the last two seasons in some of the world’s most remote and isolated places, Malawi, Uganda… Durham. This year, however, things have changed. Africa is not calling and North Carolina is not confining, and Jose is once again free to try to chronicle, if not the entire season, at least some portion thereof.
But travel is not the whole story of Jose’s two years of negligence. While his world was expanding, in many ways his worldview was contracting. As some of you know, Jose returned to school last year. Jose had assumed that the experience would be broadening, that it would refresh the intellectual capital that had been spent over four years of writing.
Jose was wrong.
As much as his undergraduate studies broadened Jose’s cultural horizon, graduated studies narrowed it. Whereas old Jose could comfortable discuss the implications of Durkheim’s Suicide on the squeeze play and the role of Berlin’s The Hedgehog and the Fox on the batting stance of Jimmy Foxx, new Jose is focused on the endless tedium of public policy. For two years, he has been able to think of nothing save how to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of the Julio Lugo contract (note: the costs outweigh the benefits), how to do a risk analysis of signing Jason Bay to a big deal (note: very risky) and how to use a stakeholder matrix to evaluate the ideal batting order (note: people killing vampires are not necessarily stakeholders). See. Narrow, boring stuff.
The other problem is that Jose has come to realize that his four years of writing here at KEYS lack intellectual rigor. Jose is eloquent, sure. But eloquence is not evidence. For four long years, Jose reveled in making assertions rather than argument, backing up his points with nothing more than an elegant tangle of verbiage. You can’t do that in the academic world. Claims must be supported and documented. This mindset infiltrated Jose’s blogging, leading to more structured, less frequent and far less fun posts. No longer could Jose make a simple assertion like “Jeter is the worst fucking defensive shortstop in baseball.” Instead, he would have to drag up the 30 or so defensive metrics that prove it. That takes time, and time, suddenly, was something Jose did not have.
But graduation is coming, and with it the sacred time that Jose has sacrificed like so much paschal lamb. And it comes, thank God on this Easter Sunday, just in time for baseball…
So let’s get to the unsubstantiated assertions.
2. Jose’s unsubstantiated assertions to start the new season.
• Jose has heard that the Red Sox signed Marco Scutaro because he has the sound “scooter” in his name. Apparently, Theo and company though this mean he would play like former Yankees short stop Phil “Scooter” Rizutto. Also, they were planning on hitting up the money store to pay salary. While this is profoundly stupid, it is far less stupid than the alternative, that the Red Sox thought they were getting Scooter the baseball from the Fox telecasts.
• David Ortiz is going to have a great season. (Note: Assertions are so great. See how Jose offered no evidence. He just said it and now is going to act like it’s true).
• It is not fair to call Dice K’s time in Boston a failure. He is only a failure in the sense that there were tremendous expectations of him, he failed to meet them in any way and the process has left fans feeling like management thought we were stupid. If you used this repressive standard for failure, you would have to call Cop Rock a failure, and as we all know now, Cop Rock was simply paving the way for Glee 20 years later. Look for the Red Sox to get some really solid work out of a Japanese starter in 2030.
• Watching Ronan Tynan sing while wearing a Sox jersey at the St. Patty’s day brunch was like watching video of Sadaam Hussein’s Bar Mitzvah. You know, except more anti-Semitic.
• Now that Mike Lowell will be sitting on the bench, Jose hopes his teammates taunt him with the phrase “no play for Mr. Gray” from that commercial for hair coloring with Keith Hernandez. Don’t take this the wrong way Mike but your beard is weird.
3. With the unsupported part of today’s program out of the way, let’s move on to the supported part. In this off-season, the Red Sox have paid a great deal of attention to improving their defense. Nay sayers in the media (note: or is the horse faced Shaughnessy a “neigh sayer?”) have attacked the emphasis on defense as nothing more than a propaganda campaign intended to cover up insufficient emphasis on offense.
This is asinine, though nothing one wouldn’t expect from the historically ignorant Boston media. Defense has proven absolutely critical throughout baseball and throughout history.
Consider Prague 1419, when radical Hussites, lacking sufficient offense used defenestration, which sounds enough like defense that Jose will assume they mean the same thing, to overcome opposition by the town’s Burgermeister.
Same city in 1618, more angry Protestants defenestrate regents who land on a pile of excrement. YES shows the clip for the next 380 years and comments on the selfless way the regents sacrificed their body, in contras to the brooding Nomar Garciaparra who sat silently watching.
Same city 1948, Prime Minister Jan Masaryk, is found dead, presumably defenestrated outside of a bathroom window at his office, giving new meaning to the phrase “dropping a deuce.”
Belgrade 1903, military rebels supporting the Karadjordjevic (George the Black) dynasty defenestrate King Alexander and Queen Draga, thereby ending the Obrenovic dynasty and bringing George Steinbrenner to power.
China 1968, Deng Pufang, son of Deng Xiaoping is defenestrated by Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution. To this day, no one knows what made the security force for the Cincinnati ball club so angry.
So after all of these successful applications of defenestration, local scribes still want to claim that defen(estration) doesn’t win championships?
Of course, the Protestants lost in Bohemia, the Czech Republic is no longer communist, the Karadjordjevic’s have no more control over Serbia than the Obrenovic’s and Deng Xiaoping remade China in his image. So maybe defen(estration) really doesn’t win championships.
That’s it. This entire theory of building a team around the ability to throw opponents out of windows is bunk. Jose insists that the Red Sox immediately acquire some players who are skilled with the poison tipped umbrella. Adrian Gonzales is good at that right?
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
Wednesday, September 10
Mislocation, mislocation, mislocation
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. The Red Sox lost to the Rays last night and blew a chance to take over first place in the AL East because of mislocation. Papelbon said so. It wasn’t Dice K’s control problems, or Tek’s bat or plain old bad luck. It was mislocation plain and not so simple.
Jose thought this excuse was, to be honest, some pretty weak scotch. For starters, he was pretty sure that “mislocate” is not actually a word. But he wanted to cut Papelbon some slack, because, while the man can pitch, he is just not that bright, so Jose tried to think what he could possibly have meant.
At first, Jose thought that perhaps Paps had meant “dislocation.” This got Jose really concerned, because if he were dislocating his pitches, it would suggest that the shoulder strengthening routine had not been a success and his health was in jeopardy. Then Jose thought that maybe Paps meant “misplaced.” Jose could see how misplacing pitches could be a problem.
He can imagine Paps telling his wife “Honey, I misplaced my fastball, do you remember where I left it? I already looked on the night stand.”
This is exactly what happened to Rod Beck… also drugs.
But then Jose decided he would actually look up mislocate, and much to his surprise it appears to be a more or less real word. According to dictionary.com, it means either “misplace,” which Jose has already covered or “to specify a wrong location for.” Example “to mislocate the source of the Nile.”
This sounds a lot to Jose like Paps is blaming the umpires, as in “That ump mislocated that pitch and called it a ball.” This strikes Jose as very foolish and unnecessarily adversarial.
Of course, the problem may have nothing to do with the umps or even Papelbon and everything to do with Dan Johnson mislocating the ball into the rightfield bleachers.
2. Before Jose gets to the top ten evil Rays, Jose needs to point out the glaring omission of Ray Borque from the good list. Adding Ray to the good list at two, should, in theory, bump number ten, Allan Ray, off of the list, and yet it bumps number 7, Ray Babbitt instead. Funny world.
Top Ten Evil Rays
3. According to the Boston Globe, David Ortiz showed the media a film of closer Jonathan Paplebon dancing in a blonde wig and dress to Aqua’s “Barbie Girl” and reenacting the closing scene of Dirty Dancing with a male classmate. The films were made when Paplebon was in high school.
This, of course, solves the mystery of how Paplebon was able to spring into Varitek’s arms with such grace following the last out of the 2007 World Series. Those guys must have spent a ton of time in the lake working on the lift.
This also suggests that somewhere, there is probably a video of Kevin Millar reenacting scenes from Roadhouse.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. The Red Sox lost to the Rays last night and blew a chance to take over first place in the AL East because of mislocation. Papelbon said so. It wasn’t Dice K’s control problems, or Tek’s bat or plain old bad luck. It was mislocation plain and not so simple.
Jose thought this excuse was, to be honest, some pretty weak scotch. For starters, he was pretty sure that “mislocate” is not actually a word. But he wanted to cut Papelbon some slack, because, while the man can pitch, he is just not that bright, so Jose tried to think what he could possibly have meant.
At first, Jose thought that perhaps Paps had meant “dislocation.” This got Jose really concerned, because if he were dislocating his pitches, it would suggest that the shoulder strengthening routine had not been a success and his health was in jeopardy. Then Jose thought that maybe Paps meant “misplaced.” Jose could see how misplacing pitches could be a problem.
He can imagine Paps telling his wife “Honey, I misplaced my fastball, do you remember where I left it? I already looked on the night stand.”
This is exactly what happened to Rod Beck… also drugs.
But then Jose decided he would actually look up mislocate, and much to his surprise it appears to be a more or less real word. According to dictionary.com, it means either “misplace,” which Jose has already covered or “to specify a wrong location for.” Example “to mislocate the source of the Nile.”
This sounds a lot to Jose like Paps is blaming the umpires, as in “That ump mislocated that pitch and called it a ball.” This strikes Jose as very foolish and unnecessarily adversarial.
Of course, the problem may have nothing to do with the umps or even Papelbon and everything to do with Dan Johnson mislocating the ball into the rightfield bleachers.
2. Before Jose gets to the top ten evil Rays, Jose needs to point out the glaring omission of Ray Borque from the good list. Adding Ray to the good list at two, should, in theory, bump number ten, Allan Ray, off of the list, and yet it bumps number 7, Ray Babbitt instead. Funny world.
Top Ten Evil Rays
1. Ray Knight—Also, Mookie Wilson will be number one on the list of top ten evil Mookies.
2. Ray Romano—Not everyone loves him.
3. Ray Leonard—Olympic gold medalist, boxing legend, beloved public figure, undeserving winner of a fight against Hagler.
4. Ray Berry—Yes he took the Pats to their first Super Bowl, but he also presided over a team that was basically a drug den, started Tony Eason over Doug Flutie and called fake punts based on dreams. Okay, the last one sounds like something Jose would do, but that makes it even more wrong.
5. Ray, Gamma—Those things messed up Bruce Banner bad.
6. Re (Scrabble Word/Solfeggio note)—This is just a cheap BS Scrabble word
7. Sugar Ray—It’s a band but it sounds like a guy. That is so misleading
8. Ray Burr—He has mislead us all into thinking that our justice system works well
9. Rep. Ray LaHood—He’s a Republican and Jose is feeling very partisan these days.
10. Famous Ray—You know, Jose is starting to think that all of those New York Pizza joints may not be owned by the same guy.
3. According to the Boston Globe, David Ortiz showed the media a film of closer Jonathan Paplebon dancing in a blonde wig and dress to Aqua’s “Barbie Girl” and reenacting the closing scene of Dirty Dancing with a male classmate. The films were made when Paplebon was in high school.
This, of course, solves the mystery of how Paplebon was able to spring into Varitek’s arms with such grace following the last out of the 2007 World Series. Those guys must have spent a ton of time in the lake working on the lift.
This also suggests that somewhere, there is probably a video of Kevin Millar reenacting scenes from Roadhouse.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
Monday, September 8
All History's Been Building to This
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. Careful readers of KEYS may have noticed a distinct lack of intensity in Jose’s Yankees columns this year. The standard bile-laced invectives have been curiously absent, as have the demand that all identify “Whose side are you on.”
The reason, of course, is that Jose has been saving the anger and invective for the series beginning today with the ancient and hated rival the Tampax Bay Rays.
Already, Jose is slipping on his “Kazmir Sucks” shirt, and placing orders for ones that read, “Crawford is a Little Bitch,” and “Pena Sucks Hinske.”(Note: Those guys are traitors, damn dirty traitors. How can you leave the Red Sox and go to the Rays? It’s like defecting from Paraguay to Uruguay in the War of the Triple Alliance.)
