It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. According to the Boston Metro, a well-know ticker custerer was stabbed and robbed at Kenmore Square station by two men just before yesterday’s game. The custer was counting his piles of filthy gangster money outside the turnstiles when he was attacked.
While the ticket reseller’s white T-shirt was torn by the knife’s blade and stained with blood, his track pants are reported to have escaped harm.
The victim was taken to Boston Medical Center with non-life Lugothreatening injuries, where he shares a room in the trauma ward with Tampax Bay pitcher J.P. Howell.
2. Damn it.
Jose could have sworn that he saw a headline this morning in The Boston Metro, (slogan: now Boston’s #2 free subway paper) that read “Man sues bar over missed question.” Jose, or course, thought that this was a story about a fellow who had lost a pub trivia contest on a controversial question and had sued the haughty quizmaster for what was rightfully his. But it turned out that Jose just wasn’t paying attention and that the headline actually read “man sues bar association over missed question” which does not allow one to jump to the same funny conclusion. Rather, it was about a man who sued the Massachusetts Bar Association after he failed the bar by one question when he refused to answer a question that would have, in his opinion, affirmed support for gay marriage. Bo-ring.
Had they written the same story without using “association” in the headline, Jose was going to write about how this was the second most misleading headline of the year, right after the Globe’s “Exciting signs: Red Sox sign Drew and Lugo” on December 6.
Damn it.
3. It was nice of Hideki Okajima to pretend to be surprised about winning the All-Star election last night. Okajima, who was voted in by the fans as the 30th man on the A.L. squad, graciously bowed to all corners of the field to show his happiness at and thanks for the honor. Skilled Japanologists, however, reported that he was not actually surprised. Why would he be? He comes from one of the world’s only truly democratic countries where elections are basically a foregone conclusion.
The way elections work in Japan since 1955 is fairly simple. Everyone casts a ballot and then the Liberal Democratic Party (note: famously called neither liberal, nor democratic nor a party), in one form or another, wins. With the exception of the years between 1993 and 1996, this is basically how it has worked for sixty years. Pretty much for the LDP to lose power they had to be involved in major scandals and fail to adopt political reform legislation. Ergo, with Okajima quite certain that he had had little in terms of dirty dealing with Lockheed, why wouldn’t he expect to win the election?
Nevertheless, congratulations to Hideki Okajima, the best Hideki in Major League Baseball.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
Friday, July 6
Thursday, July 5
The Goddess of Divine Retribution
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. Nemesis.
In Greek mythology she was the goddess of divine retribution, the avenger of hubris, or, more abstractly, the notion that people will get what they deserve. In the Marvel Super Heroes role playing game, it was the power to counter any opponent's power (note to nerds: think of the sentinel Nimrod). And in Star Trek, it was a really lame movie, though maybe not quite as lame as the one with F. Murray Abraham,
And today, Nemesis is Joey Chestnut, and she is a civil engineering student from San Jose California.
Until yesterday, the legendary Takeru Kobayashi, the Japanese Eating Machine, had been unrivaled, undefeated by man, having lost only to a Kodiak bear on Fox’s Man vs. Beast. But no more. Kobayashi went down to ignominious defeat at the hand of Joey “Jaws” Chestnut, in the Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Championship at Coney Island before a live crowd of 30,000 and millions more on television, including your Boston Red Sox, who were poised to take the field mere minutes after a “Reversal of Fortune” ended Kobayashi’s day.
But is Kobayashi less for having met his nemesis, for finally having succumbed?
In a way, of course he is. He is no longer undefeated and unrivaled. But in another way, a real way, the defeat has made him all the greater, because it enhances his narrative. Every Holmes needs his Moriarty; every Maggie Simpson needs the baby with the one eyebrow. The Red Sox have the Yankees. Roger Clemens had Dave Stewart. Mariano Rivera had Bill Mueller. Mickey Mantle had the bottle. Ali had Frazier. Thurman Munson had gravity. Chamberlain had Russell. Bird had Magic. Billy Martin had a bridge abutment.
And were any of them lesser for having the rival, for having met their match? Well, Clemens, who never got by Dave Stewart (note: or Jeff Suppan) but not the others. Nemesis is part of the heroic narrative (note: okay, technically it’s part of the tragic archetype, but give Jose a break, his nemesis is factual accuracy), and it is this very struggle of hero vs. nemesis, thesis vs. antithesis, that transforms the merely great into synthesis of legend. (Note: Yes, Jose is using the hot dog eating contest as dialectic.)
Rocky Marciano never met his match, but was he truly the greater for it? Who knows what heights he could have reached had he been pushed? This is America. And on this day after the celebration of our independence, we do well to recall that competition is at the core of our national identity. It is the competition of ideas, of men, of teams, of businesses that drives excellence, that creates brilliance.
So, congratulations to Joey Chestnut, and congratulations to Takeru Kobayashi. You need each other, you deserve each other, and you will transform each other from men into myth.
2. Halfway through the season, the Red Sox hold an 11.5 game lead over the second place Blue Jays and a 12 game lead over the third place Yankees, and they have 16 games remaining against the lowly Tampax Bay DRays. That means that for better or for worse (note: for better), the Red Sox’s ability to take the division will be determined largely by their ability to beat up on one of the worst teams in baseball.
While this is good news for the Sox’s chances to take the division, it is bad news for fans of drama and excitement. It is more anticlimactic than a night with A-Rod.
It does not follow an appropriate dramatic arc for the heroes to vanquish the lowest of the low in the last act. Did Return of the Jedi end with Luke Skywalker having a light saber duel with a Jawa? Nope. (Note: Though having the Empire go down to Ewoks isn’t that far off.) Having the Red Sox beat up on the DRays to secure an AL East title is like having a Goomba as the big boss at the end of Super Mario Brothers. It is like having the Hulk Hogan vs. Barry Horowitz as the WrestleMania main event. It is like having Spiderman 4 feature Rocket Racer or the Gibbon as the villain.
Anticlimax fever—catch it!
1. Nemesis.
In Greek mythology she was the goddess of divine retribution, the avenger of hubris, or, more abstractly, the notion that people will get what they deserve. In the Marvel Super Heroes role playing game, it was the power to counter any opponent's power (note to nerds: think of the sentinel Nimrod). And in Star Trek, it was a really lame movie, though maybe not quite as lame as the one with F. Murray Abraham,
And today, Nemesis is Joey Chestnut, and she is a civil engineering student from San Jose California.
Until yesterday, the legendary Takeru Kobayashi, the Japanese Eating Machine, had been unrivaled, undefeated by man, having lost only to a Kodiak bear on Fox’s Man vs. Beast. But no more. Kobayashi went down to ignominious defeat at the hand of Joey “Jaws” Chestnut, in the Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Championship at Coney Island before a live crowd of 30,000 and millions more on television, including your Boston Red Sox, who were poised to take the field mere minutes after a “Reversal of Fortune” ended Kobayashi’s day.
But is Kobayashi less for having met his nemesis, for finally having succumbed?
In a way, of course he is. He is no longer undefeated and unrivaled. But in another way, a real way, the defeat has made him all the greater, because it enhances his narrative. Every Holmes needs his Moriarty; every Maggie Simpson needs the baby with the one eyebrow. The Red Sox have the Yankees. Roger Clemens had Dave Stewart. Mariano Rivera had Bill Mueller. Mickey Mantle had the bottle. Ali had Frazier. Thurman Munson had gravity. Chamberlain had Russell. Bird had Magic. Billy Martin had a bridge abutment.
And were any of them lesser for having the rival, for having met their match? Well, Clemens, who never got by Dave Stewart (note: or Jeff Suppan) but not the others. Nemesis is part of the heroic narrative (note: okay, technically it’s part of the tragic archetype, but give Jose a break, his nemesis is factual accuracy), and it is this very struggle of hero vs. nemesis, thesis vs. antithesis, that transforms the merely great into synthesis of legend. (Note: Yes, Jose is using the hot dog eating contest as dialectic.)
Rocky Marciano never met his match, but was he truly the greater for it? Who knows what heights he could have reached had he been pushed? This is America. And on this day after the celebration of our independence, we do well to recall that competition is at the core of our national identity. It is the competition of ideas, of men, of teams, of businesses that drives excellence, that creates brilliance.
So, congratulations to Joey Chestnut, and congratulations to Takeru Kobayashi. You need each other, you deserve each other, and you will transform each other from men into myth.
2. Halfway through the season, the Red Sox hold an 11.5 game lead over the second place Blue Jays and a 12 game lead over the third place Yankees, and they have 16 games remaining against the lowly Tampax Bay DRays. That means that for better or for worse (note: for better), the Red Sox’s ability to take the division will be determined largely by their ability to beat up on one of the worst teams in baseball.
While this is good news for the Sox’s chances to take the division, it is bad news for fans of drama and excitement. It is more anticlimactic than a night with A-Rod.
It does not follow an appropriate dramatic arc for the heroes to vanquish the lowest of the low in the last act. Did Return of the Jedi end with Luke Skywalker having a light saber duel with a Jawa? Nope. (Note: Though having the Empire go down to Ewoks isn’t that far off.) Having the Red Sox beat up on the DRays to secure an AL East title is like having a Goomba as the big boss at the end of Super Mario Brothers. It is like having the Hulk Hogan vs. Barry Horowitz as the WrestleMania main event. It is like having Spiderman 4 feature Rocket Racer or the Gibbon as the villain.
Anticlimax fever—catch it!
Tampa Manager Joe Maddon
prepares for 16 with the Sox
3. With fewer than eight hours to go, Hideki Okajima retains his lead in the election to be added on to the A.L. All-Star team, over Roy Halliday, Jeremy Bonderman, Kelvim Escobar and Pat Neshik.
Reports out of Detroit confirm that Jeremy Bonderman, in an effort to overtake Okajima, has contracted former Florida Secretary of State and Congresswoman Katherine Harris to work on the vote. Harris’ duties will reportedly include, disenfranchising Japanese voters, on the ground that they’re “furners” and hiring Diebold to ensure that any vote cast for Okajima is registered as a vote for Pat Buchanan .
In a related story, by participating in the election process, Harris replaces Julian Tavarez as the most batsh*t insane person associated with Major League Baseball.
3. With fewer than eight hours to go, Hideki Okajima retains his lead in the election to be added on to the A.L. All-Star team, over Roy Halliday, Jeremy Bonderman, Kelvim Escobar and Pat Neshik.
Reports out of Detroit confirm that Jeremy Bonderman, in an effort to overtake Okajima, has contracted former Florida Secretary of State and Congresswoman Katherine Harris to work on the vote. Harris’ duties will reportedly include, disenfranchising Japanese voters, on the ground that they’re “furners” and hiring Diebold to ensure that any vote cast for Okajima is registered as a vote for Pat Buchanan .
In a related story, by participating in the election process, Harris replaces Julian Tavarez as the most batsh*t insane person associated with Major League Baseball.
Battle of the Titans: Who's Crazier?
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
Monday, July 2
On the Auction Block
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. During yesterday’s telecast, Meg Vaillancourt, the former Globe reporter who converted her aggressive coverage of the plan to build a new stadium and the sale of the Red Sox into a cushy job as head of the Red Sox foundation (note: Hooray journalistic integrity!), revealed that as part of the “picnic in the park” auction, fans will be able to bid on “one of a kind” Red Sox items such as a game of Scrabble with Jonathan Papelbon or a quail hunting trip with Mike Timlin and Tim Wakefield.
While playing Scrabble with Papelbon might be fun, Jose is not convinced that hunting with Timlin and Wakefield is the best idea. Jose sort of imagines Wakefield out there hunting, just pumping bird shot into quail after quail, nice and easy. Then all of a sudden, not only is he unable to hit any quail he’s inadvertently shooting other hunters, airplanes, that sort of thing. Timlin, Jose would be less worried about, because if his shot is anything like his fastball, it’s arrow straight.
While the other items have not yet been made public, Jose’s crack reporting team has uncovered a number of items that will be available for bid
1. During yesterday’s telecast, Meg Vaillancourt, the former Globe reporter who converted her aggressive coverage of the plan to build a new stadium and the sale of the Red Sox into a cushy job as head of the Red Sox foundation (note: Hooray journalistic integrity!), revealed that as part of the “picnic in the park” auction, fans will be able to bid on “one of a kind” Red Sox items such as a game of Scrabble with Jonathan Papelbon or a quail hunting trip with Mike Timlin and Tim Wakefield.
While playing Scrabble with Papelbon might be fun, Jose is not convinced that hunting with Timlin and Wakefield is the best idea. Jose sort of imagines Wakefield out there hunting, just pumping bird shot into quail after quail, nice and easy. Then all of a sudden, not only is he unable to hit any quail he’s inadvertently shooting other hunters, airplanes, that sort of thing. Timlin, Jose would be less worried about, because if his shot is anything like his fastball, it’s arrow straight.
While the other items have not yet been made public, Jose’s crack reporting team has uncovered a number of items that will be available for bid
- Chance to strike out Julio Lugo.
- Bowling with Julian Tavarez.
- Work on proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem, with noted genius Alex Cora.
- Karaoke with Matsuzaka and Okajima
- Opportunity to kick Doug Mirabelli in the nuts.
- Have Kevin Youkilis sing Kiddush at your Shabbat dinner.
- Pap smear by Papelbon
- Tour of Hyde Park with Manny Delcarmen
- Buy Manny’s grill or car or whatever he’s got this month.
There are a lot of great items to bid on, way better than the Yankee auction. The best thing there is a pool party with Mariano Rivera. (Note: Wow, that is maybe the worst thing Jose has ever written. Should he have gone with marriage counseling from A-Rod instead?)
2. Recently Jose learned that he has gotten a link on the Web page of Tim Wendel, author of Castro’s Curveball, a book that Jose assumes must be about San Francisco’s famed gay baseball league.
But seriously, the book, is a fictionalized account of the Cuban leader’s baseball playing days. Since Castro was known to be a pitcher of some skill during his days at Belen College and the University of Havana (note: though he never played professionally) , it has often been wondered what might have happened if he’d had the stuff to compete at a major league level? Would history have turned out differently?
Jose, to be honest, finds the discussion a little trite. Sure, it’s fun to imagine, but Jose suspects that even if Castro had livelier stuff, it wouldn’t have made a lick of difference.
A far more interesting question is what might have happened if Papa Doc Duvalier had been an excellent drag bunter? The implications would have been stunning. As a tyrant and, Papa Doc was all too eager to sacrifice others for his own benefit. Perhaps if he had learned the honorable art of the sacrifice bunt, he would have understood that self-sacrifice is, in its own way, worthy.
Another interesting question is what would have transpired had Nikita Khrushchev been a baseball player? On any of the number of occasions when he banged his shoe on his desk during the UN General Assembly, perhaps his spikes would have gotten caught in the desk, embarrassing the Soviet leader and decreasing his prestige. Perhaps, so chastened, he would have lacked the courage to send missiles to Cuba.
Regardless, it seems like now might be a good time to start teaching Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to field a position.
Kruscheve Comes in spikes high
3. It’s not fair. It’s just not fair. After tonight, Khe-Sahn Gabbard will have started just three big league games this year, and Jose will have ended up at two of them. That’s just not right.
Jose supposes it could work out okay. A few years ago, Jose thought he was so smart in his annual season ticket draft. He carefully selected games five days apart at the beginning of the season in order to get as many Pedro starts as possible. The only problem was that he miscounted, and instead got a healthy helping of Brian Rose starts, though one of those included a game winning single by Manny off of Mariano Rivera on a Friday night, so it wasn’t all bad. Similarly, the Sox won the first Gabbard start Jose saw this year.
Still, Jose cannot help but be a little disappointed that he is seeing Gabbard. It’s a little like buying tickets for AC/DC and expecting to see Bon Scott and then finding out that he died and that Brian Johnson will be singing instead. Wait… Brian Johnson was still kind of good. Maybe it’s more like expecting to vote for George McGovern and Tom Eagleton and then discovering the day before the election that Eagleton’s been replaced by Sargent Shriver. Wait, that’s no good either, Gabbard’s got a much better chance of winning tonight than either Eagleton or Shriver did of becoming Vice President.
Okay, Jose’s got it. Getting Red Sox tickets and then ending up with a Khe-Sahn Gabbard start is a lot like ordering kung pao chicken and then discovering that it’s the version of kung pao that’s 80 percent celery. Sure, it might be pretty good, but even if it is, you’re still going to be kind of disappointed.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
Friday, June 29
Managing Lugo
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. Jose is pretty sure that he has figured out how the Red Sox can get out of the slumping Julio Lugo’s distressingly long four year contract—sexual harassment charges.
