It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. Jose spent a good chunk of a recent afternoon writing a proposal to go to Japan under a program that identifies promising, young U.S. leaders. As part of the application process, Jose had to write a 500-word essay explaining his interest and what he would like to learn in Japan.
It was hard enough for Jose to stick to a miserly 500 words, it was harder still for him to use the dreaded first person singular, but the hardest thing of all was to hide what he really wanted to write. Jose wrote a more or less (note: less) competent essay about his interest in learning the underpinnings of the Japanese economic miracle and seeing Japan take a leading role in international economic development, but that’s not what was in his heart. What he really wanted to write was
Japan is a most extraordinary nation. From its stunning transformation from a feudal backwater at the mercy of Perry’ s black ships to conqueror of the Tsars in just 50 years, from being conquered by Tom Cruise to convincing American children that Pokemon makes sense, Japan has been a nation capable of constant innovation and reinvention, without losing the ancient and serene traditions that underlie its civilization. But despite its brilliance, despite its marvels of technology, lies a dark and disturbing truth—Japan cannot produce a “national treasure” pitcher who can throw strikes.
How can the nation that invented the Walkman also produce… the Walk Man. How is it possible that Daisuke Matsuzaka can be so good, yet so infuriating? And before we push Japan to take a lead in international development, shouldn’t we consider this problem? Would we really want Japan to advise and assist the Dominican Republic on economic development if it turned walk rate of some budding Pedro Martinez into that of Dice K?
2. Okay, so this season is staring to turn into sort of a downer. There are a lot of things about the slow start that concern Jose, but none more so than the risk of 2009 turning into another 1996. As you may recall, in 1996, the Kevin Kennedy led Red Sox came into the season completely unprepared and started the season with Roger Clemens bowing to Texas’ Lynn’s own Ken Hill (note: never take Clemens over Ken Hill in a big game) before getting off to a 2-75 start.
But there are graver issues at play here. As you recall, the 1996 season turned around when the Red Sox traded Jamie Moyer to Seattle for Darren Bragg and Jeff Frye. Moyer, of course, went on to pitch effectively for another 90 years, whereas Darren Bragg emerged as a gritty white guy and perhaps the greatest man to ever come out of Waterbury, Connecticut save for noted war hero, Hogan from Hogan’s Heroes. Jeff Frye was nicknamed for a corn chip.
Jose has no interest in seeing Jon Lester traded for a midget and a gritty player, so Jose would really like to see the Red Sox turn it around, say, now.
3. A sideshow of this week’s trip to Oakland is that it represents the first time in his career that former Red Sox legend-to-be Nomar Garciaparra has played against the Red Sox. The natural temptation at a time like this would be to look at what has become of Nomar’s career, shake one’s head sadly, and wonder what might have been. Since Garciaparra left, the Red Sox have used five different regular starting shortstops, most of whom have performed poorly, and none of whom have managed to stick.
On the upside, the Red Sox did win two world championships and avoided paying big money to a player who declined rapidly. On the other hand, Nomar famously kept a red line around his locker that reporters could not cross, and given the cost of getting on the red line these days, the Red Sox really could have benefit from that revenue stream.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
Tuesday, April 14
Wednesday, April 8
Being Drunk is the Optimal Explaination
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. As Jose rolled into the bar somewhere during the third inning and settled in for seven hours of Yuengling pitchers, bacon cheese fries and baseball, Jose made a starling, shameful and disturbing mistake.
He looked up and the screen noted that Jason Varitek was at bat, and immediately went into a tirade about the captain’s diminishing skills. He was quickly shut up, however, by stinging shot to the gap. Jose was stunned. It just didn’t add up.
And then it hit him.
That wasn’t Jason Varitek. It was Kevin Youkilis.
The fact that Jose, on a casual glance, mistook Youk for Tek, has several possible implications—all of them bad.
Jose sees the following possibilities:
• Jose has been away from Boston for way too long, and can now do a better job of telling white Duke basketball players apart than two goateed Red Sox.
• Youk’s swing has gotten long, looping and terrible.
• Jose was drunk at four in the afternoon.
Jose, to be frank, is hoping for the third. There is so much less stigma to public drunkenness than to confusing two Red Sox… unless of course it is Hideki Okajima and Dice K, who as David Ortiz pointed out, look exactly the same.
2. Today marks the first Red Sox start for former Ray’s outfielder Rocco Baldelli, also know as the “Woonsocket Rocket.” He is, of course, known as the Woonsocket Rocket because he hails from Woonsocket, Rhode Island, and, much like the rocket recently launched by the North Koreans, has a tendency to fall apart before achieving his objective.
Still, as aeronautic nicknames go, it does appear to be an upgrade on Manny “Unmanned Drone” Ramirez, Curt “Goodyear Blimp” Euro and Kevin “Midgetman Missile” Millar. That’s right Millar, Jose knows your humiliating secret.
3. Like many native Bostonians Jose was touched by Senator Edward Kennedy’s trip to the park yesterday to throw out the first pitch. It was hard for him to watch though.
Just watching Senator Kennedy make that sad, weak little toss that fell to the ground so short of its target brought back too many memories, too many gossamer recollections of days gone by. Who could help but think of past days of youth and achievement? Who could resist dwelling on images of Camelot lost?
Yes, who among us, while watching that sad toss couldn’t help but feel nostalgic for Johnny Damon?
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. As Jose rolled into the bar somewhere during the third inning and settled in for seven hours of Yuengling pitchers, bacon cheese fries and baseball, Jose made a starling, shameful and disturbing mistake.
He looked up and the screen noted that Jason Varitek was at bat, and immediately went into a tirade about the captain’s diminishing skills. He was quickly shut up, however, by stinging shot to the gap. Jose was stunned. It just didn’t add up.
And then it hit him.
That wasn’t Jason Varitek. It was Kevin Youkilis.
The fact that Jose, on a casual glance, mistook Youk for Tek, has several possible implications—all of them bad.
Jose sees the following possibilities:
• Jose has been away from Boston for way too long, and can now do a better job of telling white Duke basketball players apart than two goateed Red Sox.
• Youk’s swing has gotten long, looping and terrible.
• Jose was drunk at four in the afternoon.
Jose, to be frank, is hoping for the third. There is so much less stigma to public drunkenness than to confusing two Red Sox… unless of course it is Hideki Okajima and Dice K, who as David Ortiz pointed out, look exactly the same.
2. Today marks the first Red Sox start for former Ray’s outfielder Rocco Baldelli, also know as the “Woonsocket Rocket.” He is, of course, known as the Woonsocket Rocket because he hails from Woonsocket, Rhode Island, and, much like the rocket recently launched by the North Koreans, has a tendency to fall apart before achieving his objective.
Still, as aeronautic nicknames go, it does appear to be an upgrade on Manny “Unmanned Drone” Ramirez, Curt “Goodyear Blimp” Euro and Kevin “Midgetman Missile” Millar. That’s right Millar, Jose knows your humiliating secret.
3. Like many native Bostonians Jose was touched by Senator Edward Kennedy’s trip to the park yesterday to throw out the first pitch. It was hard for him to watch though.
Just watching Senator Kennedy make that sad, weak little toss that fell to the ground so short of its target brought back too many memories, too many gossamer recollections of days gone by. Who could help but think of past days of youth and achievement? Who could resist dwelling on images of Camelot lost?
Yes, who among us, while watching that sad toss couldn’t help but feel nostalgic for Johnny Damon?
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
Tuesday, April 7
All This Has Happened Before
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. All this has happened before, all this will happen again.
That’s how it is on opening day.
The sweet smell of fertilizer, the piquant stench of watery beer, the first pitch thrown in anger, up high and tight on a hated rival.
All this has happened before, all this will happen again. In fact, it all happened before yesterday.
Then it rained.
Then Jose had to adapt this KEY that he had written furiously to today.
All this has happened before, all this will happen again.
It will happen, we know, because God decided that it will. Jose had never been terribly amenable to these creation science arguments. You know the ones.
“If it’s really complicated, God must have done it.”
Ben Stein (note: who, according to Jose’s sources, once gave a girl for whom he pined a bag of his toenails) couldn’t convince Jose, that creation museum in Kentucky that Jose didn’t visit couldn’t convince him, but Battlestar Galactica?
Sure.
Have some fictional angels resembling a fictional person and a fictional robot tell Jose God did it all, and he will buy right in. (Note: The subhead for Ben Stein’s creationism movie Expelled was “No Intelligence Allowed.” Jose almost went to see it thinking it was about the Grady Little era.)
Which bring Jose to his thesis statement, let’s see, eleven dubious paragraphs in (note to Jose’s students: never do this, it’s only cool when Jose does it)—Thank God for Opening Day.
Of course, as long as Jose is purporting that all this has happened before, and all this will happen again, he should probably concede that there are a few things that don’t seem to have happened before, and a few things that he hopes won’t happen again.