So to get fired up Jose is going to review some of the great-moments in the Rays-Red Sox rivalry.
September 6, 2000: Pedro Martinez hits ham ‘n’ egger Gerald Williams on his fourth pitch of the evening, prompting Williams to charge the mound. A cowed Martinez then shows his fear by refusing to hit any of the next 24 batters, or let them hit him.
Opening Day 2003: Rays beat Red Sox on walkoff—In what remains the greatest win in Rays history, the then Devil Rays come back on opening day to beat the Red Sox, as Chad Fox blows a save. Tampax starter Joe Kennedy is so emotional that he dies four years later.
March 27, 2006: Julian Tavarez cold cocks a sliding Joey Gathright at home plate in an exhibition game, moving him past “Rockin” Robbie Simms on the list of Massachusetts’ greatest pugilists.
Can’t you feel the history? Can’t you smell the animosity? Screw Fred McGriff! Wade Boggs is a traitor! It’s like Istanbul or was it Constantinople. It’s like Salonika or is it Thessaloniki? This rivalry is where history ends, where possibility clashes with reality. It’s Rays-Red Sox. And this time, it counts.
2. Sine the Rays have enjoyed such wonderful benefits from abandoning the devil and embracing the Ray, Jose thought it would be nice to pay tribute to all of the great Rays by cracking out the old, Top 10 good and evil bit. Today, the Top Ten Good Rays of all time, later this week, the bad
For instance, let’s say you won the lottery and someone asks you “Are you ok?” You’re going to answer “no” because, you’re not ok. You’re awesome. And Jose can only assume that the same thing is true of David Ortiz.
In related news, Jose is pretty sure that when they say Tom Brady has suffered a catastrophic knee injury, they mean that it’s not that bad and therefore will catastrophic for Patriots opponents.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. Careful readers of KEYS may have noticed a distinct lack of intensity in Jose’s Yankees columns this year. The standard bile-laced invectives have been curiously absent, as have the demand that all identify “Whose side are you on.”
The reason, of course, is that Jose has been saving the anger and invective for the series beginning today with the ancient and hated rival the Tampax Bay Rays.
Already, Jose is slipping on his “Kazmir Sucks” shirt, and placing orders for ones that read, “Crawford is a Little Bitch,” and “Pena Sucks Hinske.”(Note: Those guys are traitors, damn dirty traitors. How can you leave the Red Sox and go to the Rays? It’s like defecting from Paraguay to Uruguay in the War of the Triple Alliance.)
So to get fired up Jose is going to review some of the great-moments in the Rays-Red Sox rivalry.
September 6, 2000: Pedro Martinez hits ham ‘n’ egger Gerald Williams on his fourth pitch of the evening, prompting Williams to charge the mound. A cowed Martinez then shows his fear by refusing to hit any of the next 24 batters, or let them hit him.
Opening Day 2003: Rays beat Red Sox on walkoff—In what remains the greatest win in Rays history, the then Devil Rays come back on opening day to beat the Red Sox, as Chad Fox blows a save. Tampax starter Joe Kennedy is so emotional that he dies four years later.
March 27, 2006: Julian Tavarez cold cocks a sliding Joey Gathright at home plate in an exhibition game, moving him past “Rockin” Robbie Simms on the list of Massachusetts’ greatest pugilists.
Can’t you feel the history? Can’t you smell the animosity? Screw Fred McGriff! Wade Boggs is a traitor! It’s like Istanbul or was it Constantinople. It’s like Salonika or is it Thessaloniki? This rivalry is where history ends, where possibility clashes with reality. It’s Rays-Red Sox. And this time, it counts.
2. Sine the Rays have enjoyed such wonderful benefits from abandoning the devil and embracing the Ray, Jose thought it would be nice to pay tribute to all of the great Rays by cracking out the old, Top 10 good and evil bit. Today, the Top Ten Good Rays of all time, later this week, the bad
1. Ray Charles—Even if he did nothing else in his career, the man was in Blues Brothers. (Note: Ray is dead, when Stevie Wonder goes, who will continue the chain of blind black pianists who are awesome?)3. The Red Sox are at last getting healthy, with Mike Lowell, Sean Casey and St. Josh a Beckett returning to the team, and even DJ Dru talking about playing against the Rays. There is even good news on the Big Papi front as the designated hitter told the Globe “My Hand is Not OK.” Now, Jose knows what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “That sounds like bad news.” But you are totally wrong. Being not ok, doesn’t necessarily mean bad, it could mean really good.
2. Ray Robinson—Pound for pound the best ever… except for Julian Tavarez.
3. Ray, X—Much better than the old system of cutting the leg in half to see if it is broken.
4. Ray Allen—A champion! Also, number two on the top ten good Jesus list.
5. Ray Magliozzi—Leads Dane Cook in the race to be Arlington’s funniest person by 42,387 people
6. Ray Bradbury—Even in his futuristic novels, could not imagine the Rays in the playoffs.
7. Ray Babbitt—The man was a gambling genius!
8. Ray Jay Johnson—OK, Jose will be honest, he has no idea who this is, but he’s been mentioned on The Simpsons a few times. Of course, if Simpsons mentions were a good metric for skill, Steve Sax would be in the Hall of Fame.
9. Stevie Ray Vaughan—He died in a plane crash. That makes him the Corey Lidle of rock.
10. Allan Ray—Maybe the Celtics couldn’t be bothered to play Ray Allen and Allan Ray, together, but Jose will be damned if he misses the chance.
For instance, let’s say you won the lottery and someone asks you “Are you ok?” You’re going to answer “no” because, you’re not ok. You’re awesome. And Jose can only assume that the same thing is true of David Ortiz.
In related news, Jose is pretty sure that when they say Tom Brady has suffered a catastrophic knee injury, they mean that it’s not that bad and therefore will catastrophic for Patriots opponents.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
Friday, May 30
How a Blind Man Sees the Red Sox
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. For the past few weeks Jose has been away from the Red Sox, isolated far away from his beloved Boston on a continent that both begins and ends with the letter “A.” (Note: Sorry Europe, everyone else stays in the game.) While being away has its share of hardships, being unable to attend games foremost among them, it is not without its advantages. Most notable Jose has the rare opportunity to view this Red Sox team with fresh eyes, or more accurately, no eyes.
Remember the parable of the blind men and the elephant? A few blind men are feeling up an elephant and they each get a dramatically different idea of what an elephant is based on the part of the beast they are fondling.
The man feeling the elephant's flank says, “Ah, an elephant is like a tree.”
“No, no,” says the man feeling the tail. “An elephant is like a stalk of wheat.”
“You’re both wrong,” says the man touching the trunk. “The elephant is like Ron Jeremy.” (Note: Kapow.)
While Jose, as a general rule is no better than equal to one blind man or two deaf-mutes, at this level of remove, Jose has the opportunity to equal at least three blind men, making him the equal of an entire NBA officiating crew, but without a gambling problem.
So how would a group of blind men see the 2008 Boston Red Sox at this juncture, you know, assuming that they actually weren’t blind at all, but were just really, really narrow minded so they could only see part of the team at a time.
The first blind man, let’s call him Ray, would feel up Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz and say “Ah, the Red Sox are like a locomotive, powerful and right on track.”
The second blind man, named Stevie, would grab hold of Jacoby Ellsbury, Rococo Crisp, and Julio Lugo and say “The Red Sox are like a Dalmatian that mated with a brown-haired thoroughbred horse, black white and brown and fast as hell.” Stevie does not have a great grasp of speciation.
A third blind man, called Usher (note: Doesn’t some African-American musician have to learn to play piano and then go blind once Stevie is gone, or maybe even now, since Ray is gone. Aren’t they like the Sith, there are always two, no more, no less? And you know it won’t be 50 Cent, unless he gets shot in the eye. Who already plays piano?) would grab hold of the middle relief and say, “No, no, you’re wrong. The Red Sox are like a vacuum cleaner, they do nothing but suck.”
But then a fourth sightless companion would come along, let’s call her Helen. Helen would grab hold of the starting rotation. She’d run her hands carefully over Beckett, Dice, Lester, Bartolo, Clay and Wake. Somewhere, Derek Lowe would be watching, lamenting his Sox days gone and wishing that the hot blind chick would be running her hands over him. And then Helen would pause thoughtfully and, twinkle in her glassy eyes, offer the true essence of the Red Sox. “Mmphellesss,” she would sagely state. “Mmmmphelless, waaaattaaahhhh.”
And that friends, is what the 2008 Red Sox, truly are.
2. Okay, that’s great. Now that Jose has made a Helen Keller joke the day after sending a link to KEYS to a prospective employer, he will have plenty of time to write. Good thinking Jose!
In the country where Jose is currently stationed, let’s call it Freedonia, there was recently a failed coup attempt and the former president alleged to be involved, let’s call him Groucho, was sent off to jail. While Jose is, as a matter of principle, deeply opposed to the overthrow of democratically elected governments, he does kind of wish that this sort of “Freedonia model” might be exported to Major League Baseball.
Yes, Jose knows that Buddy Leroux tried it once before, but he made a fatal mistake, he failed to get the army behind him before overthrowing Jean Yawkey and declaring himself Owner. If Buddy had stormed Yawkey Way with three highly trained and loyal divisions, there is no way, Mrs. Yawkey could have taken the team back. She was just a little old lady. There’s no way she could have handled more than two divisions.
But just because it failed once, doesn’t mean that it will fail again. Jose, of course, does not wish to see a coup in the Red Sox organization. We are blessed to be ruled by a benevolent triumvirate that keeps us up to our necks in wine and orgies. Well, keeps the players up to their necks in wine and orgies anyways. Or maybe, Jose was just thinking about Derek Lowe again. (Note: Apologies to DLowe the Paranoid Android, there is no evidence that he ever cheated on his wife with more than one woman in a single sitting or that he was a wine drinker. DLowe always seemed like more of a vodka drunk.)
No, Jose would kind of like to see a coup inside the Yankees organization. The way Jose sees it going down is that former Yankees GM Bob Watson using the armed divisions he must get as MLB’s discipline czar, would overthrow Brian Cashman and Hank Steinbrenner and appoint himself GM for Life, President of the New York Yankees, First Citizen of Yankee Nation and Lion of the Bronx. Then for a façade of legitimacy, he would replace Hank as principle owner with Hank’s own father, the recently deposed George Steinbrenner.
George would call a press conference to declare his dramatic return. As he looked directly into the camera, a twinkle in his glassy eyes would offer the true essence of the Yankees. “Mmphellesss,” the senile old man would sagely state. “Mmmmphelless, waaaattaaahhhh.”
3. Jose would like to offer a hearty thank you to Hillary Clinton. Yes, Jose has been kind of tough on her these past few months, but he now wants to put aside the bitterness and offer a heartfelt thank you.
Thank you, Hil-Rod (note: remember you said wrestling fans can call you that) Thank you, thank you. Hil-Rod. Thank you because by comparing the Democratic Party’s refusal to recognize the votes in the meaningless, non-sanctioned Florida and Michigan primaries to Jim Crow and Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, you have now made it totally acceptable for Jose to compare any event in baseball’s preseason to historical events such as the siege of Sarajevo and the massacre at Katyn.
Just as your husband made it socially acceptably to receive oral sex from interns under a desk, you have made it acceptable to trivialize monstrous events in human history by comparing them to contests that don’t count.
Thank you so much. Already, Jose is writing the story explaining how Julian Tavarez punching Joey Gathright in the face in a preseason game a while back is the same as the Darfur crisis.
Again, thank you for this wonderful contribution to our public discourse.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. For the past few weeks Jose has been away from the Red Sox, isolated far away from his beloved Boston on a continent that both begins and ends with the letter “A.” (Note: Sorry Europe, everyone else stays in the game.) While being away has its share of hardships, being unable to attend games foremost among them, it is not without its advantages. Most notable Jose has the rare opportunity to view this Red Sox team with fresh eyes, or more accurately, no eyes.