Lugo reportedly told Boston Globe reporter Amelie Benjamin that he is having trouble sleeping. While to many that might sound like a perfectly innocent comment that Lugo is distressed by his low batting average, to a trained litigator, it is clearly a come on, a suggestion that the young reporter should help him “do something” about his inability to sleep.
Come on bear with Jose, he’s trying to help the team out here. If you have a better idea, he is more than happy to hear it. Of course, the existing comment is not quite enough to bring a real complaint, so Jose calls upon Ms. Benjamin to do know what needs to be done and ask Lugo the questions that will lead to enough borderline suggestive comments to establish a pattern.
A few suggestions:
Amelie: Are you disappointed that you haven’t hit more homeruns this year?
Julio: I’m very upset that I’m not hitting home runs. I love to hit home runs.
Amelie: Do you think your size has contributed to your power outage? You’re not that big.
Julio: Hey, I’m plenty big.
Amelie: Sexualharassersayswhat?
Julio: What?
Amelie: Do you agree that Jose Melendez is a piggish *sshole, who has disrespected me and all female sports reporters by even suggesting a sexual tone to this perfectly innocent conversation?
Julio: Wanna f*ck?
Jose should say, in order to be respectful, that it doesn’t have to be Amelie Benjamin who asks the questions. If could be any female reporter, or even an androgynous male one. Jose is equal opportunity like that.
2. As the Sox prepare for this four game series, Jose hopes they are ready to deal with this right reliever Benoit. Jose’s heard he has killer stuff.
3. The Yankees caught a break last night, when umpires declined to call the game due to downpours when the Yankees were trailing 6-4 after 6. Instead, the umps allowed the seventh to begin and the Yankees scored four runs to take an 8-6 lead before the game was “suspended.”
Under major league rules, since the bottom of the inning was not completed after the visitors took the lead in the top of the inning, the game must be suspended and completed on a later date. This doesn’t make any sense to Jose.
Whenever Red Sox players get suspended they miss one day, five days, ten days, whatever, but yesterday the entire Yankee team, and the Oriole for that matter get suspended, and all they have to do is make up 2.5 innings later? That’s crazy. It’s like one of those in-school suspensions, where you still have to go to school and do all of your work, but they just write down on your transcript that you were suspended because they’re total d*cks.
Or wait, maybe there’s one other possibility. You know how British women, like on Are You Being Served? and what not call garter belts suspenders? Maybe it’s like that and they just halted the game because the Yankees were having trouble keeping their stockings up?
I’m Jose Melendez and those are my KEYS TO GAME.
1. Jose is pretty sure that he has figured out how the Red Sox can get out of the slumping Julio Lugo’s distressingly long four year contract—sexual harassment charges.
Lugo reportedly told Boston Globe reporter Amelie Benjamin that he is having trouble sleeping. While to many that might sound like a perfectly innocent comment that Lugo is distressed by his low batting average, to a trained litigator, it is clearly a come on, a suggestion that the young reporter should help him “do something” about his inability to sleep.
Come on bear with Jose, he’s trying to help the team out here. If you have a better idea, he is more than happy to hear it. Of course, the existing comment is not quite enough to bring a real complaint, so Jose calls upon Ms. Benjamin to do know what needs to be done and ask Lugo the questions that will lead to enough borderline suggestive comments to establish a pattern.
A few suggestions:
Amelie: Are you disappointed that you haven’t hit more homeruns this year?
Julio: I’m very upset that I’m not hitting home runs. I love to hit home runs.
Amelie: Do you think your size has contributed to your power outage? You’re not that big.
Julio: Hey, I’m plenty big.
Amelie: Sexualharassersayswhat?
Julio: What?
Amelie: Do you agree that Jose Melendez is a piggish *sshole, who has disrespected me and all female sports reporters by even suggesting a sexual tone to this perfectly innocent conversation?
Julio: Wanna f*ck?
Jose should say, in order to be respectful, that it doesn’t have to be Amelie Benjamin who asks the questions. If could be any female reporter, or even an androgynous male one. Jose is equal opportunity like that.
2. As the Sox prepare for this four game series, Jose hopes they are ready to deal with this right reliever Benoit. Jose’s heard he has killer stuff.
3. The Yankees caught a break last night, when umpires declined to call the game due to downpours when the Yankees were trailing 6-4 after 6. Instead, the umps allowed the seventh to begin and the Yankees scored four runs to take an 8-6 lead before the game was “suspended.”
Under major league rules, since the bottom of the inning was not completed after the visitors took the lead in the top of the inning, the game must be suspended and completed on a later date. This doesn’t make any sense to Jose.
Whenever Red Sox players get suspended they miss one day, five days, ten days, whatever, but yesterday the entire Yankee team, and the Oriole for that matter get suspended, and all they have to do is make up 2.5 innings later? That’s crazy. It’s like one of those in-school suspensions, where you still have to go to school and do all of your work, but they just write down on your transcript that you were suspended because they’re total d*cks.
Or wait, maybe there’s one other possibility. You know how British women, like on Are You Being Served? and what not call garter belts suspenders? Maybe it’s like that and they just halted the game because the Yankees were having trouble keeping their stockings up?
I’m Jose Melendez and those are my KEYS TO GAME.
Wednesday, June 27
Who is Daisuke Matsuzaka?
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. KEYS TO THE GAME PRESENTS
Ages of Empire
Today’s volume: Daisuke Matsuzaka
After Jose joined Manny yesterday in taking a well-deserved day off, the series ends today with Jose’s imperial analysis of the Japanese phenom Daisuke Matsuzaka. Now at first, Jose was tempted to equate Mr. Matsu to the French Empire, because France is where the gyroscope was invented in 1817. But of course, Jose then remembered that the French Empire was gone by 1817 and it was just the kingdom of France, which doesn’t fit the bill. Maybe when Jose compares each member of the starting rotation to a kingdom, he will come back to this.
But what are we to do then with Mr. Matsu? The best Jose can come up with is to compare him to the Skrull Empire. The Skrulls, of course are a race of short, shape shifting aliens that possess a vast empire in the Andromeda galaxy and have been known to tangle with the Fantastic Four. Maybe some were hypnotized into thinking they were cows. Jose figures they are the best analogy for Matsuzaka because like him, they are green, and their shapeshifting abilities are evocative of Matsuzaka’s curious transformations from pitcher who only seldom walks anyone to pitcher who walks everyone and back.
The best Jose could come up with?
On the other hand, this is a total cop out. Jose has promised you imperial analogies for the Sox rotation and he has to resort to fictional empires for two of the five? Lame.
Okay, so Jose will start thinking through the various empires listed in Civilization, the best video game ever that hasn’t injured Joel Zumaya, and come up with something real.
Any ideas? Anyone?
All right, Jose’s got it. Mr. Matsu is like the Incas because he loves the mountains and can’t comprehend the wheel. No, wait. He’s more like the Aztecs because he enjoys ripping out the hearts of his enemies and is vulnerable to European disease. Or is he more like the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth because when people look back at him, they’ll be surprised to find out that he was once a really big deal?
Damn it.
That’s the problem with Mr. Matsu isn’t it? He’s still an enigma. Even almost half way through the season, Jose is not totally sure what we have in him. Will he be a Mongol horde dominating with sheer power? The Greeks dominating for long past their military prime through the subtlety of their thought and artistry? Or perhaps the British Empire combining a variety of tools, the ruthlessness of arms with the soft power of culture and intellect. Or perhaps he will not dominate at all. Perhaps rather than being an empire, he will be one of those many nations that does not dominate but simply persists, like the Kurds, the Jews or the Armenians, that battle adversity for generations to often thrive, sometimes struggle, but never dominate.
That, or maybe he’s the Vikings because they both enjoy eating fish.
2. For those of you who haven’t seen it, Elizabeth Edwards, wife of presidential candidate John Edwards delivered an absolutely cutting rebuke to professional b*tch Anne Coulter the other day. Edwards asked Coulter to end personal attacks, such as suggesting that it would be good if John Edwards were killed by terrorists and joking that he had a bumper sticker reading “ask me about by dead son” on his car.
The normally nimble, if evil, Coulter seemed uncharacteristically flustered, and while incapable of shame, at least appeared chastened at being called to task by the mother of the child whose death she had mocked.
This got Jose thinking. Who’s going to do this to Dan Shaughnessy? Shaughnessy is the Coulter, of the Boston sports scene. Thin and lanky? Check. Hate-filled and borderline racist? Check. Adopts a vicious persona in order to sell books? You betcha. Prominent Adam’s apple? Indeed.
So who is going to call out old Dan? Who will be the Elizabeth Edwards to his Coulter Bean… err… Anne Coulter?
Just attacking these sorts of folks has no affect. They love to be attacked, to be called names and to have their competence questioned. It raises their profile, it gets ink and it moves merch. No, the only way to deal with them is to go face to face with them, and rather than yelling and screaming, rather than fighting them in their medium, simply ask them to stop their disgraceful behavior. They won’t, of course, but when, on television, they are forced to look into their adversary’s eyes and defend the awful things they said, they are exposed for who they are, cruel, opportunistic bullies.
When Edwards confronted Coulter, she was left with nothing to say but ask if Edwards wanted her to just stop talking and writing. Implicit, is that if she could not be mean, if she could not be vile, she would have nothing to say, not word one. If she could not call 9-11 widows harpies and rejoice in mocking parents for their dead children, she would have nothing, she would be nothing.
If Manny Ramirez were to go up to Shaughnessy on camera and ask him to stop the stereotyping, if Pedro were to ask why Shaughnessy has nothing to say about Roger’s special treatment in New York, but was so quick to brand Pedro a diva, what would he say? “Do you just want me to stop writing?”
Dan, Anne, if that’s what it takes, you bet. One can criticize without being cruel, attack without seeking to destroy. Can you? Maybe not, but then leave the discourse to someone who can.
3. Seeing that his baseball career might be nearing an end, embattled Red Sox pitcher Mike Timlin (note: who else wants to contribute to the gold watch?) gave the Boston Globe some thoughts on his plans for future employment.
To the surprise of many, the statuesque Timlin suggested that he may take up exotic dancing, claiming that he planned to “Strip everything off.”
But, Timlin added, being a quality adult entertainer is not easy. From dealing with wardrobe to working on dance moves, Timlin expects the new career to be challenge.
"Obviously, completely redoing your whole get-up is not easy, because you have routines and you have things you do,” explained the righty. “But that's what we're trying to get done."
Timlin also expressed concerns about having his anatomy compared to other dancers saying “As time goes, if you look over anybody's ‘stats,’… they're swinging the ‘bat’ really well. So their confidence is really high.”
Sox skipper Tito Eurona thought Timlin’s girth would not be an issue, telling the Globe “Here's a guy that's handled a real heavy ‘role’”
(Note: All quotes are real and taken from an Amalie Benjamin piece in today’s Globe. Jose can not help it if she put them in the wrong context in the paper.)
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. KEYS TO THE GAME PRESENTS
Ages of Empire
Today’s volume: Daisuke Matsuzaka
After Jose joined Manny yesterday in taking a well-deserved day off, the series ends today with Jose’s imperial analysis of the Japanese phenom Daisuke Matsuzaka. Now at first, Jose was tempted to equate Mr. Matsu to the French Empire, because France is where the gyroscope was invented in 1817. But of course, Jose then remembered that the French Empire was gone by 1817 and it was just the kingdom of France, which doesn’t fit the bill. Maybe when Jose compares each member of the starting rotation to a kingdom, he will come back to this.
But what are we to do then with Mr. Matsu? The best Jose can come up with is to compare him to the Skrull Empire. The Skrulls, of course are a race of short, shape shifting aliens that possess a vast empire in the Andromeda galaxy and have been known to tangle with the Fantastic Four. Maybe some were hypnotized into thinking they were cows. Jose figures they are the best analogy for Matsuzaka because like him, they are green, and their shapeshifting abilities are evocative of Matsuzaka’s curious transformations from pitcher who only seldom walks anyone to pitcher who walks everyone and back.
The best Jose could come up with?
On the other hand, this is a total cop out. Jose has promised you imperial analogies for the Sox rotation and he has to resort to fictional empires for two of the five? Lame.
Okay, so Jose will start thinking through the various empires listed in Civilization, the best video game ever that hasn’t injured Joel Zumaya, and come up with something real.
Any ideas? Anyone?
All right, Jose’s got it. Mr. Matsu is like the Incas because he loves the mountains and can’t comprehend the wheel. No, wait. He’s more like the Aztecs because he enjoys ripping out the hearts of his enemies and is vulnerable to European disease. Or is he more like the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth because when people look back at him, they’ll be surprised to find out that he was once a really big deal?
Damn it.
That’s the problem with Mr. Matsu isn’t it? He’s still an enigma. Even almost half way through the season, Jose is not totally sure what we have in him. Will he be a Mongol horde dominating with sheer power? The Greeks dominating for long past their military prime through the subtlety of their thought and artistry? Or perhaps the British Empire combining a variety of tools, the ruthlessness of arms with the soft power of culture and intellect. Or perhaps he will not dominate at all. Perhaps rather than being an empire, he will be one of those many nations that does not dominate but simply persists, like the Kurds, the Jews or the Armenians, that battle adversity for generations to often thrive, sometimes struggle, but never dominate.
That, or maybe he’s the Vikings because they both enjoy eating fish.
2. For those of you who haven’t seen it, Elizabeth Edwards, wife of presidential candidate John Edwards delivered an absolutely cutting rebuke to professional b*tch Anne Coulter the other day. Edwards asked Coulter to end personal attacks, such as suggesting that it would be good if John Edwards were killed by terrorists and joking that he had a bumper sticker reading “ask me about by dead son” on his car.
The normally nimble, if evil, Coulter seemed uncharacteristically flustered, and while incapable of shame, at least appeared chastened at being called to task by the mother of the child whose death she had mocked.
This got Jose thinking. Who’s going to do this to Dan Shaughnessy? Shaughnessy is the Coulter, of the Boston sports scene. Thin and lanky? Check. Hate-filled and borderline racist? Check. Adopts a vicious persona in order to sell books? You betcha. Prominent Adam’s apple? Indeed.
So who is going to call out old Dan? Who will be the Elizabeth Edwards to his Coulter Bean… err… Anne Coulter?
Just attacking these sorts of folks has no affect. They love to be attacked, to be called names and to have their competence questioned. It raises their profile, it gets ink and it moves merch. No, the only way to deal with them is to go face to face with them, and rather than yelling and screaming, rather than fighting them in their medium, simply ask them to stop their disgraceful behavior. They won’t, of course, but when, on television, they are forced to look into their adversary’s eyes and defend the awful things they said, they are exposed for who they are, cruel, opportunistic bullies.
When Edwards confronted Coulter, she was left with nothing to say but ask if Edwards wanted her to just stop talking and writing. Implicit, is that if she could not be mean, if she could not be vile, she would have nothing to say, not word one. If she could not call 9-11 widows harpies and rejoice in mocking parents for their dead children, she would have nothing, she would be nothing.
If Manny Ramirez were to go up to Shaughnessy on camera and ask him to stop the stereotyping, if Pedro were to ask why Shaughnessy has nothing to say about Roger’s special treatment in New York, but was so quick to brand Pedro a diva, what would he say? “Do you just want me to stop writing?”
Dan, Anne, if that’s what it takes, you bet. One can criticize without being cruel, attack without seeking to destroy. Can you? Maybe not, but then leave the discourse to someone who can.
3. Seeing that his baseball career might be nearing an end, embattled Red Sox pitcher Mike Timlin (note: who else wants to contribute to the gold watch?) gave the Boston Globe some thoughts on his plans for future employment.
To the surprise of many, the statuesque Timlin suggested that he may take up exotic dancing, claiming that he planned to “Strip everything off.”
But, Timlin added, being a quality adult entertainer is not easy. From dealing with wardrobe to working on dance moves, Timlin expects the new career to be challenge.
"Obviously, completely redoing your whole get-up is not easy, because you have routines and you have things you do,” explained the righty. “But that's what we're trying to get done."
Timlin also expressed concerns about having his anatomy compared to other dancers saying “As time goes, if you look over anybody's ‘stats,’… they're swinging the ‘bat’ really well. So their confidence is really high.”
Sox skipper Tito Eurona thought Timlin’s girth would not be an issue, telling the Globe “Here's a guy that's handled a real heavy ‘role’”
(Note: All quotes are real and taken from an Amalie Benjamin piece in today’s Globe. Jose can not help it if she put them in the wrong context in the paper.)
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
Monday, June 25
You, Happy Wakefield, Knuckle
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. KEYS TO THE GAME PRESENTS
Ages of Empire
Today’s volume: Tim Wakefield
Tim Wakefield is the Habsburg Empire. He just is. Both of them, the Austrians and the Spaniards, and in every iteration. From the Holy Roman Empire, to the Austrian Empire to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, that’s what Wakefield is. Yes, sometimes, in 1995 for instance, he looks like the Mongols, absolutely ravaging opponents, and other times, say late 1999 when he was left off the ALCS roster, he looks less like an empire at all and far more like on of those peaceful little tribes that was conquered and lost to history. But when taken in his entirety, Wakefield is most definitely the Habsburgs.