For instance, Jose does not really remember Seal ever singing the national anthem (note: though has he ever sung crazy for Papelbon’s entrance?) He remembers a seal barking out the national album, but it is possible that it was the Cowsills. (Note: Would Buster Bluth from television’s Arrested Development freak out if he saw Seal, or is it just the mammals that scare him?) Oh, but now, Seal isn’t performing the national anthem. See? Things are falling into alignment.
Jose also doesn’t recall opening against the defending American League Champion Tampax Bay Rays. He recalls opening against the Rays before, just not with them as champions of anything. Jose is pretty sure they were not even the champions of Tampa the last time the Red Sox opened against them. Well, maybe Tampa, but not. St. Pete. As Jose recalls, the last time the Sox opened against the Rays, there was then, as now, a Kennedy involved. Whereas today Sen. Ted Kennedy will throw out the first pitch, in 2003, his nephew Rep. Joe Kennedy started for the Rays. (Note: God rest his soul.) This one doesn’t seem to have been fixed by the delay. The Rays are still the champions of the American League… technically, in the sense that they beat us in the ALCS.
Jose just thought of another difference. He vaguely remembers us having a lunatic in left field last year, but maybe that was just a dream, a long, strange, sure thing 30 HR 100 RBI dream.
Also, there is this weird thing where Jose is not in Boston for opening day for the first time ever, and Jose must concede it is very, very strange. Here in Durham, North Carolina, Jose looks around and he only sees three people wearing Red Sox caps. Pathetic! And only one of them is wearing a jersey. And it’s a freaking Mosey Nixon jersey. Seriously, it’s like Jose has gone to hell, a temperate, basketball-loving hell with good BBQ and inexpensive housing.
But these small details aside, it’s all terribly familiar. It’s April in Boston, and the chance of rain is 90% (note: 100%)... so is the chance of a Red Sox victory. (Note: Damn it the chance of precipitation today is 20%, however, Jose has identified several threats to the construct validity of likelihood of precipitation as a measure of the Red Sox’s chances of winning. First, Tampa may play sweet baseball, but they are not made of sugar. Second, Jose can’t remember what construct validity is. Still, writing KEYS while in the warm afterglow of a statistics class is the closest Jose will ever get to being a SABR guy.
Oh, and so say we all.
So say we all.
2. Among the elements missing from the Red Sox roster this year will be Curt Euro’s contract. Euro’s contract retired recently after a season where it put up an impressive 0.00 ERA with 0 home runs allowed, while collecting $8 million in what the CEO’s call “compensation.” The actual person to whom the contract used to be attached retired at the end of 2007.
3. In today’s opener, St. Josh Beckett takes on the man they call “Big Game” James Shields. Jose says “they” because it is not Jose who says it. Actually, Jose is not sure who says it, so let’s try the lead again in the passive voice.
In today’s opener, St. Josh Beckett takes on the man who is called “Big Game” James Shields.
Better.
Jose prefers to call him “Soul” James Shields. As you might imagine, there is a story behind this. Not a good story, but a story nevertheless. When Jose was a senior in high school, and a hot shot trombone player in the marching band, section leader in fact, there was this freshman clarinet player named James. James was a skinny, freckly red haired kid, who in addition to suffering from the handicap of playing the clarinet, also suffered from not having a soul. Check that, not having soul.
This proved to be a problem when the band was playing Stevie Wonder’s classic “I Wish.” On the breakdown, the band was supposed to go into a maneuver called the “spread, tilt and wail” which, even though it sounds like one of those made up sexual maneuvers like the Dirty Sanchez or the Fat Free Agent Bust, is an actual band move, wherein musicians put their legs shoulder length apart, tilt back and play to the gods.
Poor James just couldn’t swing it—both literally and figuratively. He was too square, too shy, too James. It was as if, to quote the band teacher referring to something completely different, you’d taken this hip, swinging mariachi band and dropped it in a box.
So the teacher did the only thing he could. He tried to pump James up by giving him a nickname. Sure, in the last eight years nicknames have proven to be a poor basis for a system of government, but this was 1994, and we didn’t know that yet.
And so Soul James was born.
And he played with soul. He had a soul. At least he thought he did. And people looking at him thought so too. But if you looked long enough, if you focused hard enough, he was still just a skinny, ginger freshman.
“Big Game” James Shields is not so different. You can give him the nickname, you can start him on opening day, you can have him spread, tilt and wail before the entire world. And he might get lucky. The bravado might fool some people, but not forever. He is still the same scared little rookie with an ERA approaching five on a terrible team, and on that third or fourth at bat, hitters age going to notice.
Maybe some day the man will match the name, but that day is not today. Today, he is just plain James.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. All this has happened before, all this will happen again.
That’s how it is on opening day.
The sweet smell of fertilizer, the piquant stench of watery beer, the first pitch thrown in anger, up high and tight on a hated rival.
All this has happened before, all this will happen again. In fact, it all happened before yesterday.
Then it rained.
Then Jose had to adapt this KEY that he had written furiously to today.
All this has happened before, all this will happen again.
It will happen, we know, because God decided that it will. Jose had never been terribly amenable to these creation science arguments. You know the ones.
“If it’s really complicated, God must have done it.”
Ben Stein (note: who, according to Jose’s sources, once gave a girl for whom he pined a bag of his toenails) couldn’t convince Jose, that creation museum in Kentucky that Jose didn’t visit couldn’t convince him, but Battlestar Galactica?
Sure.
Have some fictional angels resembling a fictional person and a fictional robot tell Jose God did it all, and he will buy right in. (Note: The subhead for Ben Stein’s creationism movie Expelled was “No Intelligence Allowed.” Jose almost went to see it thinking it was about the Grady Little era.)
Which bring Jose to his thesis statement, let’s see, eleven dubious paragraphs in (note to Jose’s students: never do this, it’s only cool when Jose does it)—Thank God for Opening Day.
Of course, as long as Jose is purporting that all this has happened before, and all this will happen again, he should probably concede that there are a few things that don’t seem to have happened before, and a few things that he hopes won’t happen again.
For instance, Jose does not really remember Seal ever singing the national anthem (note: though has he ever sung crazy for Papelbon’s entrance?) He remembers a seal barking out the national album, but it is possible that it was the Cowsills. (Note: Would Buster Bluth from television’s Arrested Development freak out if he saw Seal, or is it just the mammals that scare him?) Oh, but now, Seal isn’t performing the national anthem. See? Things are falling into alignment.
Jose also doesn’t recall opening against the defending American League Champion Tampax Bay Rays. He recalls opening against the Rays before, just not with them as champions of anything. Jose is pretty sure they were not even the champions of Tampa the last time the Red Sox opened against them. Well, maybe Tampa, but not. St. Pete. As Jose recalls, the last time the Sox opened against the Rays, there was then, as now, a Kennedy involved. Whereas today Sen. Ted Kennedy will throw out the first pitch, in 2003, his nephew Rep. Joe Kennedy started for the Rays. (Note: God rest his soul.) This one doesn’t seem to have been fixed by the delay. The Rays are still the champions of the American League… technically, in the sense that they beat us in the ALCS.
Jose just thought of another difference. He vaguely remembers us having a lunatic in left field last year, but maybe that was just a dream, a long, strange, sure thing 30 HR 100 RBI dream.
Also, there is this weird thing where Jose is not in Boston for opening day for the first time ever, and Jose must concede it is very, very strange. Here in Durham, North Carolina, Jose looks around and he only sees three people wearing Red Sox caps. Pathetic! And only one of them is wearing a jersey. And it’s a freaking Mosey Nixon jersey. Seriously, it’s like Jose has gone to hell, a temperate, basketball-loving hell with good BBQ and inexpensive housing.
But these small details aside, it’s all terribly familiar. It’s April in Boston, and the chance of rain is 90% (note: 100%)... so is the chance of a Red Sox victory. (Note: Damn it the chance of precipitation today is 20%, however, Jose has identified several threats to the construct validity of likelihood of precipitation as a measure of the Red Sox’s chances of winning. First, Tampa may play sweet baseball, but they are not made of sugar. Second, Jose can’t remember what construct validity is. Still, writing KEYS while in the warm afterglow of a statistics class is the closest Jose will ever get to being a SABR guy.
Oh, and so say we all.
So say we all.
2. Among the elements missing from the Red Sox roster this year will be Curt Euro’s contract. Euro’s contract retired recently after a season where it put up an impressive 0.00 ERA with 0 home runs allowed, while collecting $8 million in what the CEO’s call “compensation.” The actual person to whom the contract used to be attached retired at the end of 2007.
3. In today’s opener, St. Josh Beckett takes on the man they call “Big Game” James Shields. Jose says “they” because it is not Jose who says it. Actually, Jose is not sure who says it, so let’s try the lead again in the passive voice.
In today’s opener, St. Josh Beckett takes on the man who is called “Big Game” James Shields.
Better.
Jose prefers to call him “Soul” James Shields. As you might imagine, there is a story behind this. Not a good story, but a story nevertheless. When Jose was a senior in high school, and a hot shot trombone player in the marching band, section leader in fact, there was this freshman clarinet player named James. James was a skinny, freckly red haired kid, who in addition to suffering from the handicap of playing the clarinet, also suffered from not having a soul. Check that, not having soul.