Remember the parable of the blind men and the elephant? A few blind men are feeling up an elephant and they each get a dramatically different idea of what an elephant is based on the part of the beast they are fondling.
The man feeling the elephant's flank says, “Ah, an elephant is like a tree.”
“No, no,” says the man feeling the tail. “An elephant is like a stalk of wheat.”
“You’re both wrong,” says the man touching the trunk. “The elephant is like Ron Jeremy.” (Note: Kapow.)
While Jose, as a general rule is no better than equal to one blind man or two deaf-mutes, at this level of remove, Jose has the opportunity to equal at least three blind men, making him the equal of an entire NBA officiating crew, but without a gambling problem.
So how would a group of blind men see the 2008 Boston Red Sox at this juncture, you know, assuming that they actually weren’t blind at all, but were just really, really narrow minded so they could only see part of the team at a time.
The first blind man, let’s call him Ray, would feel up Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz and say “Ah, the Red Sox are like a locomotive, powerful and right on track.”
The second blind man, named Stevie, would grab hold of Jacoby Ellsbury, Rococo Crisp, and Julio Lugo and say “The Red Sox are like a Dalmatian that mated with a brown-haired thoroughbred horse, black white and brown and fast as hell.” Stevie does not have a great grasp of speciation.
A third blind man, called Usher (note: Doesn’t some African-American musician have to learn to play piano and then go blind once Stevie is gone, or maybe even now, since Ray is gone. Aren’t they like the Sith, there are always two, no more, no less? And you know it won’t be 50 Cent, unless he gets shot in the eye. Who already plays piano?) would grab hold of the middle relief and say, “No, no, you’re wrong. The Red Sox are like a vacuum cleaner, they do nothing but suck.”
But then a fourth sightless companion would come along, let’s call her Helen. Helen would grab hold of the starting rotation. She’d run her hands carefully over Beckett, Dice, Lester, Bartolo, Clay and Wake. Somewhere, Derek Lowe would be watching, lamenting his Sox days gone and wishing that the hot blind chick would be running her hands over him. And then Helen would pause thoughtfully and, twinkle in her glassy eyes, offer the true essence of the Red Sox. “Mmphellesss,” she would sagely state. “Mmmmphelless, waaaattaaahhhh.”
And that friends, is what the 2008 Red Sox, truly are.
2. Okay, that’s great. Now that Jose has made a Helen Keller joke the day after sending a link to KEYS to a prospective employer, he will have plenty of time to write. Good thinking Jose!
In the country where Jose is currently stationed, let’s call it Freedonia, there was recently a failed coup attempt and the former president alleged to be involved, let’s call him Groucho, was sent off to jail. While Jose is, as a matter of principle, deeply opposed to the overthrow of democratically elected governments, he does kind of wish that this sort of “Freedonia model” might be exported to Major League Baseball.
Yes, Jose knows that Buddy Leroux tried it once before, but he made a fatal mistake, he failed to get the army behind him before overthrowing Jean Yawkey and declaring himself Owner. If Buddy had stormed Yawkey Way with three highly trained and loyal divisions, there is no way, Mrs. Yawkey could have taken the team back. She was just a little old lady. There’s no way she could have handled more than two divisions.
But just because it failed once, doesn’t mean that it will fail again. Jose, of course, does not wish to see a coup in the Red Sox organization. We are blessed to be ruled by a benevolent triumvirate that keeps us up to our necks in wine and orgies. Well, keeps the players up to their necks in wine and orgies anyways. Or maybe, Jose was just thinking about Derek Lowe again. (Note: Apologies to DLowe the Paranoid Android, there is no evidence that he ever cheated on his wife with more than one woman in a single sitting or that he was a wine drinker. DLowe always seemed like more of a vodka drunk.)
No, Jose would kind of like to see a coup inside the Yankees organization. The way Jose sees it going down is that former Yankees GM Bob Watson using the armed divisions he must get as MLB’s discipline czar, would overthrow Brian Cashman and Hank Steinbrenner and appoint himself GM for Life, President of the New York Yankees, First Citizen of Yankee Nation and Lion of the Bronx. Then for a façade of legitimacy, he would replace Hank as principle owner with Hank’s own father, the recently deposed George Steinbrenner.
George would call a press conference to declare his dramatic return. As he looked directly into the camera, a twinkle in his glassy eyes would offer the true essence of the Yankees. “Mmphellesss,” the senile old man would sagely state. “Mmmmphelless, waaaattaaahhhh.”
3. Jose would like to offer a hearty thank you to Hillary Clinton. Yes, Jose has been kind of tough on her these past few months, but he now wants to put aside the bitterness and offer a heartfelt thank you.
Thank you, Hil-Rod (note: remember you said wrestling fans can call you that) Thank you, thank you. Hil-Rod. Thank you because by comparing the Democratic Party’s refusal to recognize the votes in the meaningless, non-sanctioned Florida and Michigan primaries to Jim Crow and Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, you have now made it totally acceptable for Jose to compare any event in baseball’s preseason to historical events such as the siege of Sarajevo and the massacre at Katyn.
Just as your husband made it socially acceptably to receive oral sex from interns under a desk, you have made it acceptable to trivialize monstrous events in human history by comparing them to contests that don’t count.
Thank you so much. Already, Jose is writing the story explaining how Julian Tavarez punching Joey Gathright in the face in a preseason game a while back is the same as the Darfur crisis.
Again, thank you for this wonderful contribution to our public discourse.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
Tuesday, April 15
Change of Life
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. One of you asked, on Friday, where Jose had gone, why he had forsaken you, if you will.
It’s a good question, and as is the case with many good questions, there are a variety of reasonable answers. For instance, if one were to ask why Joe Borowski is still the Cleveland closer, the answer could be that he is Eric Wedge’s illegitimate son (note: this is not that realistic as the WWF has taught Jose that most illegitimate sons are midgets), that someone got confused after hearing his name only through the first syllable of his last name and thought they had Joba rather than Jobo, or something as simple as Eric Wedge suffering from a severe form of retardation. In the case of the good question of why Jose missed an all important April series against the hated New York Yankees, he can, likewise, offer a variety of answers. Perhaps it’s because of something you did or perhaps it is because an April series against a team that hasn’t won a championship in eight years seems unimportant.
Either of those answers would be a good answer, but neither of them would be a true answer. The true answer is that Jose is preparing for a major change of life. How big a change? Think of it as bigger than converting from catcher to first baseman, but not as big as menopause. (Note: Jose really didn’t want to bring up menopause, but as soon as he used the phrase “change of life” he kind of had to.)
Jose is leaving Boston.
Okay. Maybe it’s bigger than menopause, or even bigger than Menopause the Musical.
Jose is not leaving Boston because he wants to. Far from it. He is leaving Boston because he has to. He is doing it for you.
When Jose started this blog in May 2004, he was armed with nothing but the stunning grasp of cross-cultural minutia that only a liberal arts education combined with tens of thousands of hour of watching television ranging from the cartoon “Wheeled Warriors” to “Cop Rock” can provide. (Note: This is a lie. Like everyone else who ever lived, Jose never watched Cop Rock.) These tools served him well. They served him long. But, to stick with the tool metaphor, with repeated misuse cutting low branches off of Christmas trees, even the sharpest steak knife will grow dull.
The KEYS, and frankly the Red Sox, have grown tired and redundant. Year after year, it is the same. Jose makes quips about wrestling and comic books; the Red Sox win the World Series after a spectacular ALCS comeback. Lame. Just boring, repetitive and lame. (Note: Not lame.)
Thus, Jose has made a decision that it is time for him to get some new tools, possibly a jigsaw of allusion or a nail gun of enjambment. Jose is going back to school.
Staring this fall, Jose will be attending one of the several worthwhile universities in the country that is not in Boston and studying new and varied fields, reading texts exotic and subtle so he can more accurately compare their authors to Alex Cora.
But what does this mean for the KEYS? How will this affect you the reader? Well, there are a few ways this could play out. The one that appeals the most to Jose is the Keyser Soze option wherein Jose simply walks away and then all of a sudden starts talking in the first person, thereby undermining everything you thought you knew about him, and then gets in a car with Indians reliever Masahide Kobayashi and is never heard from again. The other possibility is that Jose will simply cut back to a reduced schedule, writing a couple of times a week, rather than at his current, grueling pace.
The truth is, Jose is not sure what will happen between now and the end of the season, or even when he will leave Boston. Perhaps he’ll stay until September, or perhaps he’ll open a small mission is rural Laos and teach the villagers that David Oritz is more powerful than their so-called gods. It could really go either way.
2. Among the stories emerging from the first 2007 World Series Champion Red Sox vs. 2000 World Series Champion Yankees series of 2008 was the strange tale of a David Ortiz jersey churned in with the concrete at the new Yankee Stadium. Apparently, a Bronx construction worker who was a Red Sox fan mixed it into the concrete in order to curse the new building. After an absurd five hours of jack hammering, the Yankees found and removed the jersey.
While the news reports have largely fixated on the mystical aspects of the story, Jose is far more interested in the architectural angle. What this story reveals is the dramatic conceptual flaws in Yankee architecture. The biggest single flaw is the decision to build the stadium out of concrete. That is just foolish. By building the structure out of hard, heavy, inflexible concrete, the Yankees guaranteed that any response to this sort of mischief would be a debacle.
Compare this to when the Red Sox built the new Fenway Park. By refraining from using concrete and instead opting to use supple, flexible abstract as the principle building material, the Red Sox ensured that they would avoid all of the problems that the Yankees are facing and would not place a burden on the taxpayers.
If some idiot Yankee fan tried to mix a Jeter shirt in with the abstract that makes up the new Fenway, you can be certain that it wouldn’t take nearly five hours to find it.
3. Jose keeps seeing advertisements for this new vaccine called Zostavax which prevents shingles. Why anyone would invest money in a drug that is specifically designed to help lisping pitchers combat base hits is beyond Jose, but he will confess that he doesn’t really understand the pharmaceutical business.
I’m Jose Melendez and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. One of you asked, on Friday, where Jose had gone, why he had forsaken you, if you will.
It’s a good question, and as is the case with many good questions, there are a variety of reasonable answers. For instance, if one were to ask why Joe Borowski is still the Cleveland closer, the answer could be that he is Eric Wedge’s illegitimate son (note: this is not that realistic as the WWF has taught Jose that most illegitimate sons are midgets), that someone got confused after hearing his name only through the first syllable of his last name and thought they had Joba rather than Jobo, or something as simple as Eric Wedge suffering from a severe form of retardation. In the case of the good question of why Jose missed an all important April series against the hated New York Yankees, he can, likewise, offer a variety of answers. Perhaps it’s because of something you did or perhaps it is because an April series against a team that hasn’t won a championship in eight years seems unimportant.
Either of those answers would be a good answer, but neither of them would be a true answer. The true answer is that Jose is preparing for a major change of life. How big a change? Think of it as bigger than converting from catcher to first baseman, but not as big as menopause. (Note: Jose really didn’t want to bring up menopause, but as soon as he used the phrase “change of life” he kind of had to.)
Jose is leaving Boston.
Okay. Maybe it’s bigger than menopause, or even bigger than Menopause the Musical.
Jose is not leaving Boston because he wants to. Far from it. He is leaving Boston because he has to. He is doing it for you.
When Jose started this blog in May 2004, he was armed with nothing but the stunning grasp of cross-cultural minutia that only a liberal arts education combined with tens of thousands of hour of watching television ranging from the cartoon “Wheeled Warriors” to “Cop Rock” can provide. (Note: This is a lie. Like everyone else who ever lived, Jose never watched Cop Rock.) These tools served him well. They served him long. But, to stick with the tool metaphor, with repeated misuse cutting low branches off of Christmas trees, even the sharpest steak knife will grow dull.
The KEYS, and frankly the Red Sox, have grown tired and redundant. Year after year, it is the same. Jose makes quips about wrestling and comic books; the Red Sox win the World Series after a spectacular ALCS comeback. Lame. Just boring, repetitive and lame. (Note: Not lame.)