You can go right back to the beginning with the comparison, in that both Wakefield and the Habsburgs rose not because of their competence, but because of their incompetence. Whereas Frederick III was elected the first Habsburg Holy Roman Empire, precisely because other monarchs viewed him as too incompetent to comprise their power, Wakefield was forced into the knuckleball by his failure as an infielder. Both the Habsburgs and Wakefield would fulfill their destinies almost by accident.
Let Jose describe the essence of Habsburg rule. The Habsburgs came to dominate much of Europe. Their empire, at times stretched as far East as what it now Ukraine and as far West as Spain and as far South as Sicily (Note: Though there was lots in the middle they did not rule, and the extents of their empire varied dramatically over the centuries.) Yet, they achieved this spectacular success, despite utter mediocrity and significant incompetence. How pathetic were they militarily? Perhaps their greatest hero is Prince Eugene of Savoy, who staved off the Turkish siege of Vienna in 1683. That’s right; their greatest military hero was French!
No, the unofficial motto, of the Habsburgs was “Bella gerant alii, tu felix Austria nube,” “Let others wage war, you - happy Austria - marry!" The Habsburgs could not win on the battlefield, so they won with the through the subtle trickery of matrimony.
So is any of this starting to sound like a pitcher you know? Tim Wakefield has somehow managed to gather 158 career wins and to creep into the top 100 on the all time strikeout list, despite not being particularly good. Just like the Habsburgs, he has had remarkable success despite lacking major league stuff. Just as the Habsburgs relied on matrimony, Wakefield has used the equally subtle knuckleball to escape his limitations. Moreover, just as the Habsburgs produced only two leaders of any distinction, Maria Theresa an Charles V of Spain, so too, had Tim Wakefield only two seasons of particular distinction, his debut year where he went 8-1 for the Pirates and his remarkable 1995 campaign. If one wishes, one can add Joseph II/Wakefield’s 2002 campaign to the list of competence.
But that’s where the analogy ends. The Habsburg’s Empire ended, with Gavrilo Princip’s bullet in Sarajevo. Yes, Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s death did not end the Empire on that day, but in set in motion the awful events of World War I that would eventually lead to the death of their empire. Wakefield has already met his Princip, in Aaron Boone, who like Princip was a small and insignificant man who fate tabbed for one brief moment of importance. That moment in 2003, when Boone’s home run ended the 2003 ALCS as surely and as quickly as an assassin’s bullet ended the life of the Habsburg heir, should have set in motion the torturous end of Tim Wakefield’s career if the analogy was to hold true.
And yet here we are, four years later. Wakefield pitched brilliantly in Game 5 of the 2004 ALCS and won a championship that year, and today he continues to start. His starts remain enigmatic, inconsistent and his seasonal numbers without particular distinction. Is it what we as fans would want? Probably not, but perhaps we should be satisfied with it. After all, the Habsburgs, certainly would have given anything four years after Franz Ferdinand’s Assassination to be lumbering along in their stylized mediocrity, rather than accelerating towards disasterous defeat and dissolution.
2. With the Red Sox facing Seattle’s Jeff Weaver tonight, Jose thought it would be nice to pay tribute to one of the classic songs that Jeff and his brother Jared wrote along with Bob Seeger during their time with the folk group “The Weavers.” Jose has taken On Top of Old Smokey” and updated it for the contemporary Red Sox fan, just like Jeff would have wanted, as a commentary on the deliciously sorry state of his old team. (Note: Sing along, you know the music!)
On top of the majors
Way up in the east
The Sox were alive and
The Yanks were deceased
For winning’s a pleasure
But losing is grief
Dropping two to the Giants
Is beyond belief
They’re behind Toronto
Lost more than they’ve won
And this schadenfreude
Is barrels of fun
And Roger’s an old man
His fastball is flat
He’s getting the big bucks
But looks kind of fat
How True
And Jeter’s a statue
He ain’t got no range
And Steinbrenner’s fuming
“I’m getting shortchanged”
Old Damon is hurting
And cut off his hair
Just like mighty Sampson
Now he’s swinging at air
They look up the standings
Way up at the Sox
And Yanks fans are crying
And Jose just mocks.
3. Rumors began to trickle out over the weekend that the Red Sox are leading contenders to acquire lefty Mark Buehrle from the White Sox. Jose will be honest. He is not yet sure how he feels about this potential trade, and about how Buehrle would fit into the rotation. While Buehrle, who threw a no-hitter earlier this year, obviously has great stuff, Jose would like to know a little bit more about his makeup before he would pull the trigger.
Our rotation currently consists of: blogging egomaniac, cocky Texan, insane Dominican bowler, Japanese guy and guy who throws sixty five to Major League hitters. Does Buehrle really have what it takes to supplant a member of that group personality wise? If not Jose says back off. Remember we have Jon Lester waiting in the wings to play the role of heroic cancer survivor.
If the Red Sox are going to make this trade, Jose would like to hear that Buehrle writes romance novels on the side or spends the off season working on a cure for maple syrup urine disease, something interesting. Jose is just saying that everyone needs a clearly defined role.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. KEYS TO THE GAME PRESENTS
Ages of Empire
Today’s volume: Tim Wakefield
Tim Wakefield is the Habsburg Empire. He just is. Both of them, the Austrians and the Spaniards, and in every iteration. From the Holy Roman Empire, to the Austrian Empire to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, that’s what Wakefield is. Yes, sometimes, in 1995 for instance, he looks like the Mongols, absolutely ravaging opponents, and other times, say late 1999 when he was left off the ALCS roster, he looks less like an empire at all and far more like on of those peaceful little tribes that was conquered and lost to history. But when taken in his entirety, Wakefield is most definitely the Habsburgs.
You can go right back to the beginning with the comparison, in that both Wakefield and the Habsburgs rose not because of their competence, but because of their incompetence. Whereas Frederick III was elected the first Habsburg Holy Roman Empire, precisely because other monarchs viewed him as too incompetent to comprise their power, Wakefield was forced into the knuckleball by his failure as an infielder. Both the Habsburgs and Wakefield would fulfill their destinies almost by accident.
Let Jose describe the essence of Habsburg rule. The Habsburgs came to dominate much of Europe. Their empire, at times stretched as far East as what it now Ukraine and as far West as Spain and as far South as Sicily (Note: Though there was lots in the middle they did not rule, and the extents of their empire varied dramatically over the centuries.) Yet, they achieved this spectacular success, despite utter mediocrity and significant incompetence. How pathetic were they militarily? Perhaps their greatest hero is Prince Eugene of Savoy, who staved off the Turkish siege of Vienna in 1683. That’s right; their greatest military hero was French!
No, the unofficial motto, of the Habsburgs was “Bella gerant alii, tu felix Austria nube,” “Let others wage war, you - happy Austria - marry!" The Habsburgs could not win on the battlefield, so they won with the through the subtle trickery of matrimony.
So is any of this starting to sound like a pitcher you know? Tim Wakefield has somehow managed to gather 158 career wins and to creep into the top 100 on the all time strikeout list, despite not being particularly good. Just like the Habsburgs, he has had remarkable success despite lacking major league stuff. Just as the Habsburgs relied on matrimony, Wakefield has used the equally subtle knuckleball to escape his limitations. Moreover, just as the Habsburgs produced only two leaders of any distinction, Maria Theresa an Charles V of Spain, so too, had Tim Wakefield only two seasons of particular distinction, his debut year where he went 8-1 for the Pirates and his remarkable 1995 campaign. If one wishes, one can add Joseph II/Wakefield’s 2002 campaign to the list of competence.
But that’s where the analogy ends. The Habsburg’s Empire ended, with Gavrilo Princip’s bullet in Sarajevo. Yes, Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s death did not end the Empire on that day, but in set in motion the awful events of World War I that would eventually lead to the death of their empire. Wakefield has already met his Princip, in Aaron Boone, who like Princip was a small and insignificant man who fate tabbed for one brief moment of importance. That moment in 2003, when Boone’s home run ended the 2003 ALCS as surely and as quickly as an assassin’s bullet ended the life of the Habsburg heir, should have set in motion the torturous end of Tim Wakefield’s career if the analogy was to hold true.
And yet here we are, four years later. Wakefield pitched brilliantly in Game 5 of the 2004 ALCS and won a championship that year, and today he continues to start. His starts remain enigmatic, inconsistent and his seasonal numbers without particular distinction. Is it what we as fans would want? Probably not, but perhaps we should be satisfied with it. After all, the Habsburgs, certainly would have given anything four years after Franz Ferdinand’s Assassination to be lumbering along in their stylized mediocrity, rather than accelerating towards disasterous defeat and dissolution.
2. With the Red Sox facing Seattle’s Jeff Weaver tonight, Jose thought it would be nice to pay tribute to one of the classic songs that Jeff and his brother Jared wrote along with Bob Seeger during their time with the folk group “The Weavers.” Jose has taken On Top of Old Smokey” and updated it for the contemporary Red Sox fan, just like Jeff would have wanted, as a commentary on the deliciously sorry state of his old team. (Note: Sing along, you know the music!)
On top of the majors
Way up in the east
The Sox were alive and
The Yanks were deceased
For winning’s a pleasure
But losing is grief
Dropping two to the Giants
Is beyond belief
They’re behind Toronto
Lost more than they’ve won
And this schadenfreude
Is barrels of fun
And Roger’s an old man
His fastball is flat
He’s getting the big bucks
But looks kind of fat
How True
And Jeter’s a statue
He ain’t got no range
And Steinbrenner’s fuming
“I’m getting shortchanged”
Old Damon is hurting
And cut off his hair
Just like mighty Sampson
Now he’s swinging at air
They look up the standings
Way up at the Sox
And Yanks fans are crying
And Jose just mocks.
3. Rumors began to trickle out over the weekend that the Red Sox are leading contenders to acquire lefty Mark Buehrle from the White Sox. Jose will be honest. He is not yet sure how he feels about this potential trade, and about how Buehrle would fit into the rotation. While Buehrle, who threw a no-hitter earlier this year, obviously has great stuff, Jose would like to know a little bit more about his makeup before he would pull the trigger.
Our rotation currently consists of: blogging egomaniac, cocky Texan, insane Dominican bowler, Japanese guy and guy who throws sixty five to Major League hitters. Does Buehrle really have what it takes to supplant a member of that group personality wise? If not Jose says back off. Remember we have Jon Lester waiting in the wings to play the role of heroic cancer survivor.
If the Red Sox are going to make this trade, Jose would like to hear that Buehrle writes romance novels on the side or spends the off season working on a cure for maple syrup urine disease, something interesting. Jose is just saying that everyone needs a clearly defined role.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
Friday, June 22
The Madness of King Julian
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. KEYS TO THE GAME PRESENTS
Ages of Empire
Today’s volume: Julian Tavarez
Jose is not even going to go through the motions on this one. Rather, he will back away from the elegant charade that there is any empire in this age, or any other, that can capture the madness of Julian Tavarez. Neither the Rome of Caligula, the emperor who made his horse a Senator, nor the British Empire run by the mad king George the III can fully capture the lunacy of Tavarez. To find an appropriate imperial analogy one must shake off the bonds of our reality and slip through the looking glass to the world of fiction. And there, only there, does the answer become clear. The correct analogy for Julian Tavarez is the Galactic Empire.
Now many of you, the nerdiest among you anyway, are no doubt asking which Galactic Empire Jose is talking about, the one from Star Wars or the one from Isaac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy. To which Jose answers neither and riposte’s with a question: Are you serious? Is there anything about either of those fictional empires that even approaches the pure batsh*t insanity that has led Sons of Sam Horn posters to call Tavarez “guano?”
The only Galactic Empire, hell, the only empire of any kind that even begins to approximate Tavarez’s madness is the one in Spaceballs. (Note to Nerds: Yes, technically the Spaceballs are from the planet Spaceball, and are not a Galactic Empire. How’s that for specificity? Are those of you who heckled Jose about the differences between Korea and Vietnam in his last post happy?)
Let’s break down the comparison. For starters, For starters, Tavarez in a batting helmet is not so different from the giant helmed Lord Dark Helmet, played by Rick Moranis. Second, the top two speeds on the spaceship Spaceball One are ridiculous speed and ludicrous speed; those are the bottom two speeds for Tavarez. Third, Jose has heard that Tavarez is known to go around the locker room saying “I see your Schwartz is as big as mine.” Finally, the only thing Jose can thing of that is more improbable than Tavarez’s emergence as a reliable starter is the scheduled resurrection of Spaceballs in animated form this fall.
Okay, that’s it. You know, what that’s a terrible analogy. But what else can you come up with for Tavarez? The guy isn’t imperial, he isn’t regal. He is simply effective, fun and more than a little nutty. Actually, that’s a lot like Spaceballs.
2. Tonight the Red Sox make their first appearance at San Diego’s PETCO Park where a certain animal rights organization made headlines by taking advantage of the “Buy a Brick” program, which allowed sponsors to help finance the stadium by purchasing a brick with a message on it. This organization encoded a message the read Break Open Your Cold Ones! Toast The Padres! Enjoy This Champion Organization!
If you take the first letter of each word, it spells out BOYCOTT PETCO.
Really, the Padres should have caught on. Why would anyone inaccurately classify them as “champion” unless they desperately needed a “C.?”
That said, this effort did give Jose an idea. With the new Yankee Stadium being built, perhaps there are some opportunities to send a message to the Bronx.
1. KEYS TO THE GAME PRESENTS
Ages of Empire
Today’s volume: Julian Tavarez
Jose is not even going to go through the motions on this one. Rather, he will back away from the elegant charade that there is any empire in this age, or any other, that can capture the madness of Julian Tavarez. Neither the Rome of Caligula, the emperor who made his horse a Senator, nor the British Empire run by the mad king George the III can fully capture the lunacy of Tavarez. To find an appropriate imperial analogy one must shake off the bonds of our reality and slip through the looking glass to the world of fiction. And there, only there, does the answer become clear. The correct analogy for Julian Tavarez is the Galactic Empire.
Now many of you, the nerdiest among you anyway, are no doubt asking which Galactic Empire Jose is talking about, the one from Star Wars or the one from Isaac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy. To which Jose answers neither and riposte’s with a question: Are you serious? Is there anything about either of those fictional empires that even approaches the pure batsh*t insanity that has led Sons of Sam Horn posters to call Tavarez “guano?”
The only Galactic Empire, hell, the only empire of any kind that even begins to approximate Tavarez’s madness is the one in Spaceballs. (Note to Nerds: Yes, technically the Spaceballs are from the planet Spaceball, and are not a Galactic Empire. How’s that for specificity? Are those of you who heckled Jose about the differences between Korea and Vietnam in his last post happy?)
Let’s break down the comparison. For starters, For starters, Tavarez in a batting helmet is not so different from the giant helmed Lord Dark Helmet, played by Rick Moranis. Second, the top two speeds on the spaceship Spaceball One are ridiculous speed and ludicrous speed; those are the bottom two speeds for Tavarez. Third, Jose has heard that Tavarez is known to go around the locker room saying “I see your Schwartz is as big as mine.” Finally, the only thing Jose can thing of that is more improbable than Tavarez’s emergence as a reliable starter is the scheduled resurrection of Spaceballs in animated form this fall.
Okay, that’s it. You know, what that’s a terrible analogy. But what else can you come up with for Tavarez? The guy isn’t imperial, he isn’t regal. He is simply effective, fun and more than a little nutty. Actually, that’s a lot like Spaceballs.
2. Tonight the Red Sox make their first appearance at San Diego’s PETCO Park where a certain animal rights organization made headlines by taking advantage of the “Buy a Brick” program, which allowed sponsors to help finance the stadium by purchasing a brick with a message on it. This organization encoded a message the read Break Open Your Cold Ones! Toast The Padres! Enjoy This Champion Organization!
If you take the first letter of each word, it spells out BOYCOTT PETCO.
Really, the Padres should have caught on. Why would anyone inaccurately classify them as “champion” unless they desperately needed a “C.?”
That said, this effort did give Jose an idea. With the new Yankee Stadium being built, perhaps there are some opportunities to send a message to the Bronx.
- Just Excellence. That’s Every Ring See, Unless Counting King Steinbrenner’s
- Put Outs? Steal Attempts? Driven Aroma? I Seek A Leader. Intangibles. Tight, Taut Legs. Enormous… Biceps? I Tremble for Clutch Hitting
- Congratulations Loser. Even Moneymen Eventually Need Someone In Search Of Very Enormous, Rotund Professional Athletes In Denial.