This proved to be a problem when the band was playing Stevie Wonder’s classic “I Wish.” On the breakdown, the band was supposed to go into a maneuver called the “spread, tilt and wail” which, even though it sounds like one of those made up sexual maneuvers like the Dirty Sanchez or the Fat Free Agent Bust, is an actual band move, wherein musicians put their legs shoulder length apart, tilt back and play to the gods.
Poor James just couldn’t swing it—both literally and figuratively. He was too square, too shy, too James. It was as if, to quote the band teacher referring to something completely different, you’d taken this hip, swinging mariachi band and dropped it in a box.
So the teacher did the only thing he could. He tried to pump James up by giving him a nickname. Sure, in the last eight years nicknames have proven to be a poor basis for a system of government, but this was 1994, and we didn’t know that yet.
And so Soul James was born.
And he played with soul. He had a soul. At least he thought he did. And people looking at him thought so too. But if you looked long enough, if you focused hard enough, he was still just a skinny, ginger freshman.
“Big Game” James Shields is not so different. You can give him the nickname, you can start him on opening day, you can have him spread, tilt and wail before the entire world. And he might get lucky. The bravado might fool some people, but not forever. He is still the same scared little rookie with an ERA approaching five on a terrible team, and on that third or fourth at bat, hitters age going to notice.
Maybe some day the man will match the name, but that day is not today. Today, he is just plain James.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.
Thursday, January 22
One...Two.. Off-Season Review
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE HOT STOVE.
1. With pitchers and catchers reporting in just a few weeks and ending the darkest part of the winter, Jose thought this was as good a time as any to for Jose to review the Red Sox’s major off-season acquisitions. Unfortunately, they haven’t made any, so Jose will talk about two injured pitchers and a rehashed catcher instead.
Brad Penny
Of all of the Red Sox acquisitions this off-season, Jose loves this one the most. Yes, Penny struggled his way to a 6-9 record and 6.27 ERA last year, but Jose just sees so much upside in the guy. It’s not just that he had a terrific 2007, starting out 12-1, it’s his broader history.
When Penny was just a child of 11, he was already doing most of the work in helping his uncle, Inspector Gadget, solve mysteries and counter a major terrorist network. How could you not want someone with that kind of background on your team? Jose noticed that when he was with the Dodgers last year, Penny appeared to have neither his laptop computer or his laser wristwatch, which may explain his struggles. Both were critical in Penny’s success as a crime fighter. Also, as Jose recalls, Penny got a lot of help from a sidekick named Brain, so the Sox should consider signing Dave Brain, who last played in 1908 to catch for him. Sure, Brain was mostly an infielder, but a 107-year-old infielder can’t be dramatically worse than what we have catching now.
An option as starter number five?
2. John Smoltz
The way Jose sees it, Smoltz is really a replacement for Curt Euro. It is a tremendous upgrade. Basically, The Red Sox replaced 42-year-old usual starter and sometime closer with a 127 career ERA+ with a 41-year-old usual starter and sometime closer with a 127 career ERA+. Smoltz has 210 career wins, Euro has 216. Smoltz has a 3.26 career ERA playing exclusively in the easier National League, Euro has a 3.46 career ERA in a mix of the two leagues. Smoltz has a career WHIP of 1.17, Euro’s career WHIP is 1.137. Smoltz has 3,011 career strike outs, Euro has 3,116. They are practically the same guy. Almost the only difference is in saves and that Smoltz broke his labrum and Euro broke his diet.
So why is this a big upgrade? Because the Red Sox will only be paying Smoltz $5 million not to play, substantial savings over the $8 million they paid Euro not to play last year.
That makes Smoltz 37.5% better than Euro. It’s really a no brainer. On the other hand, you do lose Euro’s medical expertise, which came in handy when evaluating the game readiness of guys like Scott Williamson.
3. Josh Bard
For all of the griping about the sudden appearance of time travel on Lost last night, Jose has yet to hear any complaints about the Red Sox dabbling in time travel. But shouldn’t fans be griping? As we all know, the consequences of time travel for plot continuity are terrible, and Jose doesn’t want to create any paradoxes that wipe out the 2004 World Series.
The mess began when the Red Sox traded Bard and Cla Meredith to San Diego to bring Doug Mirabelli back in 2006. This was an effort to travel back to 2004 and was nothing short of a disaster. Bard and Meredith played well, and Mirabelli caught the knuckleball and did little else of consequence; the Red Sox missed the playoffs.
Now the Red Sox are trying to undo the paradox by bringing Bard back, but that’s not how it works. The timeline is already changed, and the consequences are dire. Cla Meredith eclipsed Jose Melendez’s San Diego Padres record for most consecutive scoreless innings pitched, and thereby all but erased Jose from history.
Jose supposes the Red Sox could try to reacquire Meredith to set things right, but you know how it is with time travel, trying to fix things only makes them worse. With Jose’s luck trying to correct the time line would have completely changed history, the Red Sox would never have acquired Jose, Phil Plantier would have gone down as one of the great Red Sox busts and this feature would be called Dario Veras’ KEYS TO THE GAME.
I’m not Dario Veras, and those are my KEYS TO THE HOT STOVE.
1. With pitchers and catchers reporting in just a few weeks and ending the darkest part of the winter, Jose thought this was as good a time as any to for Jose to review the Red Sox’s major off-season acquisitions. Unfortunately, they haven’t made any, so Jose will talk about two injured pitchers and a rehashed catcher instead.
Brad Penny
Of all of the Red Sox acquisitions this off-season, Jose loves this one the most. Yes, Penny struggled his way to a 6-9 record and 6.27 ERA last year, but Jose just sees so much upside in the guy. It’s not just that he had a terrific 2007, starting out 12-1, it’s his broader history.
When Penny was just a child of 11, he was already doing most of the work in helping his uncle, Inspector Gadget, solve mysteries and counter a major terrorist network. How could you not want someone with that kind of background on your team? Jose noticed that when he was with the Dodgers last year, Penny appeared to have neither his laptop computer or his laser wristwatch, which may explain his struggles. Both were critical in Penny’s success as a crime fighter. Also, as Jose recalls, Penny got a lot of help from a sidekick named Brain, so the Sox should consider signing Dave Brain, who last played in 1908 to catch for him. Sure, Brain was mostly an infielder, but a 107-year-old infielder can’t be dramatically worse than what we have catching now.
An option as starter number five?
2. John Smoltz
The way Jose sees it, Smoltz is really a replacement for Curt Euro. It is a tremendous upgrade. Basically, The Red Sox replaced 42-year-old usual starter and sometime closer with a 127 career ERA+ with a 41-year-old usual starter and sometime closer with a 127 career ERA+. Smoltz has 210 career wins, Euro has 216. Smoltz has a 3.26 career ERA playing exclusively in the easier National League, Euro has a 3.46 career ERA in a mix of the two leagues. Smoltz has a career WHIP of 1.17, Euro’s career WHIP is 1.137. Smoltz has 3,011 career strike outs, Euro has 3,116. They are practically the same guy. Almost the only difference is in saves and that Smoltz broke his labrum and Euro broke his diet.
So why is this a big upgrade? Because the Red Sox will only be paying Smoltz $5 million not to play, substantial savings over the $8 million they paid Euro not to play last year.
That makes Smoltz 37.5% better than Euro. It’s really a no brainer. On the other hand, you do lose Euro’s medical expertise, which came in handy when evaluating the game readiness of guys like Scott Williamson.
3. Josh Bard
For all of the griping about the sudden appearance of time travel on Lost last night, Jose has yet to hear any complaints about the Red Sox dabbling in time travel. But shouldn’t fans be griping? As we all know, the consequences of time travel for plot continuity are terrible, and Jose doesn’t want to create any paradoxes that wipe out the 2004 World Series.
The mess began when the Red Sox traded Bard and Cla Meredith to San Diego to bring Doug Mirabelli back in 2006. This was an effort to travel back to 2004 and was nothing short of a disaster. Bard and Meredith played well, and Mirabelli caught the knuckleball and did little else of consequence; the Red Sox missed the playoffs.
Now the Red Sox are trying to undo the paradox by bringing Bard back, but that’s not how it works. The timeline is already changed, and the consequences are dire. Cla Meredith eclipsed Jose Melendez’s San Diego Padres record for most consecutive scoreless innings pitched, and thereby all but erased Jose from history.
Jose supposes the Red Sox could try to reacquire Meredith to set things right, but you know how it is with time travel, trying to fix things only makes them worse. With Jose’s luck trying to correct the time line would have completely changed history, the Red Sox would never have acquired Jose, Phil Plantier would have gone down as one of the great Red Sox busts and this feature would be called Dario Veras’ KEYS TO THE GAME.
I’m not Dario Veras, and those are my KEYS TO THE HOT STOVE.
Tuesday, January 20
KEYS TO THE INAUGURATION
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE INAUGURATION.