Thus, Jose has made a decision that it is time for him to get some new tools, possibly a jigsaw of allusion or a nail gun of enjambment. Jose is going back to school.
Staring this fall, Jose will be attending one of the several worthwhile universities in the country that is not in Boston and studying new and varied fields, reading texts exotic and subtle so he can more accurately compare their authors to Alex Cora.
But what does this mean for the KEYS? How will this affect you the reader? Well, there are a few ways this could play out. The one that appeals the most to Jose is the Keyser Soze option wherein Jose simply walks away and then all of a sudden starts talking in the first person, thereby undermining everything you thought you knew about him, and then gets in a car with Indians reliever Masahide Kobayashi and is never heard from again. The other possibility is that Jose will simply cut back to a reduced schedule, writing a couple of times a week, rather than at his current, grueling pace.
The truth is, Jose is not sure what will happen between now and the end of the season, or even when he will leave Boston. Perhaps he’ll stay until September, or perhaps he’ll open a small mission is rural Laos and teach the villagers that David Oritz is more powerful than their so-called gods. It could really go either way.
2. Among the stories emerging from the first 2007 World Series Champion Red Sox vs. 2000 World Series Champion Yankees series of 2008 was the strange tale of a David Ortiz jersey churned in with the concrete at the new Yankee Stadium. Apparently, a Bronx construction worker who was a Red Sox fan mixed it into the concrete in order to curse the new building. After an absurd five hours of jack hammering, the Yankees found and removed the jersey.
While the news reports have largely fixated on the mystical aspects of the story, Jose is far more interested in the architectural angle. What this story reveals is the dramatic conceptual flaws in Yankee architecture. The biggest single flaw is the decision to build the stadium out of concrete. That is just foolish. By building the structure out of hard, heavy, inflexible concrete, the Yankees guaranteed that any response to this sort of mischief would be a debacle.
Compare this to when the Red Sox built the new Fenway Park. By refraining from using concrete and instead opting to use supple, flexible abstract as the principle building material, the Red Sox ensured that they would avoid all of the problems that the Yankees are facing and would not place a burden on the taxpayers.
If some idiot Yankee fan tried to mix a Jeter shirt in with the abstract that makes up the new Fenway, you can be certain that it wouldn’t take nearly five hours to find it.
3. Jose keeps seeing advertisements for this new vaccine called Zostavax which prevents shingles. Why anyone would invest money in a drug that is specifically designed to help lisping pitchers combat base hits is beyond Jose, but he will confess that he doesn’t really understand the pharmaceutical business.
I’m Jose Melendez and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
Tuesday, April 1
No Excuses
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. Whatever happens in tonight’s U.S. opener, can the Red Sox promise Jose something? Don’t blame anything on jet lag.
Blaming failures on jet lag is a handy excuse, but a poor one. “I have cancer”—that’s an excuse. “I was struck by lighting”—that’s an excuse. But “I didn’t do well because I have jet lag, because I’m a little sleepy”—that’s no excuse at all.
If Jose couldn’t perform when he is sleepy, every single KEYS would look like this
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE
GAME.
1. F*ck Jose is
tired!!!!!!
2.
2weriwe#$%SDFVJ
3. Seriously, f*ck you
guys.
I’m Jose Melendez and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
And yet people persist in using jet lag as an excuse. Jose had a boss once who blamed jet lag for absentmindedness after flying to Boston from Miami. She might has well have said, “I just drove up from Weymouth, so I’m really jet lagged.” Just about the only time when jet lag is a legitimate excuse is when one is returning from Newfoundland, with that weird half hour time zone. And then it’s not because one is tired, but because the idea of changing by only half an hour is a total mindf*ck. (Note: In fairness, confusion over crossing the International Date Line is also a good excuse. You move an hour forward, then another hour forward, then suddenly you’re 24 hours in the past? Can you imagine Manny trying to figure that one out?)
The fact of the matter is that in this day and age, where jet lag can be easily remedied through a combination of alcohol and the abuse of prescription drugs, no one should complain about it ever.
The Red Sox also shouldn’t complain about parasites. First of all, how the hell did Kevin Brown and Jason Giambi get parasites in Japan? Are you seriously telling Jose that Brown never picked up a parasite in his hometown of Milledgeville, Georgia (note: Lastings Milledge, founder) but he got something in a country where taxi drivers where white gloves and have doilies on the seat backs?
The only time Jose will allow anyone on the Red Sox team to blame a loss on a parasite is if Javier Lopez gives up a home run to a lefty.
2. It’s April Fools today, and while Jose isn’t much for pranks, you know those wacky Red Sox are. Here are just a few of the hysterical jokes that are happening today:
- Noted prankster Dustin Pedroia replaces manager Terry Eurona’s Metamucil with the ashes of former manager/racist Pinky Higgins.
- Theo Epstein calls Josh Bard and tells him the Red Sox have reacquired him to catch Tim Wakefield. The joke ends poorly, as Bard throws himself from a bridge.
- Kevin Cash is announced as opening day backup catcher.
- Having accepted assignment to AAA, outfielder Bobby Kielty shows up to work at offices of AAA of New England.
- Bobby Kielty announces intention to convert to Judaism, explaining “It kept Kapler on the big club.”
- Theo Epstein calls Doug Mirabelli to tell him the Red Sox would like him back, when Mirabelli arrives, Theo turns out the lights and hides under his desk.
- Red Sox announce signing of Sidd Finch, not the mythical pitcher who could throw 168 mph, but an actual truck driver from Eau Claire Wisconsin.
- DJ Dru announces that he is ready to play tonight. No one is fooled.
- Dr. Charles Steinberg announces that Dodgers and Red Sox will play an exhibition game in a field that is only 200 feet down the left field line. Wait. That one’s real? Really?
3. One of the most heavily hyped matchups at WrestleMania XXIV was a battle between a 440 lb. behemoth called the Big Show and the 150 lb. welterweight boxing champion Floyd “Money” Mayweather. It was a mismatch of epic proportions.
In a lot of ways, Jose sees this contest as a good analogy for tonight’s game between the Red Sox and the Oakland Athletics. The Red Sox are the giant, the monster, crushing everything in their path, and the Athletics are the munchkin, game and tough, but at a catastrophic disadvantage.
“Now wait, just a minute,” some of you may be saying. “Mayweather won that matchup. Does that mean you think the A’s are going to win tonight?”
Well, to be blunt. Yes.
The A’s are going to win tonight provided that the analogy holds. This means that they will win if a) Joe Blanton is allowed to punch David Ortiz in the face with brass knuckles and b) the entire contest is scripted for the A’s to win.
If brass knucks are allowed and the game is fixed, Jose has a hard time seeing the Sox pulling this one out.
I’m Jose Melendez and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
Sunday, October 28
World Series Game 4: Thus Spake Nietzsche
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. “God is dead.”
Thus spake Nietzsche.
Of course, Jose doesn’t believe that God is dead, he’s something of a Pascal man, determining that the potential benefits of belief are a far better gamble than atheism.
But the Colorado Rockies must be wondering this morning if Nietzsche wasn’t right after all? Because if God is alive, why oh why would the Rockies be down three games to none?
Jose wants to be clear. He is not mocking God. He is not mocking religion. Heck, his parents just went to church two minutes ago. Sure, it’s a Unitarian church so it doesn’t count, but at least they’re going through the motions.
What Jose is mocking is the incredibly foolish and self-indulgent notion that God is the equation changer in baseball games. It is nonsense, and it holds one’s faith up to ridicule and doubt. If one proclaims as Rockies Chairman and CEO Charlie Monfort did that “I believe God sends signs, we're seeing those" or as Team President Keli McGregor told Time that God is "using [The Rockies] in a powerful way," does it not follow inevitably that should the Rockies lose this series one of two things is true: either a) the Rockies have done something displeasing to God or b) if God really does care about baseball games, He is not powerful enough to actually win them?
The way Jose sees it the Rockies have put God in a terribly awkward position, and if Jose were God (note: he is not) he would be really resentful.
This is why God is best left out of baseball. Jose decided long ago after praying for Celtic playoff wins, that athletic victories were too small, too unimportant in a world of suffering to waste valuable prayers on.
We do not need religion in baseball; the intermixing of the two demeans them both. What we need in baseball is what we have—superstition. For decades, forever really, the true faith of baseball has been the soft animism of superstition. When Curt Euro hops over the base lines is he not appealing to some mysterious force in the universe? When Wade Boggs shoved chicken after chicken down his curious gullet was it not a form of prayer?
When Jose crosses his fingers, or kneels on the floor or rocks back and forth or visualizes base hits, is it not an appeal to some troublesome spirit? (Note: Or possible signs of an anxiety disorder?)
That said, the funny thing is that Jose has become a baseball atheist. Out in the world he is a deist, but with his eyes on the ball field, he has come, albeit slowly, to reject the heathen gods of bat and ball. It does not matter if he crosses his fingers. It is irrelevant if Curt Euro steps on a baseline. What matters is having the best players, the best preparation and the strongest minds. Now ritual can play a role in that. Simple repetition can focus the mind and relax the body, but it is vestigial, nothing more than the token remains of a rite that once had meaning.
Perhaps this is the legacy of 2004, the lesson at last learned by Red Sox fans, that one wins or loses not on the strength of one’s superstition, but on the strength of one’s bats and arms, and on the competence of one’s management.
Superstition would demand that Jose now, yell out “UNO!!!!” as he did three years ago, to proclaim, as in the card game, that there is just one win remaining. But he no longer feels the need. What he says and what he does are irrelevant to the outcome. What matters are the men on the field and the minds in the dugout.
UNO! UNO! UNO! UNO! UNO! Of course, Jose did say he tends toward Pascal’s Wager, so let’s not anger the baseball gods, just in case they are real.
2. As the seen shifted to Denver and National League rules, there has been an absolutely appalling amount of silly talk about how the Red Sox should rejigger their defense to keep David Ortiz, Kevin Youkilis, and Mike Lowell all in the lineup. While the solution last night was to sit Youkilis, that is not particularly creative. We have heard calls for Youk to play right field, for Mike Lowell to play shortstop, and for all Jose knows, for David Ortiz to catch. (Note: David Ortiz has bad knees. He should not catch.)
But no one has come up with the most obvious solution—let Mike Lowell pitch. Jose knows it sounds crazy at first, but this could totally work. The guy’s got a gun for an arm, and… well, that’s about all Jose’s got. Maybe it isn’t such a good idea.
Okay, let’s try a variation on that. Mike Lowell should be on the lineup card as the pitcher and should bat in the nine hole, but Jon Lester should do the actual pitching. How would this work? Disguise.
How hard can it be for Jon Lester to pass for Mike Lowell? They are both cancer survivors, so if Lester just constantly chats up the ump about “When I had cancer,” and remembers not to say it was lymphoma, as Lowell had testicular cancer, that’s a start right there. Then all you need is some modified Groucho glasses that keep the eyebrows but shrinks the nose a little bit, and some makeup to make Lester look 50 years older and presto—Mike Lowell is your pitcher.
Now, Jose knows what some of you are thinking “Hey, that’s cheating!” But come on, it’s not that bad. It’s not like they’re doing something really reprehensible like video taping the game or hitting umpire Chuck Meriwether with a steel chair or anything.
3. As Jose searched desperately for material for this Game 4 KEYS, he naturally looked back to Game 4 of the 2004 World Series for inspiration, and what he found surprised him. Three years ago yesterday, Jose in his second KEY relied heavily on the Transformers, the cartoon about robots that transformed into vehicles, comparing Derek Lowe to Megatron and St. Louis starter Jason Marquis to Bumblebee.
Cut to today and Major League Baseball has finally caught up with Jose, flashing Transformers logos throughout the World Series in efforts to move DVDs of the ho-hum summer blockbuster. The result, naturally enough, is that Jose needs another shtick. As an aspiring hipster Jose cannot keep using Transformers references once they get in vogue any more than he can keep drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon once they start underwriting National Public Radio.