Jose only regrets that he couldn’t come up with something for. THE YANKEES ARE A CLASSLESS ORGANIZATION THAT HAS SPENT MORE THAN A BILLION DOLLARS SINCE THEIR LAST CHAMPIONSHIP.
3. David Murphy was called up from Pawtucket for the weekend series in San Diego. Jose thinks that it is great that the Red Sox will have an actually Dropkick Murphy on hand to sing Tessie
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
Wednesday, June 20
A People's History of Josh Beckett
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. KEYS TO THE GAME PRESENTS
Ages of Empire
Today’s volume: St. Josh a Beckett.
If Josh Beckett was one of history’s great empires, who would he be? The storic Carolingians? The cunning Merovingians? No, of course not. If that was the case, Jose would have to learn something about those guys. Instead, Jose will compare Beckett to the Empire he knows the most about, his own. Yes, Josh Beckett is the American Empire, the one Jose and probably you, are living in right this very moment.
Why? Well, Beckett is young, cocky, and dominant and his dominance will last forever and ever and ever. So what if every other pitcher in history has eventually broken down, grown old and tired and ceded his preeminence. It will never happen to Beckett. Never! U.S.A.!!! U.S.A.!!!
Let’s explore the analogy in a bit more detail. In his infancy as a pitcher, Beckett stunned the leading power of the day, the New York Yankees, just as the upstart Americans routed the seemingly invincible British Empire. And like the colonists Beckett made an early tactical error, settling into the bullpen mound, known as Breed’s Hill rather than the Bunker Hill of a game mound. Nevertheless he recovered by refusing to throw until he saw the white’s of the eyes of opposing batters, or in the case of drugged up Jason Giambi, the blacks of his enormous pupils.
After that, Beckett spent years being distracted by problems with his own body, namely blistering. Similarly, America spent the 75 years after the revolution struggling with the blister on the finger of the body politic that was slavery. Hmm… You know what? Jose may have just diminished one of the great horrors in U.S. history. Slavery is much more like a cancer than a blister, which would make the U.S. more like Jon Lester, though Lester appears to have recovered from cancer much more quickly and completely than the U.S. recovered from slavery.
Well, Jose’s this deep in with Beckett, and he’s sure as hell not going to rewrite, so he might as well continue.
Beckett emerged into full prominence with his trade to Boston, much as the U.S. felt its full imperial oats following World War II, and like the U.S. Beckett’s emergence was immediately followed by problems. Much as the U.S. stumbled into Korea and Vietnam, arrogant yet clearly unaware of what it was getting itself into, Beckett stumbled into the American League. And both Beckett and the U.S. thought that the doing the same things that had made them great would keep them great. Beckett kept throwing fastball after fastball, just as the U.S. attempted to fight a conventional war against an unconventional foe, and both got walloped. The U.S. brought its troops home and Beckett brought opposing hitters home, on home run after home run after home run.
But the good news is much like the U.S. learned from Vietnam, Beckett learned from 2006. He came back in 2007 mixing in a fearsome curve with his lively fastball and establishing himself as the American League’s leading pitcher. Now, all Red Sox fans should breath a sigh of relief, because if Beckett follows the American path, he will never, ever repeat the mistakes of his Vietnam, the 2006 campaign. As surely as America learned a lesson about fighting unwinable wars with no support from the populace of the occupied nation, Beckett learned to mix in breaking pitches. Crap… we’re going to see nothing but fastballs next year aren’t we?
But while Beckett is beloved by Red Sox nation every bit as surely as the U.S.A. is loved by, well, Albanians anyway. (Note: Just kidding Americans love their country, Jose included.) There will be skeptics and critics. Perhaps noted Bostonian and Red Sox fan Howard Zinn will write a book entitled “The People’s History of Josh Beckett” which will harshly criticize his massacre of the Cleveland Indians and Atlanta Braves, gentle tribes who just wanted only to maintain their ways of life.
But Josh Beckett will not be deterred. Like America, he is strong, invincible and more than willing to torture his opponents (note: but with fastballs up and in, not water boarding) if it will give him even the slightest edge.
2. Why doesn’t Rococo Crisp like Puerto Ricans?
Following a game in which he made a spectacular catch and went 1 for 4, the newly rejuvenated Crisp could have acted like the class act he purports be. He could have thanked God for his gifts and talked about the brotherhood of man, but no, instead he had to act like a reject from the cast of West Side Story.
For those of you who haven’t seen it, Crisp told the Boston Globe “I just don’t want any PR or PR man.”
Disgusting. Still there is a bright side, at least Crisp did not go after the DR, because that would have made for a really ugly clubhouse scene.
3. Curt Euro returned to Boston yesterday after a second poor start in a row for an MRI. Thankfully, the results were negative, finding only that Euro suffers from a severe case of “old.” However, doctors did give him a cortisone shot, which will at least ensure that his shoulder doesn’t itch.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. KEYS TO THE GAME PRESENTS
Ages of Empire
Today’s volume: St. Josh a Beckett.
If Josh Beckett was one of history’s great empires, who would he be? The storic Carolingians? The cunning Merovingians? No, of course not. If that was the case, Jose would have to learn something about those guys. Instead, Jose will compare Beckett to the Empire he knows the most about, his own. Yes, Josh Beckett is the American Empire, the one Jose and probably you, are living in right this very moment.
Why? Well, Beckett is young, cocky, and dominant and his dominance will last forever and ever and ever. So what if every other pitcher in history has eventually broken down, grown old and tired and ceded his preeminence. It will never happen to Beckett. Never! U.S.A.!!! U.S.A.!!!
Let’s explore the analogy in a bit more detail. In his infancy as a pitcher, Beckett stunned the leading power of the day, the New York Yankees, just as the upstart Americans routed the seemingly invincible British Empire. And like the colonists Beckett made an early tactical error, settling into the bullpen mound, known as Breed’s Hill rather than the Bunker Hill of a game mound. Nevertheless he recovered by refusing to throw until he saw the white’s of the eyes of opposing batters, or in the case of drugged up Jason Giambi, the blacks of his enormous pupils.
After that, Beckett spent years being distracted by problems with his own body, namely blistering. Similarly, America spent the 75 years after the revolution struggling with the blister on the finger of the body politic that was slavery. Hmm… You know what? Jose may have just diminished one of the great horrors in U.S. history. Slavery is much more like a cancer than a blister, which would make the U.S. more like Jon Lester, though Lester appears to have recovered from cancer much more quickly and completely than the U.S. recovered from slavery.
Well, Jose’s this deep in with Beckett, and he’s sure as hell not going to rewrite, so he might as well continue.
Beckett emerged into full prominence with his trade to Boston, much as the U.S. felt its full imperial oats following World War II, and like the U.S. Beckett’s emergence was immediately followed by problems. Much as the U.S. stumbled into Korea and Vietnam, arrogant yet clearly unaware of what it was getting itself into, Beckett stumbled into the American League. And both Beckett and the U.S. thought that the doing the same things that had made them great would keep them great. Beckett kept throwing fastball after fastball, just as the U.S. attempted to fight a conventional war against an unconventional foe, and both got walloped. The U.S. brought its troops home and Beckett brought opposing hitters home, on home run after home run after home run.
But the good news is much like the U.S. learned from Vietnam, Beckett learned from 2006. He came back in 2007 mixing in a fearsome curve with his lively fastball and establishing himself as the American League’s leading pitcher. Now, all Red Sox fans should breath a sigh of relief, because if Beckett follows the American path, he will never, ever repeat the mistakes of his Vietnam, the 2006 campaign. As surely as America learned a lesson about fighting unwinable wars with no support from the populace of the occupied nation, Beckett learned to mix in breaking pitches. Crap… we’re going to see nothing but fastballs next year aren’t we?
But while Beckett is beloved by Red Sox nation every bit as surely as the U.S.A. is loved by, well, Albanians anyway. (Note: Just kidding Americans love their country, Jose included.) There will be skeptics and critics. Perhaps noted Bostonian and Red Sox fan Howard Zinn will write a book entitled “The People’s History of Josh Beckett” which will harshly criticize his massacre of the Cleveland Indians and Atlanta Braves, gentle tribes who just wanted only to maintain their ways of life.
But Josh Beckett will not be deterred. Like America, he is strong, invincible and more than willing to torture his opponents (note: but with fastballs up and in, not water boarding) if it will give him even the slightest edge.
2. Why doesn’t Rococo Crisp like Puerto Ricans?
Following a game in which he made a spectacular catch and went 1 for 4, the newly rejuvenated Crisp could have acted like the class act he purports be. He could have thanked God for his gifts and talked about the brotherhood of man, but no, instead he had to act like a reject from the cast of West Side Story.
For those of you who haven’t seen it, Crisp told the Boston Globe “I just don’t want any PR or PR man.”
Disgusting. Still there is a bright side, at least Crisp did not go after the DR, because that would have made for a really ugly clubhouse scene.
3. Curt Euro returned to Boston yesterday after a second poor start in a row for an MRI. Thankfully, the results were negative, finding only that Euro suffers from a severe case of “old.” However, doctors did give him a cortisone shot, which will at least ensure that his shoulder doesn’t itch.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
Tuesday, June 19
The Decline and Fall of Curt Euro
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. Today’s KEYS come to you from Melendez U’s department of historical analogy.
As Jose watched Curt Euro implode yet again last night, he could not help but draw the horrifying parallels between the righty and the fall of a certain empire, thus he thought it might be a useful exercise to do a series identifying, for each member of the Red Sox rotation, the appropriate imperial analogy. (Note: By useful, Jose means not useful.) Bonus points to any historians who site this edition of KEYS in a book or dissertation.
Today’s Profile: Curt Euro
Oh, the glory that was Curt. If Jose was going to write a book this year, and he is, he would be sorely tempted to call it The History of the Decline and Fall of Curt Euro.
For the three or four of you out there who may not have read Edward Gibbon’s opus, this means that Jose is comparing Curt Euro to the Roman Empire. When you think about the Curt era in Boston, the comparison is apt.
For starters, Jose is pretty sure that Curt’s parents were named Romulus and Remus, either that or he was personally founded by Aeneas, which is downright creepy when you think about it, since Aeneas had sprung forth from the ruins of Troy Glaus. From there, the comparisons only deepen and mature. His astonishing 2004 season is nothing if not a metaphor for the rise of the Roman Republic and the conquest of Italy. How is the bloody sock not an exact parallel to the Roman bloodletting in the Italian boot?
Then the 2005 season with his recovery from injury is reminiscent of the First Punic War when Rome, after losing 70 percent of its fleet to storms, rebuilt it in a mere two months. Sure, Curt really took a good ten months to recover from ankle surgery, but what do you want? He’s not made out of wood.
Then the 2006 season is the Roman Empire, where Euro, like Julius Caesar before him, made it clear that he had no interest in being part of the Senate. Also, he may have conquered North Africa. Jose will have to fact check that one.
And that brings us to today, 2007 and, sadly it looks as though the sack of Curt Euro is proceeding apace, and in consecutive starts the Rockies and Braves have played the roles of Visigoths and Vandals to perfection. And Jose is all too afraid that this weekend San Diego will be the Ostrogoths with Adrian Gonzales playing the role of Theodoric.
It is, lamentably, bread and circuses time. Instead of the sustaining conquests of the past, we have the circus that is 38pitches.com. (Note: Okay, Jose loves Euro’s blog, but damn it, he needs to call it a circus for this bit to work.) And does anyone else remember Emperor Nero’s wife Claudia Octavia running an anti skin cancer campaign?
But perhaps there is hope. If only Curt Euro would divide himself in half, there is a good chance that his Eastern portion could keep pitching for another 1,000 years or so until Turk Wendell would overrun him.
Tomorrow: What Empire does Josh Beckett resemble?
2. According to the Boston Herald, the Red Sox have secretly instituted a policy of ejecting fans who throw home run balls from the opposing team back on to the field. The policy, which the club insists is not new and is merely an enforcement of its broader rule against fan interference, was first trotted out last Wednesday when a fan was ejected after throwing the Rockies’ Brad Hawpe’s home run ball back on to the field.
Jose would like to condemn this move in the strongest possible terms. You cannot, CANNOT, start ejecting fans for throwing back home run balls. It is a hallowed tradition, and an integral part of the fan experience. Does the NHL eject fans for throwing hats on the ice after a hat trick? Does the WWF eject fans for throwing soda cups or, perhaps, glass bottles, at heels? No, of course not, because it is tradition! And yet here are the Red Sox wanting to curtail a completely harmless and fun ritual. What’s next, ejecting fans for singing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame?” Arresting people for chanting “steroids” at Jason Giambi? Ejecting fans for hurling empty plastic bottles on the field after Tim Tschida calls an out when Chuck Knoblauch wasn’t within three feet of Jose Offerman?
“Safety first” is a fine motto, but there is safety and then there is lame killjoy nannyism. This is the latter.
Since this appears to be the call of Dr. Charles Steinberg, a dentist by training, let Jose put it in dental terms. Dr. Steinberg, whenever you give a patient nitrous what do you do? That’s right, you take a little hit for yourself. Yes, it’s not the safest thing in the world, but you do it anyway. And you know why? Tradition. (Note: Cue music.) And without our traditions, our lives would be as shaky as a fiddler on the roof! Which is to say, as shaky as Julio Lugo’s bat.
3. The season hit a low point last night as Willie Harris pounded the Red Sox, reaching base three times on a walk and two hits. If the trend continues, Cesar Crespo will have a game winning RBI tonight and Billy Ashley will bat and not strike out tomorrow.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. Today’s KEYS come to you from Melendez U’s department of historical analogy.
As Jose watched Curt Euro implode yet again last night, he could not help but draw the horrifying parallels between the righty and the fall of a certain empire, thus he thought it might be a useful exercise to do a series identifying, for each member of the Red Sox rotation, the appropriate imperial analogy. (Note: By useful, Jose means not useful.) Bonus points to any historians who site this edition of KEYS in a book or dissertation.
Today’s Profile: Curt Euro
Oh, the glory that was Curt. If Jose was going to write a book this year, and he is, he would be sorely tempted to call it The History of the Decline and Fall of Curt Euro.
For the three or four of you out there who may not have read Edward Gibbon’s opus, this means that Jose is comparing Curt Euro to the Roman Empire. When you think about the Curt era in Boston, the comparison is apt.
For starters, Jose is pretty sure that Curt’s parents were named Romulus and Remus, either that or he was personally founded by Aeneas, which is downright creepy when you think about it, since Aeneas had sprung forth from the ruins of Troy Glaus. From there, the comparisons only deepen and mature. His astonishing 2004 season is nothing if not a metaphor for the rise of the Roman Republic and the conquest of Italy. How is the bloody sock not an exact parallel to the Roman bloodletting in the Italian boot?
Then the 2005 season with his recovery from injury is reminiscent of the First Punic War when Rome, after losing 70 percent of its fleet to storms, rebuilt it in a mere two months. Sure, Curt really took a good ten months to recover from ankle surgery, but what do you want? He’s not made out of wood.
Then the 2006 season is the Roman Empire, where Euro, like Julius Caesar before him, made it clear that he had no interest in being part of the Senate. Also, he may have conquered North Africa. Jose will have to fact check that one.
And that brings us to today, 2007 and, sadly it looks as though the sack of Curt Euro is proceeding apace, and in consecutive starts the Rockies and Braves have played the roles of Visigoths and Vandals to perfection. And Jose is all too afraid that this weekend San Diego will be the Ostrogoths with Adrian Gonzales playing the role of Theodoric.
It is, lamentably, bread and circuses time. Instead of the sustaining conquests of the past, we have the circus that is 38pitches.com. (Note: Okay, Jose loves Euro’s blog, but damn it, he needs to call it a circus for this bit to work.) And does anyone else remember Emperor Nero’s wife Claudia Octavia running an anti skin cancer campaign?
But perhaps there is hope. If only Curt Euro would divide himself in half, there is a good chance that his Eastern portion could keep pitching for another 1,000 years or so until Turk Wendell would overrun him.
Tomorrow: What Empire does Josh Beckett resemble?
2. According to the Boston Herald, the Red Sox have secretly instituted a policy of ejecting fans who throw home run balls from the opposing team back on to the field. The policy, which the club insists is not new and is merely an enforcement of its broader rule against fan interference, was first trotted out last Wednesday when a fan was ejected after throwing the Rockies’ Brad Hawpe’s home run ball back on to the field.
