Rays Disappear Over Horizon

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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


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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?)
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.

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.

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.