Ergo, Jose will now explain to you how the 2007 Colorado Rockies are exactly like Go-Bots, the Tonka equivalent of Transformers.
Like the Go-Bots, the Rockies entered the series with a lot of hype and to significant excitement, but ultimately they were simply defeated by a vastly superior product.
Also, Jose is almost positive that there was a Go-Bot that changed into a bird called Latroy Hawk-Ins and one that was a three-way changer from a robot to a diet book to a TV maid named Garret Atkins.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. “God is dead.”
Thus spake Nietzsche.
Of course, Jose doesn’t believe that God is dead, he’s something of a Pascal man, determining that the potential benefits of belief are a far better gamble than atheism.
But the Colorado Rockies must be wondering this morning if Nietzsche wasn’t right after all? Because if God is alive, why oh why would the Rockies be down three games to none?
Jose wants to be clear. He is not mocking God. He is not mocking religion. Heck, his parents just went to church two minutes ago. Sure, it’s a Unitarian church so it doesn’t count, but at least they’re going through the motions.
What Jose is mocking is the incredibly foolish and self-indulgent notion that God is the equation changer in baseball games. It is nonsense, and it holds one’s faith up to ridicule and doubt. If one proclaims as Rockies Chairman and CEO Charlie Monfort did that “I believe God sends signs, we're seeing those" or as Team President Keli McGregor told Time that God is "using [The Rockies] in a powerful way," does it not follow inevitably that should the Rockies lose this series one of two things is true: either a) the Rockies have done something displeasing to God or b) if God really does care about baseball games, He is not powerful enough to actually win them?
The way Jose sees it the Rockies have put God in a terribly awkward position, and if Jose were God (note: he is not) he would be really resentful.
This is why God is best left out of baseball. Jose decided long ago after praying for Celtic playoff wins, that athletic victories were too small, too unimportant in a world of suffering to waste valuable prayers on.
We do not need religion in baseball; the intermixing of the two demeans them both. What we need in baseball is what we have—superstition. For decades, forever really, the true faith of baseball has been the soft animism of superstition. When Curt Euro hops over the base lines is he not appealing to some mysterious force in the universe? When Wade Boggs shoved chicken after chicken down his curious gullet was it not a form of prayer?
When Jose crosses his fingers, or kneels on the floor or rocks back and forth or visualizes base hits, is it not an appeal to some troublesome spirit? (Note: Or possible signs of an anxiety disorder?)
That said, the funny thing is that Jose has become a baseball atheist. Out in the world he is a deist, but with his eyes on the ball field, he has come, albeit slowly, to reject the heathen gods of bat and ball. It does not matter if he crosses his fingers. It is irrelevant if Curt Euro steps on a baseline. What matters is having the best players, the best preparation and the strongest minds. Now ritual can play a role in that. Simple repetition can focus the mind and relax the body, but it is vestigial, nothing more than the token remains of a rite that once had meaning.
Perhaps this is the legacy of 2004, the lesson at last learned by Red Sox fans, that one wins or loses not on the strength of one’s superstition, but on the strength of one’s bats and arms, and on the competence of one’s management.
Superstition would demand that Jose now, yell out “UNO!!!!” as he did three years ago, to proclaim, as in the card game, that there is just one win remaining. But he no longer feels the need. What he says and what he does are irrelevant to the outcome. What matters are the men on the field and the minds in the dugout.
UNO! UNO! UNO! UNO! UNO! Of course, Jose did say he tends toward Pascal’s Wager, so let’s not anger the baseball gods, just in case they are real.
2. As the seen shifted to Denver and National League rules, there has been an absolutely appalling amount of silly talk about how the Red Sox should rejigger their defense to keep David Ortiz, Kevin Youkilis, and Mike Lowell all in the lineup. While the solution last night was to sit Youkilis, that is not particularly creative. We have heard calls for Youk to play right field, for Mike Lowell to play shortstop, and for all Jose knows, for David Ortiz to catch. (Note: David Ortiz has bad knees. He should not catch.)
But no one has come up with the most obvious solution—let Mike Lowell pitch. Jose knows it sounds crazy at first, but this could totally work. The guy’s got a gun for an arm, and… well, that’s about all Jose’s got. Maybe it isn’t such a good idea.
Okay, let’s try a variation on that. Mike Lowell should be on the lineup card as the pitcher and should bat in the nine hole, but Jon Lester should do the actual pitching. How would this work? Disguise.
How hard can it be for Jon Lester to pass for Mike Lowell? They are both cancer survivors, so if Lester just constantly chats up the ump about “When I had cancer,” and remembers not to say it was lymphoma, as Lowell had testicular cancer, that’s a start right there. Then all you need is some modified Groucho glasses that keep the eyebrows but shrinks the nose a little bit, and some makeup to make Lester look 50 years older and presto—Mike Lowell is your pitcher.
Now, Jose knows what some of you are thinking “Hey, that’s cheating!” But come on, it’s not that bad. It’s not like they’re doing something really reprehensible like video taping the game or hitting umpire Chuck Meriwether with a steel chair or anything.
3. As Jose searched desperately for material for this Game 4 KEYS, he naturally looked back to Game 4 of the 2004 World Series for inspiration, and what he found surprised him. Three years ago yesterday, Jose in his second KEY relied heavily on the Transformers, the cartoon about robots that transformed into vehicles, comparing Derek Lowe to Megatron and St. Louis starter Jason Marquis to Bumblebee.
Cut to today and Major League Baseball has finally caught up with Jose, flashing Transformers logos throughout the World Series in efforts to move DVDs of the ho-hum summer blockbuster. The result, naturally enough, is that Jose needs another shtick. As an aspiring hipster Jose cannot keep using Transformers references once they get in vogue any more than he can keep drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon once they start underwriting National Public Radio.
Ergo, Jose will now explain to you how the 2007 Colorado Rockies are exactly like Go-Bots, the Tonka equivalent of Transformers.
Like the Go-Bots, the Rockies entered the series with a lot of hype and to significant excitement, but ultimately they were simply defeated by a vastly superior product.
Also, Jose is almost positive that there was a Go-Bot that changed into a bird called Latroy Hawk-Ins and one that was a three-way changer from a robot to a diet book to a TV maid named Garret Atkins.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
Tuesday, September 25
Jose Doesn't Want to Bug You But…
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. Will you people give it a rest? Stop accosting Red Sox players and coaches in elevators, at hotels and, worst of all, in restaurants and asking them for autographs. You’re better than that. Well, many of you are anyway. The Globe today put a spotlight on this irritating practice, and made it as plain as a Cleveland Browns helmet that prefacing one’s intrusion by saying “I don’t want to bug you but…” does not make it okay.
First, of all, you do want to bug them. You do. If you didn’t want to bug them, you would leave them alone.
Second, if “I don’t want to bug you but…” offered one absolution from the sin about to be committed, it would be most easily attained indulgence since the wrong side of the reformation. Think about the words that could follow that qualifier; it works for everybody.
Robbers: I don’t want to bug you but… I’m going to have to ask you to give me your wallet.
Vice Presidents: I don’t want to bug you but… I’m going to be keeping you in a secret prison for a while and hooking electrodes up to your private parts.
Atlanta Falcons Quarterbacks: I don’t want to bug you but… but I’m going to have to electrocute that dog.
Telemarketers: I don’t want to bug you but… I thought you should know about this amazing offer.
Pro Wrestlers: I don’t want to bug you but… would you mind if I hit you in the head with a chair?
Spammers: I don’t want to bug you but… have you ever wanted longer more powerful sexual experiences?
Supervillains: I don’t want to bug you but… I kind of need the Earth’s molten core for a personal project. You’re cool right?
Chinese manufacturers: I don’t want to bug you but… we’ve been inadvertently poisoning your children.
Negligent surgeons: I don’t want to bug you but… I should probably let you know that we amputated the wrong leg.
See anyone could use it for any nefarious reason, so let’s just agree that “I don’t want to bug you but…” should not be used ever.
So if you see a Red Sox star at a restaurant, don’t go up to him and say “I don’t want to bug you but… could I get your autograph?” If you really don’t want to bug him, either don’t go up at all, or just go up and as for a bite of his food.
According to National Public Radio, a San Diego couple has been doing a social experiment just going up to people in restaurants and asking for a bite of their food. The overwhelming majority of the time, not only do the diners consent, they offer up a bite with their own fork.
Why be a nuisance and ask for Doug Mirabelli’s autograph when you could get a bite of his chicken parm? And who needs David Ortiz’s signature when you could have some of his beans and rice off his very own fork, tainted with his very own saliva?
Asking for a taste is no big deal, and you should do it whenever you see a pro athlete or other celebrity out eating.
2. Remember those “Where’ Waldo?” books. Jose could usually find Waldo in the books even though he is pretty sure he has never found anyone named Waldo in real life. (Note: Waldo is in Kansas. It is a city with 48 residents.) Still, they were kind of fun. And it is in this spirit that Jose presents an actual KEYS TO THE GAME contest.
Jose will be hidden somewhere in Fenway Park tonight. If you are the first person to find him, Jose will send you an authentic, American-made, wash-and-wear, lead paint-free, low-carb KEYS TO THE GAME thong.
But how will you find Jose? It will be easy. He will be the guy in the Red Sox shirt. (Note: But seriously, you’ll know Jose when you see him.)
All you have to do is be the first person to come up to Jose and say “Jose give me a thong.”
At which point, whoever it is that you’ve talked to will give you a quizzical look and punch you in the face.
Happy hunting!
(Note: Members of the Melendez family and “real life friends of Jose are ineligible for this contest. If you guys want a KEYS thong that bad, just ask.)
3. There is no KEY 3 today.
Jose isn’t writing one. It’s not that he couldn’t write one if he needed to, but he just doesn’t see a need. The Red Sox have clinched a playoff spot, there are six games remaining in the regular season, and Jose just thinks it makes more sense to pace himself. Sure, Dan Shaughnessy is going to quote Warren Zevon and bring up Earl Weaver’s 1969 Orioles to make the case for why Jose should be closing out this KEYS with his best stuff, but Jose doesn’t buy it.
All of this “you can rest in November stuff,” is nonsense. Who rests in November? Pulling together Thanksgiving is a ton of work, and then it’s a madhouse straight on to Christmas, then forward to Greek Christmas. Maybe, you can rest in February, if it’s not so miserable out weather-wise that you have to shovel every day.
So why wouldn’t Jose rest the last week of the season with a playoff spot clinched? Really, complain all you want about Jose’s competitive fires, but he’s not writing a third KEY today.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. Will you people give it a rest? Stop accosting Red Sox players and coaches in elevators, at hotels and, worst of all, in restaurants and asking them for autographs. You’re better than that. Well, many of you are anyway. The Globe today put a spotlight on this irritating practice, and made it as plain as a Cleveland Browns helmet that prefacing one’s intrusion by saying “I don’t want to bug you but…” does not make it okay.
First, of all, you do want to bug them. You do. If you didn’t want to bug them, you would leave them alone.
Second, if “I don’t want to bug you but…” offered one absolution from the sin about to be committed, it would be most easily attained indulgence since the wrong side of the reformation. Think about the words that could follow that qualifier; it works for everybody.
Robbers: I don’t want to bug you but… I’m going to have to ask you to give me your wallet.
Vice Presidents: I don’t want to bug you but… I’m going to be keeping you in a secret prison for a while and hooking electrodes up to your private parts.
Atlanta Falcons Quarterbacks: I don’t want to bug you but… but I’m going to have to electrocute that dog.
Telemarketers: I don’t want to bug you but… I thought you should know about this amazing offer.
Pro Wrestlers: I don’t want to bug you but… would you mind if I hit you in the head with a chair?
Spammers: I don’t want to bug you but… have you ever wanted longer more powerful sexual experiences?
Supervillains: I don’t want to bug you but… I kind of need the Earth’s molten core for a personal project. You’re cool right?
Chinese manufacturers: I don’t want to bug you but… we’ve been inadvertently poisoning your children.