Jose would like to condemn this move in the strongest possible terms. You cannot, CANNOT, start ejecting fans for throwing back home run balls. It is a hallowed tradition, and an integral part of the fan experience. Does the NHL eject fans for throwing hats on the ice after a hat trick? Does the WWF eject fans for throwing soda cups or, perhaps, glass bottles, at heels? No, of course not, because it is tradition! And yet here are the Red Sox wanting to curtail a completely harmless and fun ritual. What’s next, ejecting fans for singing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame?” Arresting people for chanting “steroids” at Jason Giambi? Ejecting fans for hurling empty plastic bottles on the field after Tim Tschida calls an out when Chuck Knoblauch wasn’t within three feet of Jose Offerman?
“Safety first” is a fine motto, but there is safety and then there is lame killjoy nannyism. This is the latter.
Since this appears to be the call of Dr. Charles Steinberg, a dentist by training, let Jose put it in dental terms. Dr. Steinberg, whenever you give a patient nitrous what do you do? That’s right, you take a little hit for yourself. Yes, it’s not the safest thing in the world, but you do it anyway. And you know why? Tradition. (Note: Cue music.) And without our traditions, our lives would be as shaky as a fiddler on the roof! Which is to say, as shaky as Julio Lugo’s bat.
3. The season hit a low point last night as Willie Harris pounded the Red Sox, reaching base three times on a walk and two hits. If the trend continues, Cesar Crespo will have a game winning RBI tonight and Billy Ashley will bat and not strike out tomorrow.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
Monday, June 18
Learning to Love Bonds
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. He like us. He really likes us.
Yes, it turns out that Barry Bonds “The Dirtiest Player in the Game” to borrow a epithet from Ric Flair, discovered that he likes Boston. During a press conference Bonds told the local media “This is a beautiful ballpark. This is a beautiful city. San Francisco’s streets are a little bit dirty and stuff like that. Being around here and walking around town it’s very clean and a nice town.” Funny, Jose would have imagined that Bonds decided he like our little burg after the Boston Police Department steroids scandal broke. Go figure.
Yes, Barry Bonds likes us, and Jose is so… so… happy?
Jose doesn’t exactly understand why, but he is grateful, genuinely grateful and relieved that Bonds has nice things to say about Jose’s beloved city. For whatever reason, when it comes to Boston, Jose is like a puppy desperate to be patted on the hand and scratched behind the ears, even if it is my a cruel and drugged up stranger, with an enormous head and well-beyond 700 home runs.
Barry Bonds may like Boston, but Jose does not like Barry Bonds. He doesn’t like that Bonds is a cheater, and the fact that he appears to be near universally disliked by his teammates makes it worse. To Jose, being a jerk is a far bigger sin than being a cheater.
Bonds is arrogant, self-righteous and cocky beyond belief. And yet when Bonds condemned Boston as a “racist city” when the Sox were playing in San Francisco a few years ago it stung Jose. It shouldn’t have. It is not as though some giant of justice like Andrew Young or Spiderman was condemning Boston. It was Barry Bonds, among the most privileged, and nasty, athletes in U.S. history. But it still hurt.
Still, the cloying praise has had its effect, and Jose has now turned the corner on Bonds, and adopted a new, pro-Bonds perspective.
Barry Bonds is not using performance enhancing drugs. Nope. Someone with such nice things to say about Boston can’t be using steroids. It’s impossible. So Jose has come up with an alternative theory.
Sometime in the lat 1990s, Bonds was inadvertently subjected to a huge blast of gamma rays. It explains everything. When Dr. Bruce Banner was subjected to gamma rays he gained huge strength as The Hulk? Barry Bonds has gained huge strength, check! When laborer and high school dropout Samuel Stearns was bombarded by gamma radiation his head swelled to enormous proportions and he became know as The Leader, The Hulk’s arch enemy. Does Bonds have a giant head? Yup.
It’s well know that radiation will shrivel one’s testicles, so Bonds incredible shrinking balls are covered by the gamma ray theory as well.
The only question that remains is why didn’t Bonds turn green from the gamma rays? But there is an explanation. Bonds was green before. He was green with envy for all of the acclaim that fellow dopers Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were getting for their home run exploits. Since Bonds was already green, the gamma rays wouldn’t make him any greener. That said, they did add a lot of green to his bank account.
So congratulations to Barry Bonds on being cleared of steroid use. Jose recommends that, in order to clear up further confusion you take a super being nickname. Unfortunately, “The Abomination” is already taken by another gamma powered villain.
1. He like us. He really likes us.
Yes, it turns out that Barry Bonds “The Dirtiest Player in the Game” to borrow a epithet from Ric Flair, discovered that he likes Boston. During a press conference Bonds told the local media “This is a beautiful ballpark. This is a beautiful city. San Francisco’s streets are a little bit dirty and stuff like that. Being around here and walking around town it’s very clean and a nice town.” Funny, Jose would have imagined that Bonds decided he like our little burg after the Boston Police Department steroids scandal broke. Go figure.
Yes, Barry Bonds likes us, and Jose is so… so… happy?
Jose doesn’t exactly understand why, but he is grateful, genuinely grateful and relieved that Bonds has nice things to say about Jose’s beloved city. For whatever reason, when it comes to Boston, Jose is like a puppy desperate to be patted on the hand and scratched behind the ears, even if it is my a cruel and drugged up stranger, with an enormous head and well-beyond 700 home runs.
Barry Bonds may like Boston, but Jose does not like Barry Bonds. He doesn’t like that Bonds is a cheater, and the fact that he appears to be near universally disliked by his teammates makes it worse. To Jose, being a jerk is a far bigger sin than being a cheater.
Bonds is arrogant, self-righteous and cocky beyond belief. And yet when Bonds condemned Boston as a “racist city” when the Sox were playing in San Francisco a few years ago it stung Jose. It shouldn’t have. It is not as though some giant of justice like Andrew Young or Spiderman was condemning Boston. It was Barry Bonds, among the most privileged, and nasty, athletes in U.S. history. But it still hurt.
Still, the cloying praise has had its effect, and Jose has now turned the corner on Bonds, and adopted a new, pro-Bonds perspective.
Barry Bonds is not using performance enhancing drugs. Nope. Someone with such nice things to say about Boston can’t be using steroids. It’s impossible. So Jose has come up with an alternative theory.
Sometime in the lat 1990s, Bonds was inadvertently subjected to a huge blast of gamma rays. It explains everything. When Dr. Bruce Banner was subjected to gamma rays he gained huge strength as The Hulk? Barry Bonds has gained huge strength, check! When laborer and high school dropout Samuel Stearns was bombarded by gamma radiation his head swelled to enormous proportions and he became know as The Leader, The Hulk’s arch enemy. Does Bonds have a giant head? Yup.
It’s well know that radiation will shrivel one’s testicles, so Bonds incredible shrinking balls are covered by the gamma ray theory as well.
The only question that remains is why didn’t Bonds turn green from the gamma rays? But there is an explanation. Bonds was green before. He was green with envy for all of the acclaim that fellow dopers Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were getting for their home run exploits. Since Bonds was already green, the gamma rays wouldn’t make him any greener. That said, they did add a lot of green to his bank account.
So congratulations to Barry Bonds on being cleared of steroid use. Jose recommends that, in order to clear up further confusion you take a super being nickname. Unfortunately, “The Abomination” is already taken by another gamma powered villain.
Which is the real Barry Bonds?
2. As long as Jose is in a comics mood, he might as well address the new Fantastic Four film. Even though the first Fantastic Four film was a crime against comics, Jose was prepared to see the second one for no other reason than to see Galactus, the devourer of worlds who constantly eats planets to feed his ravenous hunger. Galactus is one of Jose’s all time favorite super villains, powerful and complex and with cool head gear. Also, he coined one of Jose’s favorite phrases “The Hunger Gnaws.” But then Jose learned several days ago that Galactus appears in the movie as just an enormous miasma of dust and debris. Thank God Jose found out before plunking down ten dollars to see the movie.
Do you know what that would have been like? It would have been like going to see a really horrible baseball team, let’s say the San Francisco Giants, just to see Barry Bonds play. You’re all excited and then when you get to the game, no Bonds. No, instead of Bonds, the Giants have a big cloud of dust batting cleanup. How lame would that be? Of course, the cloud of dust would play a superior leftfield to Bonds, but that’s not the point.
Now Batting Cleanup for the Giants
3. As you know, Jose is on his fourth year of writing KEYS now, and the rewards have been, modest, let’s say. A few books sold here, a T-shirt sold there. Maybe a grateful fan offers Jose a ticket to a game, which is nice, but Jose ends up always buying food and drink, because that’s the kind of guy he is. But now things are finally going Jose’s way. The world of public relations has finally gotten to the point where they have the wherewithal to do things like bribe Jose to write about their products.
Case in point, A&E television recently asked Jose to promote a number of
Red Sox products they are peddling at low, low prices. Here’s the email
they sent.
Hello from A&E Television Networks! I recently
came across your website http://www.keystothegame.blogspot.com/. I
think your visitors would appreciate reading a review or post about any of our
Red Sox DVD collections. You can view these products by clickingI would be happy to send you a free DVD or a gift certificate, in exchange
for a review or post on your site.I look forward to hearing from you
soon.Thanks,
PR Flack
That’s right, they didn’t ask Jose to do a review, they flat out bribed him to do it. And Jose says kudos! Jose want’s to be as clear as possible that this space is absolutely for sale to anyone who will give him schwag. Jose especially reaches out to the PR department for the WWF who keeps sending Jose press releases but has not offered him so much as a Steve Austin foam middle finger for his troubles.
Anyway, the 2004 Red Sox ALCS/World Series DVD collection came to Jose absolutely free the other day, and let Jose say, it is fantastic. He hasn’t opened it yet, but he watched it when it happened, and he remembers it being great. If you want this handsome set, normally priced at $129.95, you can get it now from A&E at a tremendous discount. All you have to do is start a Red Sox blog and get on their press list and they will send it to you absolutely free. It’s a tremendous value!
That or you can click on this link and pay for the privilege.
Either way, the important thing is that PR Flacks take note and send Jose more free stuff.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
Friday, June 15
The New Look Giants
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE GAME.
2. With Barry Bonds, a legend like it or not, coming to town for the first time tonight Jose would like to see his fellow Red Sox fans show some class and not crack out the crude and tired “Ste-roids, Ste-roids” chant. It’s old, its day is past, and it’s not even accurate. Bud Selig wishes Barry were only taking steroids, given the freaky, freaky things he puts into his body. And yet sadly, nothing rhymes with stanozolol.
Thus, Jose is going to offer a more sophisticated alternative taunt that reflects the modernization and increasing sophistication of performance enhancing drugs.
The clear, and the cream,
Without them, you’d hit like Sid Bream,
You screwed up your knees,
We blame it all on PEDs
Hank Aaron’s your foil,
But he din’ need no Flaxseed Oil
3. Red Sox Legend Dave Roberts makes his first appearance in Boston in uniform tonight since the 2004 World Series. And while it is hard to explain exactly how great a man Roberts is, Jose is going to try to do it in the only way he knows how: by discussing his commonalities with another sporting legend, Mr. Miyagi.
FACT: Both were born on Okinawa.
FACT: Both have spent time living in L.A.
FACT: Both have cool beards.
FACT: Both have appeared with Jay Leno (Note: Roberts on The Tonight Show, Miyagi in the movie Collision Course.)
FACT: Jose is really stretching right now, and he has about as much in the tank right now as St. Josh a Beckett did last night.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. Jose is not much of a fashion plate. He would not thrive on Project Runway any more than Julio Lugo thrives at the top of the batting order… or the bottom of the batting order. Still, he does like to think he knows a little about uniforms and what makes a good one. Thus, he would like to make a humble suggestion to the visiting San Francisco Giants.
Yes, the orange and black is a classic look but don’t you ever want to try something at least a little bit different, a little bit fun? Sure you do, and what would you say if Jose told you that he had a uni idea that would also help you market more effectively to the Latino fans, who, according to Lou Dobbs, are overrunning your region? You’d say, “Absolutely Jose, what is it?”
Well, here it is. The Giants should start wearing the muscle suit worn by Latino professional wrestler The Giant Gonzales (note: a.k.a. El Gigante). Since Gonzalez was something of a bean pole (note: Think a Latin Manute Bol with less athletic ability), the late great Vincent Kennedy McMahon, may he rest in peace, dressed Gonzales in a skin tight suit that had muscles painted on to it and some impressive shoulder fur. The advantages for the Giants would be considerable. Not only would it be a sleek new look, the fake muscle suit would actually make Barry Bonds look less roided up.
Yes, the orange and black is a classic look but don’t you ever want to try something at least a little bit different, a little bit fun? Sure you do, and what would you say if Jose told you that he had a uni idea that would also help you market more effectively to the Latino fans, who, according to Lou Dobbs, are overrunning your region? You’d say, “Absolutely Jose, what is it?”
Well, here it is. The Giants should start wearing the muscle suit worn by Latino professional wrestler The Giant Gonzales (note: a.k.a. El Gigante). Since Gonzalez was something of a bean pole (note: Think a Latin Manute Bol with less athletic ability), the late great Vincent Kennedy McMahon, may he rest in peace, dressed Gonzales in a skin tight suit that had muscles painted on to it and some impressive shoulder fur. The advantages for the Giants would be considerable. Not only would it be a sleek new look, the fake muscle suit would actually make Barry Bonds look less roided up.
A uni for the 21st century
2. With Barry Bonds, a legend like it or not, coming to town for the first time tonight Jose would like to see his fellow Red Sox fans show some class and not crack out the crude and tired “Ste-roids, Ste-roids” chant. It’s old, its day is past, and it’s not even accurate. Bud Selig wishes Barry were only taking steroids, given the freaky, freaky things he puts into his body. And yet sadly, nothing rhymes with stanozolol.
Thus, Jose is going to offer a more sophisticated alternative taunt that reflects the modernization and increasing sophistication of performance enhancing drugs.
The clear, and the cream,
Without them, you’d hit like Sid Bream,
You screwed up your knees,
We blame it all on PEDs
Hank Aaron’s your foil,
But he din’ need no Flaxseed Oil
3. Red Sox Legend Dave Roberts makes his first appearance in Boston in uniform tonight since the 2004 World Series. And while it is hard to explain exactly how great a man Roberts is, Jose is going to try to do it in the only way he knows how: by discussing his commonalities with another sporting legend, Mr. Miyagi.
FACT: Both were born on Okinawa.
FACT: Both have spent time living in L.A.
FACT: Both have cool beards.
FACT: Both have appeared with Jay Leno (Note: Roberts on The Tonight Show, Miyagi in the movie Collision Course.)
FACT: Jose is really stretching right now, and he has about as much in the tank right now as St. Josh a Beckett did last night.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
Thursday, June 14
You might feel a slight sting. That's pride fu**ing with you.
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. One would not expect to find much to be proud of in a 12-2 drubbing at the hands of the Josh Fogg and the Colorado Rockies. Jose would have been happier if the Sox had been shut down by “The Velvet Fog” Mel Torme, and yet Jose has left few games with a greater feeling of pride.
There are two kinds of pride, three if you count PRIDE fighting. Jose is quite familiar with feeling the first kind as he struts down Yawkey after a victory. It’s the kind of pride that comes from seeing a foe vanquished by one’s champion. The second kind is more elusive, both in life and in the old park in the Fenway. It is the kind of pride that emerges from seeing a friend or ally stand up for someone weaker, from witnessing an act of right in the face of, perhaps not might, by at least general jerkiness. No, Jose is not talking about Tito’s selfless defense of the increasingly indefensible Julio Lugo, but rather about the actions of one Sam Melendez.
As the margin in last night’s contest swelled from large to insurmountable, one particularly loudmouthed fan, who looked for all the world like a drunken law student, began to seek refuge in harassing a visiting Rockies fan. The young aggressor began to bellow at the Rockies fan, a portly woman in her mid-30s, for committing the unforgivable sin of being the least bit pleased that her awful baseball team was winning. “Go back to Colorado” he insisted, as he demanded that she “stop cheering for such a sh*tty team.”
This was not some Yankees fan vaingloriously inviting taunts, beer and abuse, but rather one of those pleasant mountainfolk, earnestly cheering her thin air heroes.
And still the abuse persisted. “BEST F*CKING RECORD IN THE MAJORS,” he harangued. “BEST F*CKING RECORD.”
“Hey,” came the interjection. It was a different voice, Sam Melendez’s gravely mumble. “I just want you to know that all Sox fans aren’t *ssholes.” The victim smiled, reassured that someone cared.
It was a profound truth. We’re not all *ssholes are we?
But the drunkard was out to prove Sam wrong.
“I’m just cheerin’ fer my team,” he slurred loudly. “How duz that make me ern azz hole?”
“This lady’s just supporting her team. Leave her alone,” replied Sam, barely concealing his growing irritation.
“Yer a bad fan, you should be supporting yer team, and she should GO THE F*CK BACK TO COLARADO!”