1. Jose does not often write politics in this space. It’s not that Jose doesn’t think about politics, aside from baseball and… something else, it’s almost all that he thinks about. It’s just that injecting politics into something as pure and virtuous as baseball, what with its illegal drugs and “beaver shooting,” seems like a bad gamble.
There is an old adage in politics, maybe from Barney Frank, that the problem with your candidate winning is that you will inevitably be disappointed. Jose doesn’t need that; he has gotten enough disappointment from baseball, at least prior to 2004. Thankfully, Jose hasn’t backed a lot of winners in politics, so it has been a minimal source of post inaugural disappointed. (Note: Jose just signed up on Facebook as a supporter of Michael Dukakis today. He’s no fair weather friend.)
But this year is different. This year Jose is not only setting himself up for disappointment, he is embracing it. He knows that President Obama will not make everything better, that he will not do everything right, and that he will invariably and categorically disappoint Jose and legions of other supporters sometime in the next four years. But Jose is up for it. He is eager to be disappointed by a president rather than disgusted. At this point disappointment would be a huge step up. George W. Bush disgusted Jose with his arrogance and complacent idiocy. Bill Clinton disgusted Jose with this willingness to put his personal appetites and power above the common good. George H.W. Bush, a man known for nothing if not civility, disgusted Jose with an effective yet cruel and gutless 1988 campaign against a decent man, and Ronald Reagan disgusted Jose with his indifference to the poor and his love of substituting his own Horatio Alger fantasies for the real lives of Americans.
Is there any wonder against this backdrop of indifference, arrogance, cruelty and will to power that Jose would crave the soothing salve of disappointment?
2. But today there will be no disappointment. Tomorrow perhaps, a year from now most likely, but not today. Today, like millions of Americans and perhaps a billion people around the world, Jose will witness one of those rare moments that suggests that America might be just as good as we aspire to be.
It is cliché, at this point to say that Jose never expected to see a black man elected in his lifetime, but he did not. It is not that Jose did not believe America had made progress since those gloomy days of Jim Crow or even that we are a heart a racist nation. Instead, Jose relied on practicality. He did not think that a person of color could emerge from the political process who could be viewed by the nation’s majority not as a “black politician” but as a politician who is black.
But Jose was wrong. Wonderfully deliriously wrong.
When we wake up on Wednesday, there will still be racism in America. There will still be poverty and we will still be at war. But everything will not be the same. We will not be a society that is “post-racial” whatever that means, but we will, at least, be a society that is capable of looking beyond race, at least on Election Day. Much like, baseball after Jackie Robinson opened the majors to black players, America will be, more than ever, a place where at the highest levels we are using the greatest talents of our finest citizens.
3. It hit Jose this evening as he was watching a clip of Pete Seeger singing, “This Land is Your Land” at the concert in front of the Lincoln Memorial. The old man was plucking away on his banjo and shouting out verses to the crowd with a gleam in his eye that hinted at joy bordering on disbelief.
It’s not that Jose agrees with Seeger’s politics, Jose is far too cynical for that, but he is enamored of the idea that someone who was literally blacklisted can be invited into the heart of the American celebration. Redemption, restoration, reunification, these are good values. These are American values. Jose only wishes that Lee Greenwood or Ted Nugent had been invited to sing along, though Jose doubts either would have accepted.
Jose hopes that Seeger’s inclusion is a symbol, a sign that not only will this administration be about moving beyond the racial and cultural politics that have been so divisive, but beyond the endless refighting of old battles. Jose no longer cares what you thought about Vietnam, he never wants to hear it in another election again, nor does he want to hear liberalism decried as communism or conservatism as fascism. He cares about a politician’s opinion on Vietnam about as much as he cares about his opinion on the Spanish-American War. Jose cares about someone’s red sympathies about as much as he cares about someone’s sympathies for the Cincinnati Reds.
What Jose saw it Seeger’s eyes that was so delightful was the acknowledgement that perhaps America really can change, that it really can be the place that we want it to be. And for today he is right. Today, if not tomorrow, America is as good as its promise.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE INAUGURATION
1. Jose does not often write politics in this space. It’s not that Jose doesn’t think about politics, aside from baseball and… something else, it’s almost all that he thinks about. It’s just that injecting politics into something as pure and virtuous as baseball, what with its illegal drugs and “beaver shooting,” seems like a bad gamble.
There is an old adage in politics, maybe from Barney Frank, that the problem with your candidate winning is that you will inevitably be disappointed. Jose doesn’t need that; he has gotten enough disappointment from baseball, at least prior to 2004. Thankfully, Jose hasn’t backed a lot of winners in politics, so it has been a minimal source of post inaugural disappointed. (Note: Jose just signed up on Facebook as a supporter of Michael Dukakis today. He’s no fair weather friend.)
But this year is different. This year Jose is not only setting himself up for disappointment, he is embracing it. He knows that President Obama will not make everything better, that he will not do everything right, and that he will invariably and categorically disappoint Jose and legions of other supporters sometime in the next four years. But Jose is up for it. He is eager to be disappointed by a president rather than disgusted. At this point disappointment would be a huge step up. George W. Bush disgusted Jose with his arrogance and complacent idiocy. Bill Clinton disgusted Jose with this willingness to put his personal appetites and power above the common good. George H.W. Bush, a man known for nothing if not civility, disgusted Jose with an effective yet cruel and gutless 1988 campaign against a decent man, and Ronald Reagan disgusted Jose with his indifference to the poor and his love of substituting his own Horatio Alger fantasies for the real lives of Americans.
Is there any wonder against this backdrop of indifference, arrogance, cruelty and will to power that Jose would crave the soothing salve of disappointment?
2. But today there will be no disappointment. Tomorrow perhaps, a year from now most likely, but not today. Today, like millions of Americans and perhaps a billion people around the world, Jose will witness one of those rare moments that suggests that America might be just as good as we aspire to be.
It is cliché, at this point to say that Jose never expected to see a black man elected in his lifetime, but he did not. It is not that Jose did not believe America had made progress since those gloomy days of Jim Crow or even that we are a heart a racist nation. Instead, Jose relied on practicality. He did not think that a person of color could emerge from the political process who could be viewed by the nation’s majority not as a “black politician” but as a politician who is black.
But Jose was wrong. Wonderfully deliriously wrong.
When we wake up on Wednesday, there will still be racism in America. There will still be poverty and we will still be at war. But everything will not be the same. We will not be a society that is “post-racial” whatever that means, but we will, at least, be a society that is capable of looking beyond race, at least on Election Day. Much like, baseball after Jackie Robinson opened the majors to black players, America will be, more than ever, a place where at the highest levels we are using the greatest talents of our finest citizens.
3. It hit Jose this evening as he was watching a clip of Pete Seeger singing, “This Land is Your Land” at the concert in front of the Lincoln Memorial. The old man was plucking away on his banjo and shouting out verses to the crowd with a gleam in his eye that hinted at joy bordering on disbelief.
It’s not that Jose agrees with Seeger’s politics, Jose is far too cynical for that, but he is enamored of the idea that someone who was literally blacklisted can be invited into the heart of the American celebration. Redemption, restoration, reunification, these are good values. These are American values. Jose only wishes that Lee Greenwood or Ted Nugent had been invited to sing along, though Jose doubts either would have accepted.
Jose hopes that Seeger’s inclusion is a symbol, a sign that not only will this administration be about moving beyond the racial and cultural politics that have been so divisive, but beyond the endless refighting of old battles. Jose no longer cares what you thought about Vietnam, he never wants to hear it in another election again, nor does he want to hear liberalism decried as communism or conservatism as fascism. He cares about a politician’s opinion on Vietnam about as much as he cares about his opinion on the Spanish-American War. Jose cares about someone’s red sympathies about as much as he cares about someone’s sympathies for the Cincinnati Reds.
What Jose saw it Seeger’s eyes that was so delightful was the acknowledgement that perhaps America really can change, that it really can be the place that we want it to be. And for today he is right. Today, if not tomorrow, America is as good as its promise.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE INAUGURATION
Tuesday, January 13
Jose to City: Drop Dead
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE HOT STOVE.
1. Jose has always thought that being a headline writer must be a wonderful job. Hell, it may even be the best $30,000 a year job in the world.
You get to take someone else’s work, something he struggled, sweat and perhaps even bled over if they are John Stossel covering pro wrestling, slap a label on it, which may or may not have anything to do with the piece, and then have many more people look at your work than the actual authors. Even better, you occasionally get to be incredibly clever and write a headline like the Boston Herald’s “Dr. Doom and Va-va-va-vroom” to describe the 1990 Massachusetts Democratic ticket of John Silber and Marjorie Claprood.
Perhaps the most famous American headline is the one penned by the New York Daily News’ William J. Brink on October 30, 1975 “Ford to City: Drop Dead.”
Jose would like to pay tribute to this brilliant, and technically untrue headline (note: Ford never said it, though he did say “things are more like they are now than they’ve ever been”), by writing the following headline some time this year.
As you may have noticed, The Yankees laid out $400 million to just three players in the last few weeks.