Negligent surgeons: I don’t want to bug you but… I should probably let you know that we amputated the wrong leg.
See anyone could use it for any nefarious reason, so let’s just agree that “I don’t want to bug you but…” should not be used ever.
So if you see a Red Sox star at a restaurant, don’t go up to him and say “I don’t want to bug you but… could I get your autograph?” If you really don’t want to bug him, either don’t go up at all, or just go up and as for a bite of his food.
According to National Public Radio, a San Diego couple has been doing a social experiment just going up to people in restaurants and asking for a bite of their food. The overwhelming majority of the time, not only do the diners consent, they offer up a bite with their own fork.
Why be a nuisance and ask for Doug Mirabelli’s autograph when you could get a bite of his chicken parm? And who needs David Ortiz’s signature when you could have some of his beans and rice off his very own fork, tainted with his very own saliva?
Asking for a taste is no big deal, and you should do it whenever you see a pro athlete or other celebrity out eating.
2. Remember those “Where’ Waldo?” books. Jose could usually find Waldo in the books even though he is pretty sure he has never found anyone named Waldo in real life. (Note: Waldo is in Kansas. It is a city with 48 residents.) Still, they were kind of fun. And it is in this spirit that Jose presents an actual KEYS TO THE GAME contest.
Jose will be hidden somewhere in Fenway Park tonight. If you are the first person to find him, Jose will send you an authentic, American-made, wash-and-wear, lead paint-free, low-carb KEYS TO THE GAME thong.
But how will you find Jose? It will be easy. He will be the guy in the Red Sox shirt. (Note: But seriously, you’ll know Jose when you see him.)
All you have to do is be the first person to come up to Jose and say “Jose give me a thong.”
At which point, whoever it is that you’ve talked to will give you a quizzical look and punch you in the face.
Happy hunting!
(Note: Members of the Melendez family and “real life friends of Jose are ineligible for this contest. If you guys want a KEYS thong that bad, just ask.)
3. There is no KEY 3 today.
Jose isn’t writing one. It’s not that he couldn’t write one if he needed to, but he just doesn’t see a need. The Red Sox have clinched a playoff spot, there are six games remaining in the regular season, and Jose just thinks it makes more sense to pace himself. Sure, Dan Shaughnessy is going to quote Warren Zevon and bring up Earl Weaver’s 1969 Orioles to make the case for why Jose should be closing out this KEYS with his best stuff, but Jose doesn’t buy it.
All of this “you can rest in November stuff,” is nonsense. Who rests in November? Pulling together Thanksgiving is a ton of work, and then it’s a madhouse straight on to Christmas, then forward to Greek Christmas. Maybe, you can rest in February, if it’s not so miserable out weather-wise that you have to shovel every day.
So why wouldn’t Jose rest the last week of the season with a playoff spot clinched? Really, complain all you want about Jose’s competitive fires, but he’s not writing a third KEY today.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
Friday, July 13
A Tale of Two Butches
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. Well that’s just great.
David Ortiz has a torn meniscus, which, as best Jose can recall from Introduction to the Physical Sciences in eighth grade, is that shallow parabola of fluid at the top of a graduated cylinder. Jose had no idea that people had graduated cylinders in their knees, but he supposes that it explains why they always count fluid buildup in the knee in milliliters.
Yes, yes, they say the slugger won’t need surgery until after the season, if ever, but Jose can’t help but be concerned. It suggests that he may not recover his power this year, and what if he does need to go under Dr. Andrews’ shining blade?
Either way, there is a good chance that the Red Sox are going to have to add power or as the wonks call it “generating capacity” if they are going to make a run. With the trade deadline slinking towards us ominously yet alluringly, like a Times Square hooker, the Red Sox may need to make a move.
But what move?
A move for a move’s sake is fine on the dance floor but disasterous in these Major Leagues. Adding the 2007 equivalent of Rob Deer isn’t going to cut it (note: we already have that, his name is Wily Mo). Nope, the Red Sox need a blockbuster.
Jose has spent the last 20 hours furiously analyzing trade possibilities, throwing each one into the gas chromatograph of his mind and seeing what gets separated out. And here’s what Jose’s come up with—the Red Sox should make a move to acquire Kevin Garnett.
This makes, absolutely perfect sense, for everyone. Garnett wants to play for a winner and there is no NBA franchise he could actually be traded to that would offer him as good a chance at brining home a ring as the Red Sox. The Red Sox need power, and last time Jose checked, Garnett played power forward. They don’t call it “power forward” because the people who play it are powerless. Well, with the exception of Brian Scalabrine. Moreover, the Red Sox, unbound by the NBA’s restrictive salary cap, could offer Garnett a much more attractive compensation package than, say, the Golden State Warriors.
The remaining question is what can the Red Sox offer the Timberwolves? Lots, it turns out. What’s great about this trade is that, as a basketball team, the Timberwolves don’t value the same attributes as a baseball team, thus they are unlikely to fixate on untouchables such as Clay Buchholz or Jacoby Ellsbury like most Major League teams would. Rather, they are much more likely to be interested in attributes like height, passing ability, rebounding and shooting. Thus Jose proposes that the Red Sox offer the following package for Garnett. First, Mike Timlin who, as a skilled hunter, is the best shooter on the team and is also 6’4’’. Even better, it seems like he’s been trying to rebound or the entire season. Second, catching prospect George Kottaras. Kottaras was acquired in last year’s David Wells trade to be the catcher of the future, but has struggled thus far. However, in the NBA his amazing ability to pass balls will be rewarded rather than punished. Finally, the Red Sox should send Craig Hansen. It’s not that Hansen has any skills that the T’wolves would find particularly appealing. It’s just that he’s 6’5’’, sort of a head case and looks like the sort of guy who smokes a lot of dope. Sounds like a perfect fit for the NBA.
So that’s Jose’s trade proposal. Someone call Peter Vecsey and we can get the talks humming.
2. Mr. Butch the homeless eccentric once known as the “Mayor of Kenmore Square” died yesterday in a scooter accident. The death of the man born Harold Madison Jr. received extensive coverage in the Boston Globe, the Boston Herald and on WBUR. Maybe it was on the TV news too, after all, it did involve a tragic death, but Jose wouldn’t know; he doesn’t watch that crap.
That the death of an iconic and friendly homeless man got such extensive coverage made Jose happy. Mr. Butch was a genuinely nice and funny man, who made Kenmore Square a much more interesting place to live in the six years Jose spent living there. He added for more character to the place than 15 Eastern Standards ever could. But it also made Jose wonder about the nature of fame and notoriety.
Call it A Tale of Two Butches.
It is the story, the compare and contrast, of Mr. Butch and Butch Hobson. Both were once fixtures in Kenmore Square and both were drug addicts. Yet one came from the ranks of societies heroes, a baseball player, a manager, a star, while the other was a homeless man, the lowest of the low in this society of winners and losers.
And yet Jose cannot help but wonder, when Butch Hobson passes on, hopefully many years hence, will his image be on the front of the Globe Metro section? Will the slow talkers at WBUR take time in their morning news cast to mention his passing?
When one reaches the end of his days, it seems what people remember about him, what makes them pause and meditate on his life, his meaning as a human being is not whether he was one of the new class of Boston Brahmins or a lowly untouchable on the streets, but whether he was different and kind and funny.
That makes Jose smile, and he would suspect that if Mr. Butch is off somewhere watching the hullabaloo made over the untimely death of a homeless dope smoker from Worcester, he is smiling too.
3. The Blue Jays, in town for a four game set, have had catastrophic injuries in the first half, with A.J. Burnett, Roy Halliday, Troy Glaus, Lyle Overbay, Sal Fasano and a whole host of other spending time on the DL.
Why didn’t Michael Moore discuss this in his health expose Sicko? If he’s going to claim that the Canadian health care system is so great, isn’t he obliged to explain why Canada’s only major league team has been among the most injured in baseball this year? Moreover, if only the rich in the U.S. can get decent health care, why have the Yankees been so injured? They’re incredibly rich.
Here’s the dirty little secret of the Canadian Health Care system. If a Blue Jays pitcher needs Tommy John surgery, not only must he wait in line to have the surgery, because the socialist Canadian system does not provide adequate capital for new medical technology, he can’t even get Tommy John Surgery. Instead, he has to settle for an older procedure, Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown surgery, which relies heavily on Canadian Club and a piece of wood to bite on for anesthesia and otherwise is exactly what it sounds like.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. Well that’s just great.
David Ortiz has a torn meniscus, which, as best Jose can recall from Introduction to the Physical Sciences in eighth grade, is that shallow parabola of fluid at the top of a graduated cylinder. Jose had no idea that people had graduated cylinders in their knees, but he supposes that it explains why they always count fluid buildup in the knee in milliliters.
Yes, yes, they say the slugger won’t need surgery until after the season, if ever, but Jose can’t help but be concerned. It suggests that he may not recover his power this year, and what if he does need to go under Dr. Andrews’ shining blade?
Either way, there is a good chance that the Red Sox are going to have to add power or as the wonks call it “generating capacity” if they are going to make a run. With the trade deadline slinking towards us ominously yet alluringly, like a Times Square hooker, the Red Sox may need to make a move.
But what move?
A move for a move’s sake is fine on the dance floor but disasterous in these Major Leagues. Adding the 2007 equivalent of Rob Deer isn’t going to cut it (note: we already have that, his name is Wily Mo). Nope, the Red Sox need a blockbuster.
Jose has spent the last 20 hours furiously analyzing trade possibilities, throwing each one into the gas chromatograph of his mind and seeing what gets separated out. And here’s what Jose’s come up with—the Red Sox should make a move to acquire Kevin Garnett.
This makes, absolutely perfect sense, for everyone. Garnett wants to play for a winner and there is no NBA franchise he could actually be traded to that would offer him as good a chance at brining home a ring as the Red Sox. The Red Sox need power, and last time Jose checked, Garnett played power forward. They don’t call it “power forward” because the people who play it are powerless. Well, with the exception of Brian Scalabrine. Moreover, the Red Sox, unbound by the NBA’s restrictive salary cap, could offer Garnett a much more attractive compensation package than, say, the Golden State Warriors.
The remaining question is what can the Red Sox offer the Timberwolves? Lots, it turns out. What’s great about this trade is that, as a basketball team, the Timberwolves don’t value the same attributes as a baseball team, thus they are unlikely to fixate on untouchables such as Clay Buchholz or Jacoby Ellsbury like most Major League teams would. Rather, they are much more likely to be interested in attributes like height, passing ability, rebounding and shooting. Thus Jose proposes that the Red Sox offer the following package for Garnett. First, Mike Timlin who, as a skilled hunter, is the best shooter on the team and is also 6’4’’. Even better, it seems like he’s been trying to rebound or the entire season. Second, catching prospect George Kottaras. Kottaras was acquired in last year’s David Wells trade to be the catcher of the future, but has struggled thus far. However, in the NBA his amazing ability to pass balls will be rewarded rather than punished. Finally, the Red Sox should send Craig Hansen. It’s not that Hansen has any skills that the T’wolves would find particularly appealing. It’s just that he’s 6’5’’, sort of a head case and looks like the sort of guy who smokes a lot of dope. Sounds like a perfect fit for the NBA.
So that’s Jose’s trade proposal. Someone call Peter Vecsey and we can get the talks humming.
2. Mr. Butch the homeless eccentric once known as the “Mayor of Kenmore Square” died yesterday in a scooter accident. The death of the man born Harold Madison Jr. received extensive coverage in the Boston Globe, the Boston Herald and on WBUR. Maybe it was on the TV news too, after all, it did involve a tragic death, but Jose wouldn’t know; he doesn’t watch that crap.
That the death of an iconic and friendly homeless man got such extensive coverage made Jose happy. Mr. Butch was a genuinely nice and funny man, who made Kenmore Square a much more interesting place to live in the six years Jose spent living there. He added for more character to the place than 15 Eastern Standards ever could. But it also made Jose wonder about the nature of fame and notoriety.