“Your mother must be so proud,” Sam retorted. Not the most original comeback but a valid comment.
“She is. You want talk to her?” He pulled out his cell phone.
Maybe his mother was proud. Maybe there are women out there who imagine that one day their sons will grow up to be drunken louts. But Sam was not prepared to ask her directly.
“That’s it we’re done here *sshole,” decided Sam
And with that Sam and Jose stood up and walked down to much better seats as the law student shrieked “BAD FANS LEAVING EARLY,” at us.
But Jose was proud of Sam, really proud, first for standing up for a visiting fan who was taking unreasonable crap, and second for refraining from beating the holy hell out of the law student. A sense of justice and a sense of restraint are two qualities that go together far too infrequently.
2. While last night’s game may have seemed like one more near meaningless interleague contest lost in the ether of a lengthy season, it should have a special sting for the many Red Sox fans who truly hate the Yankees.
This is because among last night’s victors was Rockies catcher Vorvit Torrealba, who as you can tell from the last name, is the love child of Yankees manager Joe Torre and Actress Jessica Alba. Torre had sex with Alba, known to be dating Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter, in the locker room after an early season game. The crusty Torre was able to fool the actress by wearing Derek Jeter’s “Driven” cologne and bringing “intangibles” to the encounter.
When asked to explain the indiscretion Torre stated “she was invisible, so I thought she was my wife.” When it was explained to Torre that Alba only turns invisible in her Fantastic Four role as The Invisible Woman, Torre responded “Does that mean I’m not The Thing then, and I’m always going to be stuck looking like this?”
3. After last night’s appalling five inning six run performance, Curt Euro appeared this morning on WEEI’s Dennis and Callahan program and announced that he would accept a one year $13 million contract extension if it were offered.
In other news, President George W. Bush, following news of record low approval ratings declared that he would stay on for another term if elected. Also, Kevin Costner announced that he would star in a sequel to The Postman if asked.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. One would not expect to find much to be proud of in a 12-2 drubbing at the hands of the Josh Fogg and the Colorado Rockies. Jose would have been happier if the Sox had been shut down by “The Velvet Fog” Mel Torme, and yet Jose has left few games with a greater feeling of pride.
There are two kinds of pride, three if you count PRIDE fighting. Jose is quite familiar with feeling the first kind as he struts down Yawkey after a victory. It’s the kind of pride that comes from seeing a foe vanquished by one’s champion. The second kind is more elusive, both in life and in the old park in the Fenway. It is the kind of pride that emerges from seeing a friend or ally stand up for someone weaker, from witnessing an act of right in the face of, perhaps not might, by at least general jerkiness. No, Jose is not talking about Tito’s selfless defense of the increasingly indefensible Julio Lugo, but rather about the actions of one Sam Melendez.
As the margin in last night’s contest swelled from large to insurmountable, one particularly loudmouthed fan, who looked for all the world like a drunken law student, began to seek refuge in harassing a visiting Rockies fan. The young aggressor began to bellow at the Rockies fan, a portly woman in her mid-30s, for committing the unforgivable sin of being the least bit pleased that her awful baseball team was winning. “Go back to Colorado” he insisted, as he demanded that she “stop cheering for such a sh*tty team.”
This was not some Yankees fan vaingloriously inviting taunts, beer and abuse, but rather one of those pleasant mountainfolk, earnestly cheering her thin air heroes.
And still the abuse persisted. “BEST F*CKING RECORD IN THE MAJORS,” he harangued. “BEST F*CKING RECORD.”
“Hey,” came the interjection. It was a different voice, Sam Melendez’s gravely mumble. “I just want you to know that all Sox fans aren’t *ssholes.” The victim smiled, reassured that someone cared.
It was a profound truth. We’re not all *ssholes are we?
But the drunkard was out to prove Sam wrong.
“I’m just cheerin’ fer my team,” he slurred loudly. “How duz that make me ern azz hole?”
“This lady’s just supporting her team. Leave her alone,” replied Sam, barely concealing his growing irritation.
“Yer a bad fan, you should be supporting yer team, and she should GO THE F*CK BACK TO COLARADO!”
“Your mother must be so proud,” Sam retorted. Not the most original comeback but a valid comment.
“She is. You want talk to her?” He pulled out his cell phone.
Maybe his mother was proud. Maybe there are women out there who imagine that one day their sons will grow up to be drunken louts. But Sam was not prepared to ask her directly.
“That’s it we’re done here *sshole,” decided Sam
And with that Sam and Jose stood up and walked down to much better seats as the law student shrieked “BAD FANS LEAVING EARLY,” at us.
But Jose was proud of Sam, really proud, first for standing up for a visiting fan who was taking unreasonable crap, and second for refraining from beating the holy hell out of the law student. A sense of justice and a sense of restraint are two qualities that go together far too infrequently.
2. While last night’s game may have seemed like one more near meaningless interleague contest lost in the ether of a lengthy season, it should have a special sting for the many Red Sox fans who truly hate the Yankees.
This is because among last night’s victors was Rockies catcher Vorvit Torrealba, who as you can tell from the last name, is the love child of Yankees manager Joe Torre and Actress Jessica Alba. Torre had sex with Alba, known to be dating Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter, in the locker room after an early season game. The crusty Torre was able to fool the actress by wearing Derek Jeter’s “Driven” cologne and bringing “intangibles” to the encounter.
When asked to explain the indiscretion Torre stated “she was invisible, so I thought she was my wife.” When it was explained to Torre that Alba only turns invisible in her Fantastic Four role as The Invisible Woman, Torre responded “Does that mean I’m not The Thing then, and I’m always going to be stuck looking like this?”
3. After last night’s appalling five inning six run performance, Curt Euro appeared this morning on WEEI’s Dennis and Callahan program and announced that he would accept a one year $13 million contract extension if it were offered.
In other news, President George W. Bush, following news of record low approval ratings declared that he would stay on for another term if elected. Also, Kevin Costner announced that he would star in a sequel to The Postman if asked.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
Wednesday, June 13
Jose's Summer Concert Preview
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE GAME
1. It’s now all but officially summer in the northern hemisphere, and you know what that means—summer concerts. That’s right all of the fun of being outdoors in 95 degree heat combined with the thrill of $10 beers. It’s just like going to a Red Sox game except your ticket purchase does nothing to finance underachieving right fielders.
This year’s big concerts include the Dave Matthews Band, Ozzy Osborne and Modest Mouse. That’s all great (note: except for Dave Matthews, who sucks) but what really excites Jose is the summer’s other big tour, the one featuring Biz Markie, Soft Cell, The Divinyls, Right Said Fred and Ratt. The tour premiers tonight at Fenway Park in Boston, before what is sure to be a capacity crowd.
What do you mean there’s no such tour and that there’s certainly no such tour tonight at Fenway? Really? Jose guesses that he just assumed that with Curt Euro pitching tonight, all of the other one hit wonders would be appearing as well. Jose’s bad.
(Note: Though believe it or not, Ratt is actually playing at Great Woods.)
2. President Bush, according to reports, had his watch stolen while in Tirana, Albania several days ago. Photos and video clips show Bush shaking hands with the adoring, pro-American crowd, and one minute the watch is there the next it isn’t. Jose has been thinking about it, and he has identified only four suspects who might be so audacious as to steal the President’s watch while the secret service looks on.
The first suspect is Vladimir Putin, who as Bob Kraft knows is fully capable of stealing expensive jewelry from off the person of American dignitaries. Putin famously pocketed one of Kraft’s Super Bowl rings during a 2005 visit. Putin is also rumored to have stolen a tie tack from Dan Rather and an intimate piercing from actress Jenna Jameson.
The second suspect is perhaps the most audacious most spectacular thief in history, exactly the sort of man who could pull a heist with millions of eyes on him and amidst the tightest security. Hell, this man could even manage the larceny if everyone knew he was going to do it. That man is of course, Dave Roberts, who historically stole second base in Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS. However, while Roberts no doubt could have pulled off the watch theft, there is evidence that he did not. Had Roberts made the steal, there would be dozens of Yankees fans swearing it hadn’t happened and insisting that he had not successfully stolen the watch and that it was still on the President’s wrist. On the other hand, this is exactly what the administration’s press office is claiming, that the watch wasn’t stolen, but Jose isn’t sure if any of them are Yankees fans.
The third suspect is Bush himself. After all, stealing a watch is nothing in comparison with stealing an entire election.
The final suspect is none other than Jose Melendez, as Jose completely stole that last Bush joke from the friend who sent him the article on the watch theft to begin with.
3. Jose is worried about Mike Lowell’s thumb injury. Not only has Lowell’s inability to properly flex and extend his thumb appeared to hurt his fielding and cool off what had been a red hot bat, but it has also badly diminished the quality of his Fonzie impression.
Jose believes there is a real danger that if the injury does not heal in the next few days, the Red Sox may have to put him on the injured reserve, unless they want to see him substitute his Potsie impression, which is not nearly as good.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. It’s now all but officially summer in the northern hemisphere, and you know what that means—summer concerts. That’s right all of the fun of being outdoors in 95 degree heat combined with the thrill of $10 beers. It’s just like going to a Red Sox game except your ticket purchase does nothing to finance underachieving right fielders.
This year’s big concerts include the Dave Matthews Band, Ozzy Osborne and Modest Mouse. That’s all great (note: except for Dave Matthews, who sucks) but what really excites Jose is the summer’s other big tour, the one featuring Biz Markie, Soft Cell, The Divinyls, Right Said Fred and Ratt. The tour premiers tonight at Fenway Park in Boston, before what is sure to be a capacity crowd.
What do you mean there’s no such tour and that there’s certainly no such tour tonight at Fenway? Really? Jose guesses that he just assumed that with Curt Euro pitching tonight, all of the other one hit wonders would be appearing as well. Jose’s bad.
(Note: Though believe it or not, Ratt is actually playing at Great Woods.)
2. President Bush, according to reports, had his watch stolen while in Tirana, Albania several days ago. Photos and video clips show Bush shaking hands with the adoring, pro-American crowd, and one minute the watch is there the next it isn’t. Jose has been thinking about it, and he has identified only four suspects who might be so audacious as to steal the President’s watch while the secret service looks on.
The first suspect is Vladimir Putin, who as Bob Kraft knows is fully capable of stealing expensive jewelry from off the person of American dignitaries. Putin famously pocketed one of Kraft’s Super Bowl rings during a 2005 visit. Putin is also rumored to have stolen a tie tack from Dan Rather and an intimate piercing from actress Jenna Jameson.
The second suspect is perhaps the most audacious most spectacular thief in history, exactly the sort of man who could pull a heist with millions of eyes on him and amidst the tightest security. Hell, this man could even manage the larceny if everyone knew he was going to do it. That man is of course, Dave Roberts, who historically stole second base in Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS. However, while Roberts no doubt could have pulled off the watch theft, there is evidence that he did not. Had Roberts made the steal, there would be dozens of Yankees fans swearing it hadn’t happened and insisting that he had not successfully stolen the watch and that it was still on the President’s wrist. On the other hand, this is exactly what the administration’s press office is claiming, that the watch wasn’t stolen, but Jose isn’t sure if any of them are Yankees fans.
The third suspect is Bush himself. After all, stealing a watch is nothing in comparison with stealing an entire election.
The final suspect is none other than Jose Melendez, as Jose completely stole that last Bush joke from the friend who sent him the article on the watch theft to begin with.
3. Jose is worried about Mike Lowell’s thumb injury. Not only has Lowell’s inability to properly flex and extend his thumb appeared to hurt his fielding and cool off what had been a red hot bat, but it has also badly diminished the quality of his Fonzie impression.
Jose believes there is a real danger that if the injury does not heal in the next few days, the Red Sox may have to put him on the injured reserve, unless they want to see him substitute his Potsie impression, which is not nearly as good.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
Tuesday, June 12
This Is Not A Test
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE GAME
1. BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPPPPPPPPPPPPP
THIS IS AN ANNOUNCEMENT FROM THE EMERGENCY BLOGING SYSTEM. PLEASE REMAIN INDOORS FOR YOUR SAFETY. DO NOT GO OUTSIDE UNLESS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY, BECAUSE THE SKY IS FALLING.
THE YANKEES HAVE CLIMBED TO 9.5 GAMES BEHIND THE RED SOX AND ARE NOW ONLY ONE GAME BELOW .500. CLEARLY, THIS IS 1978 ALL OVER AGAIN, AND WE EXPECT THAT BIBLICAL PLAGUES WILL BE ARRIVING ANY MOMENT, FROGS, BOILS, CATTLE DISEASE, DON ZIMMER, ALL OF THEM.
PLEASE REMAIN INDOORS UNTIL THE YANKEES ARE NOT BEATING UP ON THE TWO WORST OFFENSES IN BASEBALL AND EVERYONE NOTICES THAT THEY ARE STILL A BAD TEAM WITH MEDIOCRE STARTING PITCHING AND AN AWFUL OVERTAXED BULLPEN.
PLEASE REFRESH YOUR BROWSER EVEY FIVE MINUTES AND AWAIT FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS.
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP
2. With former Maine Senator George Mitchell leading baseball’s performance enhancing drugs investigation, Jose has to ask the question: Is this going to become a trend? Is Major League Baseball, ever time there is a scandal, an imbroglio or a catastrophe, going to get a former or current Senator to take charge of getting at the truth?
It makes sense, actually, as there is little Senators do better than offer unenforceable recommendations. And why would you go with Senators rather than Congressmen? Simply, the Senate, with its venerable tradition of delaying maneuvers, filibusters, holds and the like, is far more attuned to the game of baseball, with its stepping out of the batters boxes and conferences on the mound. Congressman, who like to conduct votes on actual policy issues rather than holding votes on whether to hold votes on policy issues, just wouldn’t get the nuance of the game, it’s elegant lethargy.
Thus, Jose offers a few humble suggestions for Senators current and former who could investigate some of the most pressing issues facing the game.
Assignment: Investigate the drunk driving death of Cardinals reliever Josh Hancock, reassess Major League policy on alcohol.
Chair: Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA)
Rationale: Expert on drunk driving, resulting deaths
Assignment: Run committee on family values, dealing with adultery and sexual misconduct on Major League teams.
Chair: Sen. Hilary Clinton (D-NY)
Rationale: Duh.
Assignment: Lead investigation excessive contracts for low value players.
Chair: Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK)
Rationale: $200 million bridge to nowhere still a better investment than contracts for Jason Giambi, Johnny Damon, Kei Igawa, DJ Dru, Julio Lugo and others.
Assignment: Lead investigation of crying in baseball
Chair: Sen. Ed Muskie (D-ME) Retired, Deceased
Rationale: Expert of impact of crying on performance.
Assignment: Lead committee on race in baseball.
Chair: Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS)
Rationale: Understands historical importance of Negro leagues, long time advocate of restoring them.
Assignment: Design more equitable revenue sharing system.
Chair: Sen. Bernie Sanders (S-VT)
Rational: Only socialist in Senate, likes redistribution of wealth.
Assignment: Lead committee on free agency
Chair: Sen. Joe Liebermann (D-CT)
Rationale: Expert on switching teams, betrayal.
Assignment: Lead Committee to honor Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown
Chair: Sen. John Tester (D-MT)
Rationale: Jealous of Brown’s third finger.
Assignment: Lead Committee on Keeping Baseball America’s Pastime
Chair: Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX)
Rationale: Committed to keeping out immigrants who take jobs from hard working American pitchers and batters, keeping reggaeton out of clubhouses.
3. For all of those saddened by the Red Sox recent decision to designate for assignment left-handed reliever J.C. Romero, Jose says fear not. Jose has done some careful calculating and computation, and he is pretty sure that today, the third day after he was DFA’d, J.C. will rise and resume his place on the Major League roster. And even if he doesn’t, Jose figures we can, at the bare minimum spent the next 2000 or so years waiting for J.C. to return and save all the Red Sox bullpen. It’s really the least we can do. Remember J.C. was DFA’s for the sins of the whole bullpen… well, for that and his inability to throw strikes, but we owe him at least a couple millennia of fidelity for that.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPPPPPPPPPPPPP
THIS IS AN ANNOUNCEMENT FROM THE EMERGENCY BLOGING SYSTEM. PLEASE REMAIN INDOORS FOR YOUR SAFETY. DO NOT GO OUTSIDE UNLESS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY, BECAUSE THE SKY IS FALLING.
THE YANKEES HAVE CLIMBED TO 9.5 GAMES BEHIND THE RED SOX AND ARE NOW ONLY ONE GAME BELOW .500. CLEARLY, THIS IS 1978 ALL OVER AGAIN, AND WE EXPECT THAT BIBLICAL PLAGUES WILL BE ARRIVING ANY MOMENT, FROGS, BOILS, CATTLE DISEASE, DON ZIMMER, ALL OF THEM.