In unrelated news, the Bronx Borrowers also recently requested “$259 million in tax-exempt bonds and $111 million in taxable bonds, on top of $940 million in tax-exempt bonds and $25 million in taxable bonds already granted for its $1.3 billion stadium” according to ESPN.com.
Wait a second. That seems incredibly related. The Yankees spend about $400 million on Teixeira, Burnett and Sabathia and suddenly they want $370 million in tax-exempt bonds. Huh. Funny that.
When New York City, where from what Jose understands many wealthy people live, is entering a financial crisis so grave the Mayor Judas Bloomberg, a former Red Sox fan, must, for the good of the people, overturn term limits, does it really make sense to give the Yankees another $370 million on top of the $900 million they already got?
Jose can understand why smaller cities, say Pittsburgh, might feel obliged to subsidize a team—that’s the only way they can have one. But New York? The Yankees were going to flee to Jersey? Sure…
So here’s the thing. At some point, it seems possible that New York City may once again need a bailout; after all, everyone else is getting one. So what will America say? Jose’s simple response echo’s Ford, DROP DEAD.
Get it from the Yankees. Get it from A-Rod or CC or AJ or anyone with initials and a contract worth north of $75 million.
It’s bad enough that the poor, and apparently, incredibly stupid, people of New York are subsidizing this scam, but keep Jose out of it.
Really, paying the Yankees to be in New York? It’s like paying Paris Hilton to be a whore. She’s going to do it anyway, why bother paying?
Cows, milk, free etc.
A message for our times?
2. Jose noticed that Mark McGwire got fewer votes for the Hall-of-Fame this year. Jose wonders if his stats final had anything to do with it. There was a question on the exam in which Jose had to calculate a Z score (note: which Jose knows has something to do with either Carlos or Victor Zambrano, but he forgets which) related to McGwire’s record setting 1998 season.
Of course, Jose couldn’t remember how to calculate a Z-score, so he just wrote down “Jose doesn’t want to focus on the past, he wants to do something positive for the future.”
It had mixed results. On the one hand, for some reason the teacher seemed to think that Jose could not calculate a Z-score and gave him a zero for the problem. On the other hand, Jose has not been indicted, unlike several classmates, who issued sworn affidavits that they could calculate Z-scores even though they couldn’t.
3. Before everyone gets al upset about the Yankees swiping Mark Teixeira from the Red Sox, can we take a minute to think about this linguistically? The first baseman’s name is pronounced Tesh-era.
Did anyone really want to have a Tesh Era in Boston? John Tesh is terrible. Not very good at all. Except for that old NBA music, that was pretty good. Seriously, Jose would rather sign a player named Yanniera. At lest Yanni has a Kevin Kennedy moustache.
I’m Jose Melendez’s, and those are my KEYS TO THE HOT STOVE.
1. Jose has always thought that being a headline writer must be a wonderful job. Hell, it may even be the best $30,000 a year job in the world.
You get to take someone else’s work, something he struggled, sweat and perhaps even bled over if they are John Stossel covering pro wrestling, slap a label on it, which may or may not have anything to do with the piece, and then have many more people look at your work than the actual authors. Even better, you occasionally get to be incredibly clever and write a headline like the Boston Herald’s “Dr. Doom and Va-va-va-vroom” to describe the 1990 Massachusetts Democratic ticket of John Silber and Marjorie Claprood.
Perhaps the most famous American headline is the one penned by the New York Daily News’ William J. Brink on October 30, 1975 “Ford to City: Drop Dead.”
Jose would like to pay tribute to this brilliant, and technically untrue headline (note: Ford never said it, though he did say “things are more like they are now than they’ve ever been”), by writing the following headline some time this year.
JOSE TO CITY: DROP DEAD
As you may have noticed, The Yankees laid out $400 million to just three players in the last few weeks.
In unrelated news, the Bronx Borrowers also recently requested “$259 million in tax-exempt bonds and $111 million in taxable bonds, on top of $940 million in tax-exempt bonds and $25 million in taxable bonds already granted for its $1.3 billion stadium” according to ESPN.com.
Wait a second. That seems incredibly related. The Yankees spend about $400 million on Teixeira, Burnett and Sabathia and suddenly they want $370 million in tax-exempt bonds. Huh. Funny that.
When New York City, where from what Jose understands many wealthy people live, is entering a financial crisis so grave the Mayor Judas Bloomberg, a former Red Sox fan, must, for the good of the people, overturn term limits, does it really make sense to give the Yankees another $370 million on top of the $900 million they already got?
Jose can understand why smaller cities, say Pittsburgh, might feel obliged to subsidize a team—that’s the only way they can have one. But New York? The Yankees were going to flee to Jersey? Sure…
So here’s the thing. At some point, it seems possible that New York City may once again need a bailout; after all, everyone else is getting one. So what will America say? Jose’s simple response echo’s Ford, DROP DEAD.
Get it from the Yankees. Get it from A-Rod or CC or AJ or anyone with initials and a contract worth north of $75 million.
It’s bad enough that the poor, and apparently, incredibly stupid, people of New York are subsidizing this scam, but keep Jose out of it.
Really, paying the Yankees to be in New York? It’s like paying Paris Hilton to be a whore. She’s going to do it anyway, why bother paying?
Cows, milk, free etc.
A message for our times?
2. Jose noticed that Mark McGwire got fewer votes for the Hall-of-Fame this year. Jose wonders if his stats final had anything to do with it. There was a question on the exam in which Jose had to calculate a Z score (note: which Jose knows has something to do with either Carlos or Victor Zambrano, but he forgets which) related to McGwire’s record setting 1998 season.
Of course, Jose couldn’t remember how to calculate a Z-score, so he just wrote down “Jose doesn’t want to focus on the past, he wants to do something positive for the future.”
It had mixed results. On the one hand, for some reason the teacher seemed to think that Jose could not calculate a Z-score and gave him a zero for the problem. On the other hand, Jose has not been indicted, unlike several classmates, who issued sworn affidavits that they could calculate Z-scores even though they couldn’t.
3. Before everyone gets al upset about the Yankees swiping Mark Teixeira from the Red Sox, can we take a minute to think about this linguistically? The first baseman’s name is pronounced Tesh-era.
Did anyone really want to have a Tesh Era in Boston? John Tesh is terrible. Not very good at all. Except for that old NBA music, that was pretty good. Seriously, Jose would rather sign a player named Yanniera. At lest Yanni has a Kevin Kennedy moustache.
I’m Jose Melendez’s, and those are my KEYS TO THE HOT STOVE.
Thursday, December 18
Henry: Red Sox are not X-Factor
According to the Boston Globe the Red Sox will not "be a factor" in the bidding for Mark Teixeira. The Red Sox were long believed to be the favorites for the All-Star first baseman.
Jose isn't exactly sure how he feels about this. On the one hand, if it was really going to take $200 million to sign the guy, Jose is sort of happy to let him walk, at that kind of value he would be far too appealing a target for Somali pirates. (Note: Jose is pretty sure he stole that joke from someone, but he has no recollection of who.)
On the other hand, Jose was looking forward to Teixeira coming here, so he could finally get an explanation for how the hell the "X" in his name makes a "zh" sound.
Of course, this might all be nonsense, as Sox owner John W. Henry sent word by email. Maybe he was just really, really mad about how things were going so he wrote down an angry email, with no intention of sending it, but then accidentally clicked send. That seems at least as plausible as Texiera getting $200 million from Baltimore or Washington.
The other possibility is that the Yankees have suddenly jumped into the running. This would make sense. As usual the Yankees can exceed any cash offer the Red Sox might make. Also, unlike the Red Sox, the Yankees have an open Senate seat to offer.
Oh, Jose just though of one other possibility. Maybe the word "factor" in the statement is a clue. As Jose recalls, in the early days of the comic X-Factor, the original X-Men joined together and pretended to be a group of vigilantes called X-Factor that captured mutants. After they seized a mutant, they would secretly train him and take care of him. Maybe the Red Sox have a similar plan. They are going to pretend to be anti-Teixeira, and then will capture him and secretly train him to play catcher, thereby allowing Mike Lowell and Kevin Youkilis to remain on a team including Teixeira.
Come on, it's at leastas likely as the guy actually wanting to play in Baltimore.
Jose isn't exactly sure how he feels about this. On the one hand, if it was really going to take $200 million to sign the guy, Jose is sort of happy to let him walk, at that kind of value he would be far too appealing a target for Somali pirates. (Note: Jose is pretty sure he stole that joke from someone, but he has no recollection of who.)
On the other hand, Jose was looking forward to Teixeira coming here, so he could finally get an explanation for how the hell the "X" in his name makes a "zh" sound.
Of course, this might all be nonsense, as Sox owner John W. Henry sent word by email. Maybe he was just really, really mad about how things were going so he wrote down an angry email, with no intention of sending it, but then accidentally clicked send. That seems at least as plausible as Texiera getting $200 million from Baltimore or Washington.
The other possibility is that the Yankees have suddenly jumped into the running. This would make sense. As usual the Yankees can exceed any cash offer the Red Sox might make. Also, unlike the Red Sox, the Yankees have an open Senate seat to offer.