Call it A Tale of Two Butches.
It is the story, the compare and contrast, of Mr. Butch and Butch Hobson. Both were once fixtures in Kenmore Square and both were drug addicts. Yet one came from the ranks of societies heroes, a baseball player, a manager, a star, while the other was a homeless man, the lowest of the low in this society of winners and losers.
And yet Jose cannot help but wonder, when Butch Hobson passes on, hopefully many years hence, will his image be on the front of the Globe Metro section? Will the slow talkers at WBUR take time in their morning news cast to mention his passing?
When one reaches the end of his days, it seems what people remember about him, what makes them pause and meditate on his life, his meaning as a human being is not whether he was one of the new class of Boston Brahmins or a lowly untouchable on the streets, but whether he was different and kind and funny.
That makes Jose smile, and he would suspect that if Mr. Butch is off somewhere watching the hullabaloo made over the untimely death of a homeless dope smoker from Worcester, he is smiling too.
A Tale of Two Butches
3. The Blue Jays, in town for a four game set, have had catastrophic injuries in the first half, with A.J. Burnett, Roy Halliday, Troy Glaus, Lyle Overbay, Sal Fasano and a whole host of other spending time on the DL.
Why didn’t Michael Moore discuss this in his health expose Sicko? If he’s going to claim that the Canadian health care system is so great, isn’t he obliged to explain why Canada’s only major league team has been among the most injured in baseball this year? Moreover, if only the rich in the U.S. can get decent health care, why have the Yankees been so injured? They’re incredibly rich.
Here’s the dirty little secret of the Canadian Health Care system. If a Blue Jays pitcher needs Tommy John surgery, not only must he wait in line to have the surgery, because the socialist Canadian system does not provide adequate capital for new medical technology, he can’t even get Tommy John Surgery. Instead, he has to settle for an older procedure, Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown surgery, which relies heavily on Canadian Club and a piece of wood to bite on for anesthesia and otherwise is exactly what it sounds like.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
Thursday, April 19
Wait... It's a Day Game?
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. Did you know that today’s Red Sox-Blue Jays game has a scheduled start time of 12:37 PM? Yeah, neither did Jose, which is why today’s KEYS will, much like David Eckstein, be short, and of inferior quality! But at least they will be a spark plug.
Let’s only hope that the Red Sox didn’t forget the early time too, or in the case of today’s starter Julienned Tavarez, that he did forget.
2. SINCE THE SHIFT HAS WORKED SO WELL AT TAKING BASE HITS AWAY FROM DAVID ORTIZ” JOSE THOUGHT THAT MAYBE HE SHOULD TRY USING IT AGAINST EXTREMELY TALENTED PLAYERS FOR OTHER TEAMS” LIKE TONIGHT”S BLUE JAYS STARTER ROY HALLADAY>
AS YOU CAN SEE” JOSE IS HOLDING DOWN THE SHIFT KEY RIGHT NOW> YEAH, IT’S A LITTLE WEIRD AND IT LEAVES MANY OF JOSE”S FINGERS OUT OF POSITION” (NOTE: AND IT MAKES ALL COMMAS QUOTATION MARKS AND PERIODS CARROTS) BUT HE HOPES IT WILL WORK> THAT SAID” HE CAN’T REACH THE “T” SO WELL WITH HIS LEFT HAND AND IS HAVING TO TRY TO OVERCOMPENSATE BY REACHING FOR IT WITH HIS RIGHT>
STILL” THE SHIFT IS WORTH TRYING UNTIL IT STOPS WORKING” RIGHT?
3. John Lester has been promoted to AAA Pawtucket after absolutely tearing up Greenville as he continues his return from cancer. While one should be wary about drawing too much from his domination of single A hitters, one can extrapolate something from the fact that Lester was throwing strikes. As you recall, last year, Lester struggled with walks at the major league level, despite having had pretty good control in the minors. This leads to a rather obvious question. Can cancer increase the number balls? Jose’s friend Jamie, speculated, rather shrewdly, that perhaps the silent toll the cancer was taking on Lester’s body was preventing him from recuperating fully between starts and therefore hurting his control.
It’s an interesting theory, but it is counterintuitive, thus Jose remains skeptical. After all, we know for a fact that caner can decrease the number of balls thanks to Mike Lowell. (Note: Cue angry emails.)
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. Did you know that today’s Red Sox-Blue Jays game has a scheduled start time of 12:37 PM? Yeah, neither did Jose, which is why today’s KEYS will, much like David Eckstein, be short, and of inferior quality! But at least they will be a spark plug.
Let’s only hope that the Red Sox didn’t forget the early time too, or in the case of today’s starter Julienned Tavarez, that he did forget.
2. SINCE THE SHIFT HAS WORKED SO WELL AT TAKING BASE HITS AWAY FROM DAVID ORTIZ” JOSE THOUGHT THAT MAYBE HE SHOULD TRY USING IT AGAINST EXTREMELY TALENTED PLAYERS FOR OTHER TEAMS” LIKE TONIGHT”S BLUE JAYS STARTER ROY HALLADAY>
AS YOU CAN SEE” JOSE IS HOLDING DOWN THE SHIFT KEY RIGHT NOW> YEAH, IT’S A LITTLE WEIRD AND IT LEAVES MANY OF JOSE”S FINGERS OUT OF POSITION” (NOTE: AND IT MAKES ALL COMMAS QUOTATION MARKS AND PERIODS CARROTS) BUT HE HOPES IT WILL WORK> THAT SAID” HE CAN’T REACH THE “T” SO WELL WITH HIS LEFT HAND AND IS HAVING TO TRY TO OVERCOMPENSATE BY REACHING FOR IT WITH HIS RIGHT>
STILL” THE SHIFT IS WORTH TRYING UNTIL IT STOPS WORKING” RIGHT?
Blue Jays Manager John Gibbons plots
strategy for the Ortiz shift.
3. John Lester has been promoted to AAA Pawtucket after absolutely tearing up Greenville as he continues his return from cancer. While one should be wary about drawing too much from his domination of single A hitters, one can extrapolate something from the fact that Lester was throwing strikes. As you recall, last year, Lester struggled with walks at the major league level, despite having had pretty good control in the minors. This leads to a rather obvious question. Can cancer increase the number balls? Jose’s friend Jamie, speculated, rather shrewdly, that perhaps the silent toll the cancer was taking on Lester’s body was preventing him from recuperating fully between starts and therefore hurting his control.
It’s an interesting theory, but it is counterintuitive, thus Jose remains skeptical. After all, we know for a fact that caner can decrease the number of balls thanks to Mike Lowell. (Note: Cue angry emails.)
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
Monday, April 2
Thank God for Opening Day
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE GAME.
Thank God for Opening Day.
Really. Thank God for Opening Day. Most years Jose is merely glad to see Opening Day; he is just happy that the winter is over and his nightly entertainment has emerged bear-like from hibernation. In those years, he is far more like the hunter on the first day of deer season than the smack addict flush with cash from a liquor store robbery and dying for a fix. He wants baseball, he craves it, but he does not need it to avoid dissent into oblivion.
But not this year. No, this year he needs the saccharine poison of baseball season to drip hurriedly into his veins. This year, it is to him what confession is to the sinner, what nitroglycerin is to the cardiac patient, what Guitar Hero is to Joel Zumaya. It is his salvation, his light.
These have been dark days in Melendezville, dark days indeed. Jose will not delve into the details of his personal life, save to say that the inadvertent destruction of family heirlooms is pretty much the least troubling thing going on in his life. Also, he got a pretty good haircut, for a change. How bad is it? Remember when the Yankees swept the Sox five straight? Well, it’s like that, except, Jose can’t turn just turn off the TV, scream “F*ck Rudy Seanez” and move on with his life. On the plus side, at least Jose’s travails do not make New Yorkers happy. Look, Jose is not saying things are “Grady Little is your manager and your starter is looking a little tired” bad, maybe more like “Jose Offerman is your second baseman and he has to field a routine grounder” bad, deeply troubling and upsetting, but probably not going to leave one catatonic.
And so we come to today, to Opening Day. And thank God. Thank God because Opening Day is hope and rebirth and life. Jose does not want to get all Curt Euro on you, he’s not even really a Christian per se, but have you ever thought about how much Opening Day, especially after a season like last year, is like Jesus? Think about it. The 2006 Red Sox season died horribly, painfully, torturously, and yet today the Red Sox will be resurrected.
“They are risen,” Red Sox fans will cry out. And regardless of the outcome, independent of what happens when Julio Lugo digs in this evening, the lone fact that the Red Sox are playing again, a short six months after their agonizing death will be nothing short of proof of God’s love. God gives us baseball, He gives us Opening Day because he loves us. It is exactly that simple. It is the same story as that of Jesus, the miracles, the lessons, the prophecy and the excruciating execution. (Note: Yes, that is a pun about bad defense and difficulties pulling off a hit and run.) The only difference is that Jesus only came back to life once, whereas the Red Sox are resurrected pretty much annually. Point Red Sox.
Okay, so maybe it’s silly and completely sacrilegious to compare Opening Day to Christ’s resurrection, every bit as silly as it is to offer the caramel coated platitudes about spring and rebirth and “Everyone’s even in the standings today.” But there is something profoundly true about it too. Because as bad as yesterday may have been, today will be, it must be, better, because today there will be baseball. Also, Jose’s going to a barbeque, which is always nice.
2. And now, a sneak peak at the back page of tomorrow’s New York post.
ORTIZ’S TERRIFYING VOW
Kansas City, Mo—Red Sox slugger David Ortiz shocked reporters yesterday by confession to a string of killings and vowing more to come. In response to a question about what he planned to do in the coming year, the Dominican slugger respond “What I always do. Kill…”
As stunning as the admission by the seemingly genial designated hitter was, the response has been even more remarkable. Blinded by parochialism, authorities in Boston have, thus far, declined to investigate or even bring Ortiz in for questioning. The Red Sox organization has been similarly negligent, building a wall of silence around Ortiz. Even as the comments were issued, the Red Sox public relations staff seemed prepared with carefully crafted denials, suggesting that they may have known about the crimes well in advance of Ortiz’s stunning statement.
“I’m pretty sure he was talking about hitting baseballs,” stonewalled Sox general manager and unindicted coconspirator Theo Epstein. “You left out the part where he said ‘the ball.’ It was ‘kill the ball.’”
“The only thing he killed was Yankees pitching for the last four years,” added former Red Sox first baseman Kevin Millar, who was not even on site or asked for comment.
Yankees President George Steinbrenner declined to join in the campaign of denial, issuing an immediate statement. “The Yankees organization, as the classiest in baseball, calls on the Red Sox to immediately suspend David Ortiz and urge him to turn himself into authorities. Felons have no place in our national pastime.”
3. As part of the full court press accompanying Opening Day, Boston Herald Business reporter Scott Van Voorhis did one of those stories that everyone loves where he asked local business leaders to offer managerial advice to sox skipper Terry Eurona.
Jose assumed that this was going to be another one of those stupid media features where they assume that just because someone has millions of dollars, has fired tens of thousands of people and has a Harvard educated hooker err... second wife, on his arm, he knows more about baseball than you or Jose. But it wasn’t about Jack Welch at all.
Instead Van Voorhis asked a variety of executives and managers, some of whom even have sporting experience, to offer advice, and you know what they said? Crack the whip, treated everyone the same, better to have nine Mosey Nixon’s than nine Manny Ramirez’s? No, they advocated for kid gloves, a consultative approach and letting the stars do what they do best.
One commentator, developer John Drew, counseled Tito to “handle them all gingerly.” Which sort of sounded, like good advice, but then Jose noticed something. John Drew? That’s remarkably close to the name of Sox outfielder David Jonathan Drew, aka DJ Dru, isn’t it? Jose senses infiltration. So basically what you have in this article, is DJ Dru, in the clever alias of real estate developer John Drew, who Jose assumes, looks just like DJ but wears glasses, advising Tito to give stars all sorts of leeway. And who is in that group of stars? None other than DJ Dru himself.