PLEASE REMAIN INDOORS UNTIL THE YANKEES ARE NOT BEATING UP ON THE TWO WORST OFFENSES IN BASEBALL AND EVERYONE NOTICES THAT THEY ARE STILL A BAD TEAM WITH MEDIOCRE STARTING PITCHING AND AN AWFUL OVERTAXED BULLPEN.
PLEASE REFRESH YOUR BROWSER EVEY FIVE MINUTES AND AWAIT FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS.
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP
2. With former Maine Senator George Mitchell leading baseball’s performance enhancing drugs investigation, Jose has to ask the question: Is this going to become a trend? Is Major League Baseball, ever time there is a scandal, an imbroglio or a catastrophe, going to get a former or current Senator to take charge of getting at the truth?
It makes sense, actually, as there is little Senators do better than offer unenforceable recommendations. And why would you go with Senators rather than Congressmen? Simply, the Senate, with its venerable tradition of delaying maneuvers, filibusters, holds and the like, is far more attuned to the game of baseball, with its stepping out of the batters boxes and conferences on the mound. Congressman, who like to conduct votes on actual policy issues rather than holding votes on whether to hold votes on policy issues, just wouldn’t get the nuance of the game, it’s elegant lethargy.
Thus, Jose offers a few humble suggestions for Senators current and former who could investigate some of the most pressing issues facing the game.
Assignment: Investigate the drunk driving death of Cardinals reliever Josh Hancock, reassess Major League policy on alcohol.
Chair: Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA)
Rationale: Expert on drunk driving, resulting deaths
Assignment: Run committee on family values, dealing with adultery and sexual misconduct on Major League teams.
Chair: Sen. Hilary Clinton (D-NY)
Rationale: Duh.
Assignment: Lead investigation excessive contracts for low value players.
Chair: Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK)
Rationale: $200 million bridge to nowhere still a better investment than contracts for Jason Giambi, Johnny Damon, Kei Igawa, DJ Dru, Julio Lugo and others.
Assignment: Lead investigation of crying in baseball
Chair: Sen. Ed Muskie (D-ME) Retired, Deceased
Rationale: Expert of impact of crying on performance.
Assignment: Lead committee on race in baseball.
Chair: Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS)
Rationale: Understands historical importance of Negro leagues, long time advocate of restoring them.
Assignment: Design more equitable revenue sharing system.
Chair: Sen. Bernie Sanders (S-VT)
Rational: Only socialist in Senate, likes redistribution of wealth.
Assignment: Lead committee on free agency
Chair: Sen. Joe Liebermann (D-CT)
Rationale: Expert on switching teams, betrayal.
Assignment: Lead Committee to honor Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown
Chair: Sen. John Tester (D-MT)
Rationale: Jealous of Brown’s third finger.
Assignment: Lead Committee on Keeping Baseball America’s Pastime
Chair: Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX)
Rationale: Committed to keeping out immigrants who take jobs from hard working American pitchers and batters, keeping reggaeton out of clubhouses.
3. For all of those saddened by the Red Sox recent decision to designate for assignment left-handed reliever J.C. Romero, Jose says fear not. Jose has done some careful calculating and computation, and he is pretty sure that today, the third day after he was DFA’d, J.C. will rise and resume his place on the Major League roster. And even if he doesn’t, Jose figures we can, at the bare minimum spent the next 2000 or so years waiting for J.C. to return and save all the Red Sox bullpen. It’s really the least we can do. Remember J.C. was DFA’s for the sins of the whole bullpen… well, for that and his inability to throw strikes, but we owe him at least a couple millennia of fidelity for that.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
Friday, June 8
Jose's Back... Back Again...
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. A lot of you (note: none of you) have been wondering where the KEYS have been for the last two days. After all, they were game days, it was a weekday, where the hell was Jose? Well, Jose figured that if the Red Sox bats could take a few days off, there is no reason that Jose couldn’t take a few days off as well. And Jose only skipped two days, unlike the four day break for the bats.
The other motivating factor for Jose’s break was fatigue. Jose was not really planning on staying up for all of those west coast games. In fact, he was pretty firmly committed to going to sleep at a reasonable hour. So he followed a carefully proscribed ritual.
10:00: Turn on game.
10:01: Curse out Julio Lugo for grounding to second.
10:30: Go get popsicles.
10:35: Go get more popsicles.
10:50: Curse out Julio Lugo for grounding to second.
11:00: Wonder who killed Manny Ramirez and replaced him with weak hitting doppelganger.
11:01: Flip to Cartoon Network to see which episode of Futurama is on.
11:02: Conclude Futurama episode has nothing to do with blurnsball, and flip back to game.
11:20: Get craving for Chef Boyardee Ravioli
11:21: Fight off craving with more popsicles.
11:25: Pop into Sons of Sam Horn game thread to post expletive.
11:35: Yawn.
11:50: Curse out Julio Lugo for grounding to second.
12:00: Go to bed.
12:01: Turn on radio
12:02: Switch back on forth between WEEI and WRKO to find game.
12:03: Curse Glenn Geffner
12:04: Close eyes.
12:05-end of game: Lay there eyes closed in horror as Sox fail to score against: Dan Haren, Lenny DiNardo, Joe Kennedy, Kiko Calero, other guys who suck.(Note: Yes, Jose knows Haren does not suck.)
After game: Fall asleep angry.
So Jose would wake up tired, angry and pretty much completely unable and unwilling to write a KEYS.
2. This is interesting. You probably didn’t know, but it turns out that Curt Euro had a no hitter through 8 2/3 last night. Really. Don’t feel bad about not knowing, there no way you could have. After all, no one brought it up. Jose got home during the eighth after a long day in Brockton and sat down to watch the game, and the announcers were all like “Curt is pitching well. He’s pitching really, really well.
“Duh, he’s got a one nothing lead in the eighth, of course he’s pitching well,” Jose thought to himself. It’s really bad commentary to just say ‘he’s [pitching well over and over again.’”
Obviously Jose figured it out when Shannon Stewart hit a two out single in the ninth, and Orsillo mentioned that it was Oakland’s first hit of the day, but before then, there was absolutely no mention that there was a no hitter going. It was strange. A no hitter’s pretty special right? Wouldn’t you think the announcers would say something like “Curt Euro has a no hitter through seven which puts him a mere six outs away from a remarkable feat.” But no they said nothing. It’s awfully unprofessional if you ask Jose.
And Jose kind of wonders if Curt even knew? He was just sitting there alone on the bench, no one even talking to him. He must have been lonely. Jose knows he’s not the best liked guy in the clubhouse, but it isn’t right for them to ostracize him like that. Besides don’t you think he’d like to know that he had a no hitter in progress?
The way every one was tiptoeing around it you’d almost thing there was a curse or something. But obviously no one believes in that stuff. The more logical explanation is that Remy and Orsillo are bad announcers and the Red Sox are all jerks who hate Curt Euro.
3. This weekend, Jose is going to see the Boston regional of the U.S. Air Guitar championships. Basically, guys dress up like rock stars, take to the stage and pretend to plan imaginary guitars. Jose knows this sounds absurd, but before you get all judgmental, and call it “Stupid” or “Crazy” keep in mind that the Red Sox have been pretending to swing imaginary bats all week and no one’s said boo.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. A lot of you (note: none of you) have been wondering where the KEYS have been for the last two days. After all, they were game days, it was a weekday, where the hell was Jose? Well, Jose figured that if the Red Sox bats could take a few days off, there is no reason that Jose couldn’t take a few days off as well. And Jose only skipped two days, unlike the four day break for the bats.
The other motivating factor for Jose’s break was fatigue. Jose was not really planning on staying up for all of those west coast games. In fact, he was pretty firmly committed to going to sleep at a reasonable hour. So he followed a carefully proscribed ritual.
10:00: Turn on game.
10:01: Curse out Julio Lugo for grounding to second.
10:30: Go get popsicles.
10:35: Go get more popsicles.
10:50: Curse out Julio Lugo for grounding to second.
11:00: Wonder who killed Manny Ramirez and replaced him with weak hitting doppelganger.
11:01: Flip to Cartoon Network to see which episode of Futurama is on.
11:02: Conclude Futurama episode has nothing to do with blurnsball, and flip back to game.
11:20: Get craving for Chef Boyardee Ravioli
11:21: Fight off craving with more popsicles.
11:25: Pop into Sons of Sam Horn game thread to post expletive.
11:35: Yawn.
11:50: Curse out Julio Lugo for grounding to second.
12:00: Go to bed.
12:01: Turn on radio
12:02: Switch back on forth between WEEI and WRKO to find game.
12:03: Curse Glenn Geffner
12:04: Close eyes.
12:05-end of game: Lay there eyes closed in horror as Sox fail to score against: Dan Haren, Lenny DiNardo, Joe Kennedy, Kiko Calero, other guys who suck.(Note: Yes, Jose knows Haren does not suck.)
After game: Fall asleep angry.
So Jose would wake up tired, angry and pretty much completely unable and unwilling to write a KEYS.
2. This is interesting. You probably didn’t know, but it turns out that Curt Euro had a no hitter through 8 2/3 last night. Really. Don’t feel bad about not knowing, there no way you could have. After all, no one brought it up. Jose got home during the eighth after a long day in Brockton and sat down to watch the game, and the announcers were all like “Curt is pitching well. He’s pitching really, really well.
“Duh, he’s got a one nothing lead in the eighth, of course he’s pitching well,” Jose thought to himself. It’s really bad commentary to just say ‘he’s [pitching well over and over again.’”
Obviously Jose figured it out when Shannon Stewart hit a two out single in the ninth, and Orsillo mentioned that it was Oakland’s first hit of the day, but before then, there was absolutely no mention that there was a no hitter going. It was strange. A no hitter’s pretty special right? Wouldn’t you think the announcers would say something like “Curt Euro has a no hitter through seven which puts him a mere six outs away from a remarkable feat.” But no they said nothing. It’s awfully unprofessional if you ask Jose.
And Jose kind of wonders if Curt even knew? He was just sitting there alone on the bench, no one even talking to him. He must have been lonely. Jose knows he’s not the best liked guy in the clubhouse, but it isn’t right for them to ostracize him like that. Besides don’t you think he’d like to know that he had a no hitter in progress?
The way every one was tiptoeing around it you’d almost thing there was a curse or something. But obviously no one believes in that stuff. The more logical explanation is that Remy and Orsillo are bad announcers and the Red Sox are all jerks who hate Curt Euro.
3. This weekend, Jose is going to see the Boston regional of the U.S. Air Guitar championships. Basically, guys dress up like rock stars, take to the stage and pretend to plan imaginary guitars. Jose knows this sounds absurd, but before you get all judgmental, and call it “Stupid” or “Crazy” keep in mind that the Red Sox have been pretending to swing imaginary bats all week and no one’s said boo.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
Tuesday, June 5
Weirded Out and Disturbed
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. Weird day yesterday. Weird, disturbing day.
Why was it so weird and disturbing? Let’s do it in the form of a quiz.
Which of the following weird and disturbing things actually happened yesterday:
1. Weird day yesterday. Weird, disturbing day.
Why was it so weird and disturbing? Let’s do it in the form of a quiz.
Which of the following weird and disturbing things actually happened yesterday:
A. Jose learned that George “The Animal” Steel is a born again Christian.
B. Joel Piniero pitched critical innings.
C. Jose learned that Takeru Kobayashi’s hot dog eating record had been shattered.
The answer is… A… and B… and C.
Any of those things alone would be enough to screw up a perfectly good day and knock Jose’s chakras way out of alignment, but taken in combination it is the proverbial “boot to the head.” Really, it was like a “perfect storm” of weirdness. Jose is pretty sure it drowned George Clooney and everything.
Okay, deep breath. Jose needs to work his way through this. He needs to process.
First, George. Oh, George, oh George. Jose read your testimony and he is glad that Jesus cured your Crohn’s Disease. While it is not his religion, Jose respects your faith. Jose likes Jesus, and he can imagine you saying “Jesus… Nice.” In your disjointed growl and it makes him smile.
But Jose does have a question. If you are part of a church that believes in the literal story of biblical creation and rejects evolution, how do they explain you? You sort of have a Cro-Magnon thing going. And what about your fellow wrestler The Missing Link? Do you tell him that he doesn’t exist? Also, Jose knows that God forbade Adam and Eve to eat from the Tree of Knowledge while allowing them to eat from any other tree in the garden, but did He say anything about turnbuckles? Someone call St. Augustine, big theological minds are needed.
Second, Joel Piniero? JOEL PINERO? Jose was never a believer in reincarnation, but it is like Rudy Seanez has come back to us, but with a cheesy little beard. Jose was all set to write Piniero and Romero are like the new Seanez and Tavarez, except with no chance that Romero would become a beloved lunatic, but then Romero had to go and work his way out of a jam, so Jose will stick to hating Piniero. It’s not that Jose hates Piniero as a person. Jose’s not a hater. It’s just the walks, dear God the walks. If only Project Bread could get as many people to walk as Joel Piniero, hunger would be completely eliminated.
Third, upstart Joey Chestnut ate 59.5 hot dogs and buns in a qualifier for the Nathan’s Famous hot dog eating competition, setting a new world record. At first Jose was horribly disappointed that Kobayashi, his fellow Japanese guy, had been defeated marking the first time he had ever lost an eating competition to a human being. (Note: A bear beat him once on FOX.) But then Jose discovered that Chestnut had set the record in a qualifier that Kobayashi had not participated in. Big deal. This is like saying that the Yankees starting the season 0-3 and then sweeping a four game set against the Royals equals the Red Sox 2004 ALCS comeback. If it’s not head-to-head on the grandest stage of ‘em all, it doesn’t matter.
So anyway, Jose is a little disoriented and a little scared. If these sort of things can happen, God only knows what else is possible. You could even see a $70 million right fielder getting pinch hit for with the game on the line.
The Animal wins another convert.
2. With Dustin Pedroia getting thrown out at the plate by a good furlong in the 10th last night, Jose thinks the question of who is faster, Trusty Dusty, or Youks is pretty much settled. Youks is the Flash or possibly Quicksilver in comparison with Pedroia.
But that does not mean Pedroia needs to feel bad. For starters, he is the American League Rookie of the Month and there are still lots of things that he is faster than:
- Dial Up internet
- Many species of tortoise
- Glaciers
- The pace of health care reform
- Any Molina you wanna bring.
3. With the Red Sox hitting their first real rough patch of the season, having dropped four of the last five, Jose can say, for the first time, that he is genuinely happy to see Lenny DiNardo.
I’m Jose Melendez and those are my KEYS TO GAME.
Monday, June 4
Calculus
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. Jose was asked yesterday which he planned to watch, the Democratic presidential debate or the Red Sox-Yankees game. It’s an interesting query and a challenging dilemma. Two of Jose’s great loves going head-to-head, politics vs. baseball. It’s sort of a shame that there wasn’t a new Marvel comics movie and WWF RAW on at there could have been a fatal fourway for Jose’s attention.
The decision was more difficult than one might think, as the debate and the game had a great deal in common. Thus, Jose had to go through a difficult calculus to make his decision. Let’s call it a hedonic calculus in the Benthamite tradition, because hedonic calculus sounds super cool, way cooler than integral calculus.
1. Jose was asked yesterday which he planned to watch, the Democratic presidential debate or the Red Sox-Yankees game. It’s an interesting query and a challenging dilemma. Two of Jose’s great loves going head-to-head, politics vs. baseball. It’s sort of a shame that there wasn’t a new Marvel comics movie and WWF RAW on at there could have been a fatal fourway for Jose’s attention.
The decision was more difficult than one might think, as the debate and the game had a great deal in common. Thus, Jose had to go through a difficult calculus to make his decision. Let’s call it a hedonic calculus in the Benthamite tradition, because hedonic calculus sounds super cool, way cooler than integral calculus.
- The irrelevance factor: Which has more bearing on the future, a debate eight months before the first vote is cast or a game between a first place team and a fourth place team 13.5 games out? Point: Democrats.
- The irrelevance factor part 2: Who is more likely to have an impact in the next five months, the Yankees or Dennis Kucinich? Point: Baseball
- Pitching: Who has better pitching the Yankees or the Democratic Party? Bill Richardson used to play baseball. Point: Democrats.
- Lame media moderation: If Wolf Blitzer and Joe Morgan traded jobs would anyone notice? Who pisses Jose off less? Joe Morgan actually offered a good point on Papi’s inability to get power from his legs. All Blitzer has is a creepy beard. Point: Baseball.
- Blonde ambition: Who is more ambitious A-Rods trollop or Hillary Clinton? While Hilary thinks women can find power at the polls, A-Rod’s mistress is certain women can find power on a pole. Point: Baseball
- Exciting conclusion: The Red Sox-Yankees Game ends poorly, with an A-Rod Home Run on an 0-2 count. The debate ends with journalist Eric Alterman being arrested. Point Democrats.