Oh, Jose just though of one other possibility. Maybe the word "factor" in the statement is a clue. As Jose recalls, in the early days of the comic X-Factor, the original X-Men joined together and pretended to be a group of vigilantes called X-Factor that captured mutants. After they seized a mutant, they would secretly train him and take care of him. Maybe the Red Sox have a similar plan. They are going to pretend to be anti-Teixeira, and then will capture him and secretly train him to play catcher, thereby allowing Mike Lowell and Kevin Youkilis to remain on a team including Teixeira.
Come on, it's at leastas likely as the guy actually wanting to play in Baltimore.
Monday, December 8
Delcarmen for President (of Zimbabwe)
For the last few days, Jose has been working furiously on a paper about the ongoing crisis in Zimbabwe. But he will confess, it has been a struggle. First and foremost, it is challenging to write about a government so thoroughly destroying a country without becoming terminally depressed. However, Jose has also struggled with confusion.
It’s not just that he can’t click properly for the Ndebele words, it’s that he can’t figure out the opposition. Among the big issues is whether the duly elected MDC will actually get to take over the government. Here’s where it gets complicated. Jose cannot figure out for the life of him, why Manny Delcarmen would do a good job as President of Zimbabwe. Does he know anything about agriculture? Banking?
Besides, if Zimbabweans are looking for someone who performs erratically when things are their worst, why wouldn’t they stick with their current President Robert Mugabe?
But seriously, the Mugabe regime is as though Zim were run by, well, Zim. Mugabe’s Zimbabwe is run a lot like Zimmer’s Red Sox. Arbitrary use of power? Check. Senseless commitment to an old way of doing things? Mmm hmm. Ability to turn something fantastic into a humiliating disaster? Yup.
So what Zimbabwe really needs is not Manny Delcarmen but for someone to sent Pedro Martinez there and toss old Mugabe to the ground. Or South Africa could just stop coddling him. Either is good.
It’s not just that he can’t click properly for the Ndebele words, it’s that he can’t figure out the opposition. Among the big issues is whether the duly elected MDC will actually get to take over the government. Here’s where it gets complicated. Jose cannot figure out for the life of him, why Manny Delcarmen would do a good job as President of Zimbabwe. Does he know anything about agriculture? Banking?
Besides, if Zimbabweans are looking for someone who performs erratically when things are their worst, why wouldn’t they stick with their current President Robert Mugabe?
But seriously, the Mugabe regime is as though Zim were run by, well, Zim. Mugabe’s Zimbabwe is run a lot like Zimmer’s Red Sox. Arbitrary use of power? Check. Senseless commitment to an old way of doing things? Mmm hmm. Ability to turn something fantastic into a humiliating disaster? Yup.
So what Zimbabwe really needs is not Manny Delcarmen but for someone to sent Pedro Martinez there and toss old Mugabe to the ground. Or South Africa could just stop coddling him. Either is good.
Friday, December 5
End of an Age
NOTE: In the coming weeks, Jose is going to experiment with a change in format, here at the KEYS. Rather than writing long tripartite diatribes every six weeks, he is going to toy with a more traditional blog style of writing short, one-partite diatribes more regularly. We will see how it goes.
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE HOT STOVE.
1. The second great age of rococo is over.
The playfulness and lightheartedness evident in centerfield for the last three years has ended with the trade of Rococo Crisp to the Kansas City Royals for Ramon Ramirez.
Some critics appear thrilled by the end of the era. Noted baseball enthusiast and architect Jacques-François Blonde, for instance, heralded the trade as an escape from a "ridiculous jumble of shells, dragons, reeds, palm-trees and plants."
Of course, they are not thinking about what comes next. If history is any guide, the end of a rococo period is followed by the “empire” or neoclassical period. And you know what neoclassical means, right? Greeks and Italians. Of course, Empire means Sith. So expect either Rocco (note: not rococo) Baldelli to be roaming centerfield for the Sox at some point next year or possibly someone named Darth.
2. Back in college, Jose had a few guys he hung out with pretty regularly. A few of them he saw almost every day. They’d shoot the shit, drink some beers and watch some sports. Then graduation came, they moved away and Jose never saw them again, except on facebook, which doesn’t count.
For many of them, once they were gone, as soon as they were gone, Jose realized that he barely knew them at all. That’s how Jose feels about Rococo Crisp. Jose watched the guy most days for three years, and now that he’s gone, Jose feels like he knows almost nothing about him as a player. Is he the guy you can’t sneak a fastball by, or is he the king of groundouts to second? Is he the best centerfielder Jose has ever seen at Fenway or the guy who seemed to be in defensive decline?
Some players, even mediocre ones spend three years here and Jose knows a lot about them--Jose Melendez, for instance. But a serious example would be Bill Mueller. Bill Mueller was here for the exact same amount of time, won the exact same number of World Series and lost the exact same number of ALCSs as Rococo yet Jose feels like he knows him so much better. He knows exactly what kind of a baseball player Bill Mueller was, and he even thinks he has a pretty good grasp on what kind of person he is—a religious fanatic.
Years from now, someone will mention Bill Mueller and Jose will think about his clutch hits, and that he was a “professional hitter.” Yet when someone mentions Rococo Crisp, Jose will, think “Yeah he seemed like a good guy and a decent player, wonder what happened to him?”
And maybe this is a function of the post 2004 ethos. Even the most useless guy on the 2004 team, say Doug Mirabelli gets to be “one of the 25.” On the 2007 team, another dramatic comeback, another World Series, contributing players will be, if not forgotten, at least not cherished. But that’s not how Jose wants it to be. He wants to remember the Rococo era. In fact, he’s going to go buy a painting with shells, dragons, reeds, palm-trees and plants right now.
3. Wow. Dustin Pedroia won the MVP. Really?
Little Dustin Pedroia? Trusty Dusty? This must now move him into the all time elite Dustys along with American Dream Dusty Rhodes and Dusty Springfield. Dusty Baker need not apply. But MVP? We’re talking about the most valuable player MVP? Dusty had a great season and all, but Jose never really saw it coming from the little guy. The last Red Sox MVP outweighed him by approximately 300 lbs.
Maybe this is a different MVP. Could he have been awarded the Midget Veracity Prize for being the most honest little person in baseball? What about the Most Verbal Player, because he can’t shut the hell up? Most Venal Player maybe? No, that’s got to be A.J. Pierzynski. Everyone hates that guy.
Or maybe, just maybe, it’s possible that the little second baseman with the”big ol’ swing” was actually the best, the most valuable, the most outstanding player in the American League in 2008. Or maybe it was Albert Belle, he should have won the MVP in 1995 over Mo. He was definitely the league’s most venal player that year.
I’m Jose Melendez and those are my KEYS TO THE HOT STOVE.
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE HOT STOVE.
1. The second great age of rococo is over.
The playfulness and lightheartedness evident in centerfield for the last three years has ended with the trade of Rococo Crisp to the Kansas City Royals for Ramon Ramirez.
Some critics appear thrilled by the end of the era. Noted baseball enthusiast and architect Jacques-François Blonde, for instance, heralded the trade as an escape from a "ridiculous jumble of shells, dragons, reeds, palm-trees and plants."
Of course, they are not thinking about what comes next. If history is any guide, the end of a rococo period is followed by the “empire” or neoclassical period. And you know what neoclassical means, right? Greeks and Italians. Of course, Empire means Sith. So expect either Rocco (note: not rococo) Baldelli to be roaming centerfield for the Sox at some point next year or possibly someone named Darth.
2. Back in college, Jose had a few guys he hung out with pretty regularly. A few of them he saw almost every day. They’d shoot the shit, drink some beers and watch some sports. Then graduation came, they moved away and Jose never saw them again, except on facebook, which doesn’t count.
For many of them, once they were gone, as soon as they were gone, Jose realized that he barely knew them at all. That’s how Jose feels about Rococo Crisp. Jose watched the guy most days for three years, and now that he’s gone, Jose feels like he knows almost nothing about him as a player. Is he the guy you can’t sneak a fastball by, or is he the king of groundouts to second? Is he the best centerfielder Jose has ever seen at Fenway or the guy who seemed to be in defensive decline?
Some players, even mediocre ones spend three years here and Jose knows a lot about them--Jose Melendez, for instance. But a serious example would be Bill Mueller. Bill Mueller was here for the exact same amount of time, won the exact same number of World Series and lost the exact same number of ALCSs as Rococo yet Jose feels like he knows him so much better. He knows exactly what kind of a baseball player Bill Mueller was, and he even thinks he has a pretty good grasp on what kind of person he is—a religious fanatic.
Years from now, someone will mention Bill Mueller and Jose will think about his clutch hits, and that he was a “professional hitter.” Yet when someone mentions Rococo Crisp, Jose will, think “Yeah he seemed like a good guy and a decent player, wonder what happened to him?”