What’s next? Will Sloan School of Management Professor Manuel R. Amirez appear in the paper advising Eurona to “let players knock off a few days before the All-Star Break, It’s just good business?” Perhaps Green Monster Games President and Founder Curt Euro will counsel Tito to “Let your number one starter stay in until he thinks it’s time to come out?” Maybe CEO of ACME Inc. Wile. E. Mopena, will suggest a new model of exploding bat. (Note: Yes, Jose knows everyone has done Wile E. Coyote jokes for Wily Mo.)
Thank God for Opening Day.
Really. Thank God for Opening Day. Most years Jose is merely glad to see Opening Day; he is just happy that the winter is over and his nightly entertainment has emerged bear-like from hibernation. In those years, he is far more like the hunter on the first day of deer season than the smack addict flush with cash from a liquor store robbery and dying for a fix. He wants baseball, he craves it, but he does not need it to avoid dissent into oblivion.
But not this year. No, this year he needs the saccharine poison of baseball season to drip hurriedly into his veins. This year, it is to him what confession is to the sinner, what nitroglycerin is to the cardiac patient, what Guitar Hero is to Joel Zumaya. It is his salvation, his light.
These have been dark days in Melendezville, dark days indeed. Jose will not delve into the details of his personal life, save to say that the inadvertent destruction of family heirlooms is pretty much the least troubling thing going on in his life. Also, he got a pretty good haircut, for a change. How bad is it? Remember when the Yankees swept the Sox five straight? Well, it’s like that, except, Jose can’t turn just turn off the TV, scream “F*ck Rudy Seanez” and move on with his life. On the plus side, at least Jose’s travails do not make New Yorkers happy. Look, Jose is not saying things are “Grady Little is your manager and your starter is looking a little tired” bad, maybe more like “Jose Offerman is your second baseman and he has to field a routine grounder” bad, deeply troubling and upsetting, but probably not going to leave one catatonic.
And so we come to today, to Opening Day. And thank God. Thank God because Opening Day is hope and rebirth and life. Jose does not want to get all Curt Euro on you, he’s not even really a Christian per se, but have you ever thought about how much Opening Day, especially after a season like last year, is like Jesus? Think about it. The 2006 Red Sox season died horribly, painfully, torturously, and yet today the Red Sox will be resurrected.
“They are risen,” Red Sox fans will cry out. And regardless of the outcome, independent of what happens when Julio Lugo digs in this evening, the lone fact that the Red Sox are playing again, a short six months after their agonizing death will be nothing short of proof of God’s love. God gives us baseball, He gives us Opening Day because he loves us. It is exactly that simple. It is the same story as that of Jesus, the miracles, the lessons, the prophecy and the excruciating execution. (Note: Yes, that is a pun about bad defense and difficulties pulling off a hit and run.) The only difference is that Jesus only came back to life once, whereas the Red Sox are resurrected pretty much annually. Point Red Sox.
Okay, so maybe it’s silly and completely sacrilegious to compare Opening Day to Christ’s resurrection, every bit as silly as it is to offer the caramel coated platitudes about spring and rebirth and “Everyone’s even in the standings today.” But there is something profoundly true about it too. Because as bad as yesterday may have been, today will be, it must be, better, because today there will be baseball. Also, Jose’s going to a barbeque, which is always nice.
2. And now, a sneak peak at the back page of tomorrow’s New York post.
ORTIZ’S TERRIFYING VOW
Kansas City, Mo—Red Sox slugger David Ortiz shocked reporters yesterday by confession to a string of killings and vowing more to come. In response to a question about what he planned to do in the coming year, the Dominican slugger respond “What I always do. Kill…”
As stunning as the admission by the seemingly genial designated hitter was, the response has been even more remarkable. Blinded by parochialism, authorities in Boston have, thus far, declined to investigate or even bring Ortiz in for questioning. The Red Sox organization has been similarly negligent, building a wall of silence around Ortiz. Even as the comments were issued, the Red Sox public relations staff seemed prepared with carefully crafted denials, suggesting that they may have known about the crimes well in advance of Ortiz’s stunning statement.
“I’m pretty sure he was talking about hitting baseballs,” stonewalled Sox general manager and unindicted coconspirator Theo Epstein. “You left out the part where he said ‘the ball.’ It was ‘kill the ball.’”
“The only thing he killed was Yankees pitching for the last four years,” added former Red Sox first baseman Kevin Millar, who was not even on site or asked for comment.
Yankees President George Steinbrenner declined to join in the campaign of denial, issuing an immediate statement. “The Yankees organization, as the classiest in baseball, calls on the Red Sox to immediately suspend David Ortiz and urge him to turn himself into authorities. Felons have no place in our national pastime.”
3. As part of the full court press accompanying Opening Day, Boston Herald Business reporter Scott Van Voorhis did one of those stories that everyone loves where he asked local business leaders to offer managerial advice to sox skipper Terry Eurona.
Jose assumed that this was going to be another one of those stupid media features where they assume that just because someone has millions of dollars, has fired tens of thousands of people and has a Harvard educated hooker err... second wife, on his arm, he knows more about baseball than you or Jose. But it wasn’t about Jack Welch at all.
Instead Van Voorhis asked a variety of executives and managers, some of whom even have sporting experience, to offer advice, and you know what they said? Crack the whip, treated everyone the same, better to have nine Mosey Nixon’s than nine Manny Ramirez’s? No, they advocated for kid gloves, a consultative approach and letting the stars do what they do best.
One commentator, developer John Drew, counseled Tito to “handle them all gingerly.” Which sort of sounded, like good advice, but then Jose noticed something. John Drew? That’s remarkably close to the name of Sox outfielder David Jonathan Drew, aka DJ Dru, isn’t it? Jose senses infiltration. So basically what you have in this article, is DJ Dru, in the clever alias of real estate developer John Drew, who Jose assumes, looks just like DJ but wears glasses, advising Tito to give stars all sorts of leeway. And who is in that group of stars? None other than DJ Dru himself.
What’s next? Will Sloan School of Management Professor Manuel R. Amirez appear in the paper advising Eurona to “let players knock off a few days before the All-Star Break, It’s just good business?” Perhaps Green Monster Games President and Founder Curt Euro will counsel Tito to “Let your number one starter stay in until he thinks it’s time to come out?” Maybe CEO of ACME Inc. Wile. E. Mopena, will suggest a new model of exploding bat. (Note: Yes, Jose knows everyone has done Wile E. Coyote jokes for Wily Mo.)
Professor Manuel R. Amirez responds to
charges that his Keynesian beliefs are outdated.
Let’s get serious here. If you want to take a business perspective, don’t ask these squishy soft “modern” business types with their six sigma and their lean manufacturing and their bathroom breaks. No, let’s ask someone who knows how to get the most out of their workers like Henry Clay Frick or Kathie Lee Gifford. What players today need is lower pay, fewer benefits and more hours at the office. And if that doesn’t work, there’s always a skilled 8 year-old who will do the job for half as much.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
Let’s get serious here. If you want to take a business perspective, don’t ask these squishy soft “modern” business types with their six sigma and their lean manufacturing and their bathroom breaks. No, let’s ask someone who knows how to get the most out of their workers like Henry Clay Frick or Kathie Lee Gifford. What players today need is lower pay, fewer benefits and more hours at the office. And if that doesn’t work, there’s always a skilled 8 year-old who will do the job for half as much.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
Thursday, March 15
Thinking Outside the Pen
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO SPRING TRAINING.
1. The principle spring training narrative continues to be the question of who will close. Terry Eurona is said to favor Julienned Tavarez (note: shoot Jose), others view Mike Timlin as the lead candidate and still others think Joel Piniero should get a shot. None of them are terribly appealing are they? But maybe the Red Sox haven’t considered all of the options. Perhaps, just perhaps in this brave and terrible new baseball world, the closer is no longer necessary. Perhaps, it is nothing more than a vestigial structure, a once useful thing that has long since lost its purpose, like the appendix or Bernie Williams.
Jose proposes that the Red Sox do not need a closer at all. Rather, they should develop an elaborate strategy that focuses on avoiding save situations all together. The strategy involves three basic components:
1. The principle spring training narrative continues to be the question of who will close. Terry Eurona is said to favor Julienned Tavarez (note: shoot Jose), others view Mike Timlin as the lead candidate and still others think Joel Piniero should get a shot. None of them are terribly appealing are they? But maybe the Red Sox haven’t considered all of the options. Perhaps, just perhaps in this brave and terrible new baseball world, the closer is no longer necessary. Perhaps, it is nothing more than a vestigial structure, a once useful thing that has long since lost its purpose, like the appendix or Bernie Williams.
Jose proposes that the Red Sox do not need a closer at all. Rather, they should develop an elaborate strategy that focuses on avoiding save situations all together. The strategy involves three basic components:
- Big leads— All the Red Sox need to do is get way ahead, and there will be no save situation to worry about.
- Come from behind wins—Why score three runs in the third to build a slim, blowable lead when you could just as easily score them in the bottom of the ninth while down by two runs?
- Weather control—If the Red Sox had a weather control machine, they could bring in the rain whenever they have a lead after the fifth and render the closer question moot. This is probably a less appealing alternative in domes.
Now, Jose knows what you’re thinking, that big leads and come from behind wins may be good plans, but controlling the weather is potentially catastrophic for the environment not to mention incredibly difficult to do. Fair enough, but let Jose ask you this, which do you think is harder, exerting precise and total control over the elements or finding a closer out of Donnelly, Tavarez, Piniero and Timlin? Jose thought so. Look at it this way, there have been movies wherein people can control the weather, X-Men for instance. Sure it’s fantastic, but no one leaves the theater saying “That’s crap, there’s no way Storm could make rain and lightning.” By contrast, if you went into a theater, dropped down your ten bucks and saw a movie wherein Julienned Tavarez became an effective closer you would condemn it as too absurd even for fiction. Point weather control.
2. One of the biggest disappointments of the 2006 season was Coco Crisp’s failure to thrive with the Red Sox. While it was easy to attribute his struggles to a broken finger, Jose thinks his difficulties can be just as easily linked to his failure to develop a clear identity within the context of the team.
You know how most relievers perform better when they have a clear role on the team? Like how Julienned Tavarez would stop sucking if they told him “you will only pitch the sixth inning.” Jose believes that the same holds true for Crisp. So Jose has tried to come up with the best role for Crisp, one that will allow him to reach his full potential, and after more than a few sleepless nights, he thinks he’s got it—birdman.
It’s perfect. Look at how well it worked for Crisp’s namesake, wrestling legend Koko B. Ware. After getting off to a promising start as Pro Wrestling Illustrated’ s 1979 rookie of the year, Ware struggled to establish himself, ending up on a tenure track to obscurity. But then, he found his role, when he signed with the WWF in 1986 as “Birdman” Koko B. Ware, and brought his pet bird Frankie to the ring with him. All of a sudden, B. Ware emerged as a beloved star, if not an actual champion.
So all Crisp needs to do is get himself a parrot and a sequined headband and voila, he’ll reach his formidable potential. Also, picking up “Piledriver” Koko B. Wares singles from the “The Wrestling Album 2: Piledriver” couldn’t hurt.
The only down side is that it could set up a situation where the Yankees steal Crisp’s bird prior to a big game, rendering Crisp distracted and useless.
Now playing centerfield for the Red Sox, accompanied by his bird Frankie...
3. In other news, David Ortiz is trying to kill Terry Eurona.
According to the Boston Herald, Ortiz has been doing his rank best to keep the manager addicted to smokeless tobacco, going so far as to waft the sickly sweet aroma directly into Tito’s nostrils.
Now, Jose can understand where Ortiz is coming from. After all, who hasn’t wanted to kill Tito from time to time? But remember, as frustrating as his bullpen decisions may sometimes be, he is still the best Red Sox manager since Dick Williams. Besides, what’s the point of trying to keep him on smokeless tobacco? To kill him before he can burn out the 2017 bullpen?
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO SPRING TRAINING.
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