So Jose added up the pluses and minuses, subtracted the demerits from the merits and, then watched the game regardless of his calculation. Come on, it’s Red Sox—Yankees, it only happens 18 to 25 time a year.
2. Jose knew A-Rod’s “mine” cry seemed familiar, but it took Jose a good three days to figure it out. “Mine” is the wholly owned trademark of George “The Animal” Steele. As you will recall, in his later years, the hirsute wrestler began carrying a hand puppet named “Mine” to the ring with him. So regardless of whether A-Rod’s play was “bush,” his trademark infringement was absolutely bush. (Note: A-Rod actually has a lot in common with Steele. Steele had a green tongue, A-Rod has blue lips, Steele was obsessed with Miss Elizabeth, A-Rod is also obsessed with coked up eye candy; it keeps going and going.)
And even if A-Rod was telling the truth (note: he wasn’t) and just said “Ha” that doesn’t get him off of the trademark infringement hook. As everybody knows, HA! was the original name of Comedy Central, and they had a major trademark dispute with Henson Associates, the Muppet company. With all of this trademark infringement, the next thing you know A-Rod will be rounding the bases yelling “I feel like chicken tonight” or “you deserve a break today.” Actually, check that. If he’s going to steal a corporate motto, it’s far more likely to be Pantene’s “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.” To which Jose would borrow his cousin Sherry’s long ago response to those shampoo adds “We don’t hate you because you’re beautiful, we hate you because you’re a stuck up bitch.”
3. Congratulations to Bob Ryan on his column today which poked holes in the non-stop 1978 garbage that dominated the weekend series at Fenway. Ryan suggested that a better analogy is 1965, a year when the Yankees fell to pieces and stayed that way. It is a good analogy, but not the best. Jose would offer 1912, when another overpriced behemoth fell apart. Yes, Titanic is the perfect metaphor for the 2007 Yankees. Indeed, Jose can hardly wait until they kill Leonardo DiCaprio in the final game of the season.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
Friday, June 1
Mine and the Shaft
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. After much consideration, consultation and contemplation, Jose has determined that Alex Rodriguez’s decision to yell “mine” while heading to third against the Blue Jays two nights ago, thereby causing a pop up to fall between fielders was, in fact, “bush.” (Note: Bush being a baseball term derived from the current president meaning incompetent, wrongheaded and immature.)
It’s not bush because it was deceptive, rather it was bush because it was illegal. The Major League baseball rulebook clearly states that “Offensive interference is an act by the team at bat which interferes with, obstructs, impedes, hinders or confuses any fielder attempting to make a play.”
What A-Rod did was clearly an effort to confuse, and he should have been called out.
The problem is not that A-Rod yelled, but that he yelled “mine,” which is really confusing to fielders trying to avoid a collision. Had he yelled “ha” as he claimed, there would have been no problem, unless one regards yelling out for shrimp in Chinese as “confusing.”
What’s frustrating is that there are so many things he could have yelled that would not have constituted interference. He could have yelled:
1. After much consideration, consultation and contemplation, Jose has determined that Alex Rodriguez’s decision to yell “mine” while heading to third against the Blue Jays two nights ago, thereby causing a pop up to fall between fielders was, in fact, “bush.” (Note: Bush being a baseball term derived from the current president meaning incompetent, wrongheaded and immature.)
It’s not bush because it was deceptive, rather it was bush because it was illegal. The Major League baseball rulebook clearly states that “Offensive interference is an act by the team at bat which interferes with, obstructs, impedes, hinders or confuses any fielder attempting to make a play.”
What A-Rod did was clearly an effort to confuse, and he should have been called out.
The problem is not that A-Rod yelled, but that he yelled “mine,” which is really confusing to fielders trying to avoid a collision. Had he yelled “ha” as he claimed, there would have been no problem, unless one regards yelling out for shrimp in Chinese as “confusing.”
What’s frustrating is that there are so many things he could have yelled that would not have constituted interference. He could have yelled:
- I have a boner right now
- Jumanji
- I had sex with your wife
- The blond I was with was really a man
- I AM YELLING
- Hammer Time
- Meca leca hi meca hiny ho
- I have Smurf lips
Any of those might have worked and yet been totally legal, distracting but not confusing, yet A-Rod chose to yell the one thing that was illegal. Why did he do it? Because he knew it would work. It’s like the old Smothers Brothers bit:
Tom (singing): I fell into a vat of chocolate. I fell into a vat of
chocolate...Dick (singing): What’d you do when you fell in the chocolate?
Both: La dee doo dum la dee doo dum day...
Tom (singing): I yelled ‘fire’ when I fell into the chocolate...
Dick (annoyed, singing): Why’d you yell ‘fire’ when you fell into the
chocolate?Tom: I yelled ‘fire’ cause no one would help me if I yelled ‘Chocolate!’
A-rod yelled, “mine" because nobody would have dropped the ball if he’d yelled chocolate. Well, maybe noted chocoholic Troy “Yummy” O’Leary, but he wasn’t playing third.
2. The New York Post, in its ongoing pursuit of a Pulitzer, ran a follow up this morning on the mysterious blond woman Alex Rodriguez was seen with early this week at a Toronto strip club.
The Post identified the woman (note: Jose will not name her in accordance with his longstanding policy of not naming women who have sex with New York Yankees) as a 30 year old exotic dancer originally from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. This is a the latest in a long series of instances wherein Rodriguez has demonstrated questionable judgment. When asked for comment on why he would be having an affair with a 30 year old stripper rather than one of the many 22 year old groupies Rodriguez responded “I was excited running around third base. I don’t know what my intention was.” (Note: Real A-Rod quote!)
Stranger still is that the Post reported that in 2004, the Dallas Observer had reported that Rodriguez had been seen on two occasions at a swingers club. Wouldn’t a striker outers club me more his style?
When asked whether he was having sex with the stripper, Rodriguez claims to have simply exclaimed “ha,” but eyewitnesses and video confirm that he pointed toward her rear end and yelled “mine.”
Cynthia Rodriguez was unavailable for comment. (Note: Yes, this violates the no naming women having sex with Yankees policy, but since A-Rod is blatantly fooling around and his child is 2 ½ years old, Jose figures that’s more than three years since they last had marital relations, making Cynthia fair game.)
Jose has no policy against showing pictures of women having sex with Yankees.
3. As a self-conscious fellow, Roger Clemens is, of course, well aware that he shares a last name with legendary writer and wit Samuels Clemens who wrote under the name Mark Twain.
Samuels Clemens chose the name Mark Twain because in his days working the river boats river boatman would yell out “Mark Twain” when the depth decreased to the minimum safe depth of two fathoms. In tribute Roger Clemens will adopt a pen name based on things yelled around him, so upon his eventual retirement, look for a book authored by a man named either “Whereis Roger” or “Fat Traitor.” That is assuming Clemens is literate.
I’m Jose Melendez and those are my KEYS TO GAME.
Wednesday, May 30
The Ultimate Souvenier
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE GAME
It started with a phone call.
“Mr. Melendez,” the voice reported, soft, sultry. “Three days hence you will receive a package, sent to your abode by U.S. Post, and what is inside will reshape your world.”
“What? Who is this? What to you mean?” Jose was perplexed.
“You will soon be receiving… the ultimate souvenir.” It sounded threatening.
“How did you get this number? How do you know Jose’s address? And wait? A souvenir? Sweet.”
“Those questions are unimportant,” the voice continued. “Know only that I am an… admirer of your work. Though I must confess, I do take… exception… to some of your quips about players… shall we say… intimate infirmities.”
“What are you talking about? Jose has nothing but respect for the sexually dysfunctional.”
“No not the dysfunctional per se. It will all become clearer when you receive your present… Mike Lowell’s cancerous left testicle.” The word testicle hung in the air like a Kei Igawa curveball.
“You can’t be serious? Are you insane?” Jose’s collar seemed to be tightening. He knew it was unlikely. Will the Postal Service even deliver testicles?
“It only cost three dollars on E-Bay, but it is three dollars very well spent.”
“Do not send Jose Mike Lowell’s nut, or John Kruk’s nut, or anyone’s nut. Do you understand? Do you hear Jose? Do you--” Click. Dial tone.
Jose was left with nothing to do but wait. And wonder. And worry.
The package arrived on a Tuesday, as promised, a stark cube of USPS red, white and blue.
Gingerly, Jose took it into his kitchen and applied his car key firmly to the packing tape preserving the form. POP! The tape snapped, under the jagged metal and parted. Carefully, so carefully, Jose separated the folds of cardboard that masked secret and found…
Styrofoam peanuts.
Delicately he unpacked, removing each peanut in turn until a layer of newspaper was revealed. A round layer. Dear God, maybe it was Mike Lowell’s testicle. The newspaper gave way to a pocket of bubble wrap concealing a solid orb, plastic casing perhaps? Jose peeled back the bubble wrap to reveal… A baseball? MacGregor. Was it some sort of sick joke? A ball inside the ball?
Jose examined the item, trying to identify the mechanism that would open it to reveal what this final layer of packaging hid. He turned the horsehide slowly, meticulously in his fingers until he saw it.
The lines were smooth and fluid, dark and familiar. Jose blinked. He blinked again, unsure of whether he could actually be seeing what he thought he saw.
“J” flowed into “O” flowed into “S” flowed into “E.” By the time he saw the “M” beginning the next word he knew it. “Jose Melendez #19.”
No, rather than being some medical anomaly, the voice had sent him a genuine Jose Melendez autographed baseball.
Jose was elated. His heart beat a little faster, his breathing grew shallower. The ultimate souvenir indeed! This was far better than Mike Lowell’s testicle,
And then he noticed something. This signature? It was not his own. Who then would be signing baseballs Jose Melendez? A con man? A rogue? Or was it possible, just possible, that Jose himself was not the real Jose Melendez?
The voice had spoken truth. Jose’s world was being reshaped and his reality was becoming unhinged.
As the Yankee season gets more and more fun… err pathetic... the New York Post, it seems, has decided to take its pound of flesh from the least incompetent player on the team, Alex Rodriguez.
The Post reported this morning that Alex Rodriguez was seen in Toronto taking a woman who was not his wife to a strip bar and later his hotel room. In similarly astonishing news, the Post also reported that the Jason Giambi has used performance enhancing drugs, Roger Clemens is an egomaniac, Johnny Damon loves big fake boobs and the sun rises in the East.
But as obvious as it seems, Jose thinks we should give Alex Rodriguez the benefit of the doubt. There are plenty of other perfectly reasonable explanations for A-Rod’s dalliance with this mystery blonde.
Here’s Jose’s theory. Alex Rodriguez, who famously wanted to check out Harvard when he visited Boston during the 2003/2004 trade talks, has been taking advantage of the nine games a year in Toronto to work on a degree in sociology at the prestigious University of Toronto, Canada’s finest university. He goes to school in Canada rather than the U.S. because most Torontonians don’t recognize him because he’s not on the Leafs’ checking line. Rodriguez, is probably doing that classic undergraduate term paper on the lives and motivations of exotic dancers, and thus was at this adult entertainment venue for research purposes with his partner in what is surely a group project. Afterwards, since Rodriguez is so seldom in Toronto, they had to go to his hotel room to actually write the darn paper.
Doesn’t that make just a little more sense than the idea that one of our great athletes, and a family man, is an adulterer? If you use Jose’s favorite analytical tool, Ockham’s Razor, which dictates that the simplest explanation is most likely the accurate one, there’s really no other way to go, is there?
3. The Globe today reported that Terry Eurona has declared himself the best cribbage player in the Red Sox locker room. Unreported was the fact that Eurona’s cribbage superiority complex may have been the true cause of the A-Rod deal’s collapse back in 2004. Apparently, Tito was intimated by A-Rod’s skill, reported in today’s New York Post, at getting pegs into holes.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
It started with a phone call.
“Mr. Melendez,” the voice reported, soft, sultry. “Three days hence you will receive a package, sent to your abode by U.S. Post, and what is inside will reshape your world.”
“What? Who is this? What to you mean?” Jose was perplexed.
“You will soon be receiving… the ultimate souvenir.” It sounded threatening.
“How did you get this number? How do you know Jose’s address? And wait? A souvenir? Sweet.”
“Those questions are unimportant,” the voice continued. “Know only that I am an… admirer of your work. Though I must confess, I do take… exception… to some of your quips about players… shall we say… intimate infirmities.”
“What are you talking about? Jose has nothing but respect for the sexually dysfunctional.”
“No not the dysfunctional per se. It will all become clearer when you receive your present… Mike Lowell’s cancerous left testicle.” The word testicle hung in the air like a Kei Igawa curveball.
“You can’t be serious? Are you insane?” Jose’s collar seemed to be tightening. He knew it was unlikely. Will the Postal Service even deliver testicles?
“It only cost three dollars on E-Bay, but it is three dollars very well spent.”
“Do not send Jose Mike Lowell’s nut, or John Kruk’s nut, or anyone’s nut. Do you understand? Do you hear Jose? Do you--” Click. Dial tone.
Jose was left with nothing to do but wait. And wonder. And worry.
The package arrived on a Tuesday, as promised, a stark cube of USPS red, white and blue.
Gingerly, Jose took it into his kitchen and applied his car key firmly to the packing tape preserving the form. POP! The tape snapped, under the jagged metal and parted. Carefully, so carefully, Jose separated the folds of cardboard that masked secret and found…
Styrofoam peanuts.
Delicately he unpacked, removing each peanut in turn until a layer of newspaper was revealed. A round layer. Dear God, maybe it was Mike Lowell’s testicle. The newspaper gave way to a pocket of bubble wrap concealing a solid orb, plastic casing perhaps? Jose peeled back the bubble wrap to reveal… A baseball? MacGregor. Was it some sort of sick joke? A ball inside the ball?
Jose examined the item, trying to identify the mechanism that would open it to reveal what this final layer of packaging hid. He turned the horsehide slowly, meticulously in his fingers until he saw it.
The lines were smooth and fluid, dark and familiar. Jose blinked. He blinked again, unsure of whether he could actually be seeing what he thought he saw.
“J” flowed into “O” flowed into “S” flowed into “E.” By the time he saw the “M” beginning the next word he knew it. “Jose Melendez #19.”
No, rather than being some medical anomaly, the voice had sent him a genuine Jose Melendez autographed baseball.
Jose was elated. His heart beat a little faster, his breathing grew shallower. The ultimate souvenir indeed! This was far better than Mike Lowell’s testicle,
And then he noticed something. This signature? It was not his own. Who then would be signing baseballs Jose Melendez? A con man? A rogue? Or was it possible, just possible, that Jose himself was not the real Jose Melendez?
The voice had spoken truth. Jose’s world was being reshaped and his reality was becoming unhinged.
As the Yankee season gets more and more fun… err pathetic... the New York Post, it seems, has decided to take its pound of flesh from the least incompetent player on the team, Alex Rodriguez.
The Post reported this morning that Alex Rodriguez was seen in Toronto taking a woman who was not his wife to a strip bar and later his hotel room. In similarly astonishing news, the Post also reported that the Jason Giambi has used performance enhancing drugs, Roger Clemens is an egomaniac, Johnny Damon loves big fake boobs and the sun rises in the East.
But as obvious as it seems, Jose thinks we should give Alex Rodriguez the benefit of the doubt. There are plenty of other perfectly reasonable explanations for A-Rod’s dalliance with this mystery blonde.
Here’s Jose’s theory. Alex Rodriguez, who famously wanted to check out Harvard when he visited Boston during the 2003/2004 trade talks, has been taking advantage of the nine games a year in Toronto to work on a degree in sociology at the prestigious University of Toronto, Canada’s finest university. He goes to school in Canada rather than the U.S. because most Torontonians don’t recognize him because he’s not on the Leafs’ checking line. Rodriguez, is probably doing that classic undergraduate term paper on the lives and motivations of exotic dancers, and thus was at this adult entertainment venue for research purposes with his partner in what is surely a group project. Afterwards, since Rodriguez is so seldom in Toronto, they had to go to his hotel room to actually write the darn paper.
Doesn’t that make just a little more sense than the idea that one of our great athletes, and a family man, is an adulterer? If you use Jose’s favorite analytical tool, Ockham’s Razor, which dictates that the simplest explanation is most likely the accurate one, there’s really no other way to go, is there?
3. The Globe today reported that Terry Eurona has declared himself the best cribbage player in the Red Sox locker room. Unreported was the fact that Eurona’s cribbage superiority complex may have been the true cause of the A-Rod deal’s collapse back in 2004. Apparently, Tito was intimated by A-Rod’s skill, reported in today’s New York Post, at getting pegs into holes.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
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