And maybe this is a function of the post 2004 ethos. Even the most useless guy on the 2004 team, say Doug Mirabelli gets to be “one of the 25.” On the 2007 team, another dramatic comeback, another World Series, contributing players will be, if not forgotten, at least not cherished. But that’s not how Jose wants it to be. He wants to remember the Rococo era. In fact, he’s going to go buy a painting with shells, dragons, reeds, palm-trees and plants right now.
3. Wow. Dustin Pedroia won the MVP. Really?
Little Dustin Pedroia? Trusty Dusty? This must now move him into the all time elite Dustys along with American Dream Dusty Rhodes and Dusty Springfield. Dusty Baker need not apply. But MVP? We’re talking about the most valuable player MVP? Dusty had a great season and all, but Jose never really saw it coming from the little guy. The last Red Sox MVP outweighed him by approximately 300 lbs.
Maybe this is a different MVP. Could he have been awarded the Midget Veracity Prize for being the most honest little person in baseball? What about the Most Verbal Player, because he can’t shut the hell up? Most Venal Player maybe? No, that’s got to be A.J. Pierzynski. Everyone hates that guy.
Or maybe, just maybe, it’s possible that the little second baseman with the”big ol’ swing” was actually the best, the most valuable, the most outstanding player in the American League in 2008. Or maybe it was Albert Belle, he should have won the MVP in 1995 over Mo. He was definitely the league’s most venal player that year.
I’m Jose Melendez and those are my KEYS TO THE HOT STOVE.
Monday, October 20
Summer's Gone
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO 2008.
1.
Summer's Gone--Aberfeldy
That’s the story isn’t it? This year? Every year?
We couldn’t get away even if we wanted to. Jose went to Africa and he couldn’t get away, so he went to someplace even more remote, Durham, and he still couldn’t get away.
So he hangs around, ‘til the leaves are brown, and the summer’s gone.
And that’s where we are today. Summer’s gone. Bye. (Note: Waves.)
We could have gotten another week of summer. That’s what a World Series birth buys you. Jose thought we’d get that extra week. He was sure of it. But he was wrong. We didn’t. The leaves are brown and the summer’s gone.
The funny thing is that this is okay. It’s not ideal, to be sure. Jose likes summer. Jose likes baseball. But it is genuinely okay. Fall is inevitable. Winter is inevitable. All we can do, all our Red Sox can do is postpone them, fight them off for a few weeks, and they did that. They kept us hanging around, ‘til the leaves are brown and the summer’s gone.
But if fall and winter are inevitable, so too is spring. And the wonderful thing about baseball is that spring starts in February, when an old truck drives out of the Fens, stuffed full with hope, memory and the promise of summer.
Oh, and there are more lyrics to the song, one’s that we would do well to remember.
2. So it is fall now, yet something unexpected has transpired. The sun is still shining in Boston.
This is a change. Five years ago, in 2003, the sun did not shine. The sun did not shine for a long time, weeks, months. For day after day, the skies offered nothing but the impenetrable grey of unrelenting melancholy. And it was not the good artist’s melancholy either, not the kind that breeds creativity, the kind that breeds depression and madness.
After 2003, Jose thought about that game every day for months, every day until Johnny Damon ended the grief with one grand swing.
But today the sun is shining. Jose will think about this game today. He will think about this series next week.
And then he will not.
He will move on with his life. He will focus on the year ahead, and he will bask in the warm sun of winter.
3. It is not just the championships in 2004 and 2007 that have kept Jose out of the fetal position. It’s that we lost to a better team.
Jose can accept that. He does not like it. In fact, he hates it. But he can accept it. They won it; we did not loose it. They took it from us; we did not give it to them. We may have given them Game 2, but they gave us Game 5 right back.
We lost because they pitched better than us, and hit better than us. We lost because, we had a void in the bottom third of our order and they had something, rather than nothing.
We lost because they are young and hungry, and we are a mixture of young and not that hungry and old and fuller than Curt Euro at an all you can eat buffet.
But there is no Zimmer. There is no Grady. There is not even a Buckner or a Graffanino, though Alex Cora really wanted to be one.
There is only a very good baseball team that was beaten by an even better baseball team. Jose does not like it, but he does not like the cold or the rain either, yet he accepts them as the inevitable and natural order of the universe.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO 2008.
1.
And I couldn't get away from you
Even if I wanted to
So I hang around
'Till the leaves are brown
And the summer's gone
--Aberfeldy, Summer’s Gone
Summer's Gone--Aberfeldy
That’s the story isn’t it? This year? Every year?
We couldn’t get away even if we wanted to. Jose went to Africa and he couldn’t get away, so he went to someplace even more remote, Durham, and he still couldn’t get away.
So he hangs around, ‘til the leaves are brown, and the summer’s gone.
And that’s where we are today. Summer’s gone. Bye. (Note: Waves.)
We could have gotten another week of summer. That’s what a World Series birth buys you. Jose thought we’d get that extra week. He was sure of it. But he was wrong. We didn’t. The leaves are brown and the summer’s gone.
The funny thing is that this is okay. It’s not ideal, to be sure. Jose likes summer. Jose likes baseball. But it is genuinely okay. Fall is inevitable. Winter is inevitable. All we can do, all our Red Sox can do is postpone them, fight them off for a few weeks, and they did that. They kept us hanging around, ‘til the leaves are brown and the summer’s gone.
But if fall and winter are inevitable, so too is spring. And the wonderful thing about baseball is that spring starts in February, when an old truck drives out of the Fens, stuffed full with hope, memory and the promise of summer.
Oh, and there are more lyrics to the song, one’s that we would do well to remember.
But I won't give upThe Red Sox may have lost, but they did not give up. They did not give in. It is tough, but we need to win. We will just have to do it next year.
And I won't give in
And I know it's tough
But I need to win
2. So it is fall now, yet something unexpected has transpired. The sun is still shining in Boston.
This is a change. Five years ago, in 2003, the sun did not shine. The sun did not shine for a long time, weeks, months. For day after day, the skies offered nothing but the impenetrable grey of unrelenting melancholy. And it was not the good artist’s melancholy either, not the kind that breeds creativity, the kind that breeds depression and madness.
After 2003, Jose thought about that game every day for months, every day until Johnny Damon ended the grief with one grand swing.
But today the sun is shining. Jose will think about this game today. He will think about this series next week.
And then he will not.
He will move on with his life. He will focus on the year ahead, and he will bask in the warm sun of winter.
3. It is not just the championships in 2004 and 2007 that have kept Jose out of the fetal position. It’s that we lost to a better team.
Jose can accept that. He does not like it. In fact, he hates it. But he can accept it. They won it; we did not loose it. They took it from us; we did not give it to them. We may have given them Game 2, but they gave us Game 5 right back.
We lost because they pitched better than us, and hit better than us. We lost because, we had a void in the bottom third of our order and they had something, rather than nothing.
We lost because they are young and hungry, and we are a mixture of young and not that hungry and old and fuller than Curt Euro at an all you can eat buffet.
But there is no Zimmer. There is no Grady. There is not even a Buckner or a Graffanino, though Alex Cora really wanted to be one.
There is only a very good baseball team that was beaten by an even better baseball team. Jose does not like it, but he does not like the cold or the rain either, yet he accepts them as the inevitable and natural order of the universe.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO 2008.
Sunday, October 19
ALCS Game 7--Don't Bury Me... I'm Not Dead
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE ALCS.
1. Don’t bury me… I’m not dead.
That was the tag line for the 1988 Wes Craven film The Serpent and the Rainbow, based painfully loosely on a book by ethnobotanist Wade Davis describing search for a scientific explanation for Haitian zombie myths. It might as well be the tagline for the Boston Red Sox.
The Red Sox are not dead; they are never dead, and yet year after year, teams come to throw piles of moist black earth upon them.
In 2004, the Yankees buried them pretty deep. They dug a hole, threw the Sox in and dropped six feet of loam on top of them. They should have patted it down though. They should have compressed the dirt with a bulldozer. They left too much wiggle room, and the Sox were able to kick loose the cover of the coffin, and reach gasping for the surface. (Note: By the way, is there any chance the cadaver used to practice the Curt Euro surgery was stolen? Because there was definitely some grave robbing in The Serpent and the Rainbow. You could make a cool movie about a zombie with a bionic ankle bent on revenge.)
In 2007, Cleveland was much sloppier. They tossed the Red Sox in a shallow grave and just hoped we would never be discovered. It was not a great plan.
This year the Rays did a far better job. They locked the coffin, they piled on six feet of dirt, they patted it down and they grew an oak tree on top of it. And you know what? It still didn’t matter. Like The Bride in Kill Bill 2, like Spiderman when he was drugged by Kraven the Hunter, the Red Sox punched their way out, making the impossible possible, and with two out in the seventh on Thursday night, we saw that angry hand stretching out from the dirt of the grave.
Now that the Red Sox are out of the grave, they are feeling exactly how one would expect someone who has been buried alive to feel—incredibly pissed off and bent on revenge. This is why the Sox have gone on seven or eight game rampages after being left for dead the previous two occasions. When you fight your way out from the eternal dirt nap, you want to do some damage on the people who put you there.
And now Tampax Bay has to suffer the consequences and the Phillies after them. Don’t ever bury the Red Sox, unless you are absolutely sure they’re dead.
2. Dear Jon,
By the time you read these lines, we’ll be gone. Life goes on, right or wrong. Now it’s all been said and done.
It is hard for us to write this letter, harder than you can imagine. This is not how we wanted things to be when we started this crazy adventure, and it’s certainly not how we imagined it would go even recently. We used to feel really good about this thing we have, but then something went wrong.
You know what it was, so we probably don’t have to explain, but coming clean is good for the soul. Last week, we did something we never thought we’d do, that we never imagined we’d do—we hit you. We hit you hard. It was awful for you, we know. Also, we buried you when you weren’t dead. That was a real dick move by us.
It’s a dark part of us, a bit of nastiness in the recesses of our souls. We hit other pitchers too. We hit Beckett before we hit you. We hit Wakefield and Matsuzaka after.
But somehow, you are different.
When we saw you again on Sunday night, we just couldn’t hit you again. We wanted to. The frightening hunger was there. But we just couldn’t do it.
Maybe we’ve shown just a touch of humanity. But that seems unlikely. More likely is that we’ve shown fear. We’ve realized that if we hit you, there’s a very good chance that you and your friends are going to hit back, and hard.
So we’re leaving.
We’re the bad guys here, so you stay, we’ll go. You keep on playing, and we are going to take some time off. We are going to do some soul searching, play some golf.
Maybe we’ll see you next year.
Yours truly,
The Tampax Bay Rays
(Note: Jose does not mean to diminish the serious problem of domestic violence. He just felt like he needed to do something on the subject in order to get ready to face Brett Myers in the World Series.)
3. Game 7 or not, Jose could not let the occasion pass without devoting at least one KEY to TBS’s stunning broadcasting failure last night. At the beginning of Game 6, millions of Red Sox fans and dozens of Rays fans were infuriated to find that TV’s Bloopers and Practical Jokes and the Steve Harvey Show were on instead of the Sox-Rays contest. While it would have been incredibly funny if this were in fact a TV’s Bloopers and Practical Jokes bit, it sadly, was not. By the time TBS had repaired at least one of the two blown transformers responsible for the disaster, the Rays were up 1-0 in the bottom of the first. (Note: Jose sort of thinks that the run shouldn’t have counted. Couldn’t they have followed the old professional wrestling rule that if it’s not on TV it didn’t happen?)
Jose can believe that this happened, after all TBS is the Grady Little of television networks. What Jose can’t understand is why it happened now. They had no problem broadcasting each of 10,000 Braves games Jose didn’t care about.
What it reminded Jose of was KEC, the Kosovo Electric Company. In Kosovo, the power goes out pretty close to daily. As a result, when anything fails to function, a colloquialism is to shake one’s head and lament “No KEC.” Jose happily adopted this expression as his own, and has used the expression “No KEC” regularly to comment on things ranging from broken flashlights to Jason Varitek’s bat. (Note: Plenty of KEC last night for Tek.)
But now the expression “No KEC” seems quaint and outdated. When Jose thinks of something that is broken from now on, he is more likely to say “No TBS.”
What was responsible for the poor response to Hurricane Katrina? No TBS. The Vietnam War? No TBS. The Assassination of Lincoln? No TBS.
Fortunately for the Sox, tonight, in Game 7, the Rays will have no TBS… and the Sox will have plenty of TNT.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE ALCS.
1. Don’t bury me… I’m not dead.
That was the tag line for the 1988 Wes Craven film The Serpent and the Rainbow, based painfully loosely on a book by ethnobotanist Wade Davis describing search for a scientific explanation for Haitian zombie myths. It might as well be the tagline for the Boston Red Sox.
The Red Sox are not dead; they are never dead, and yet year after year, teams come to throw piles of moist black earth upon them.
In 2004, the Yankees buried them pretty deep. They dug a hole, threw the Sox in and dropped six feet of loam on top of them. They should have patted it down though. They should have compressed the dirt with a bulldozer. They left too much wiggle room, and the Sox were able to kick loose the cover of the coffin, and reach gasping for the surface. (Note: By the way, is there any chance the cadaver used to practice the Curt Euro surgery was stolen? Because there was definitely some grave robbing in The Serpent and the Rainbow. You could make a cool movie about a zombie with a bionic ankle bent on revenge.)
In 2007, Cleveland was much sloppier. They tossed the Red Sox in a shallow grave and just hoped we would never be discovered. It was not a great plan.
This year the Rays did a far better job. They locked the coffin, they piled on six feet of dirt, they patted it down and they grew an oak tree on top of it. And you know what? It still didn’t matter. Like The Bride in Kill Bill 2, like Spiderman when he was drugged by Kraven the Hunter, the Red Sox punched their way out, making the impossible possible, and with two out in the seventh on Thursday night, we saw that angry hand stretching out from the dirt of the grave.
Now that the Red Sox are out of the grave, they are feeling exactly how one would expect someone who has been buried alive to feel—incredibly pissed off and bent on revenge. This is why the Sox have gone on seven or eight game rampages after being left for dead the previous two occasions. When you fight your way out from the eternal dirt nap, you want to do some damage on the people who put you there.
And now Tampax Bay has to suffer the consequences and the Phillies after them. Don’t ever bury the Red Sox, unless you are absolutely sure they’re dead.
2. Dear Jon,
By the time you read these lines, we’ll be gone. Life goes on, right or wrong. Now it’s all been said and done.
It is hard for us to write this letter, harder than you can imagine. This is not how we wanted things to be when we started this crazy adventure, and it’s certainly not how we imagined it would go even recently. We used to feel really good about this thing we have, but then something went wrong.
You know what it was, so we probably don’t have to explain, but coming clean is good for the soul. Last week, we did something we never thought we’d do, that we never imagined we’d do—we hit you. We hit you hard. It was awful for you, we know. Also, we buried you when you weren’t dead. That was a real dick move by us.
It’s a dark part of us, a bit of nastiness in the recesses of our souls. We hit other pitchers too. We hit Beckett before we hit you. We hit Wakefield and Matsuzaka after.
But somehow, you are different.
When we saw you again on Sunday night, we just couldn’t hit you again. We wanted to. The frightening hunger was there. But we just couldn’t do it.
Maybe we’ve shown just a touch of humanity. But that seems unlikely. More likely is that we’ve shown fear. We’ve realized that if we hit you, there’s a very good chance that you and your friends are going to hit back, and hard.
So we’re leaving.
We’re the bad guys here, so you stay, we’ll go. You keep on playing, and we are going to take some time off. We are going to do some soul searching, play some golf.
Maybe we’ll see you next year.
Yours truly,
The Tampax Bay Rays
(Note: Jose does not mean to diminish the serious problem of domestic violence. He just felt like he needed to do something on the subject in order to get ready to face Brett Myers in the World Series.)
3. Game 7 or not, Jose could not let the occasion pass without devoting at least one KEY to TBS’s stunning broadcasting failure last night. At the beginning of Game 6, millions of Red Sox fans and dozens of Rays fans were infuriated to find that TV’s Bloopers and Practical Jokes and the Steve Harvey Show were on instead of the Sox-Rays contest. While it would have been incredibly funny if this were in fact a TV’s Bloopers and Practical Jokes bit, it sadly, was not. By the time TBS had repaired at least one of the two blown transformers responsible for the disaster, the Rays were up 1-0 in the bottom of the first. (Note: Jose sort of thinks that the run shouldn’t have counted. Couldn’t they have followed the old professional wrestling rule that if it’s not on TV it didn’t happen?)
Jose can believe that this happened, after all TBS is the Grady Little of television networks. What Jose can’t understand is why it happened now. They had no problem broadcasting each of 10,000 Braves games Jose didn’t care about.
What it reminded Jose of was KEC, the Kosovo Electric Company. In Kosovo, the power goes out pretty close to daily. As a result, when anything fails to function, a colloquialism is to shake one’s head and lament “No KEC.” Jose happily adopted this expression as his own, and has used the expression “No KEC” regularly to comment on things ranging from broken flashlights to Jason Varitek’s bat. (Note: Plenty of KEC last night for Tek.)
But now the expression “No KEC” seems quaint and outdated. When Jose thinks of something that is broken from now on, he is more likely to say “No TBS.”
What was responsible for the poor response to Hurricane Katrina? No TBS. The Vietnam War? No TBS. The Assassination of Lincoln? No TBS.
Fortunately for the Sox, tonight, in Game 7, the Rays will have no TBS… and the Sox will have plenty of TNT.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE ALCS.
Saturday, October 18
ALCS Game 6--Don't Call It a Comeback
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE ALCS.
1. Don't call it a comeback, I been here for years.
--Ladies Love Cool James
Jose did not expect to be typing these words—ever—but LL Cool J is talking sense.
In the day and a half since the Red Sox recovered from a 7-0 seventh inning deficit to defeat the Tampax Bay Rays 8-7, the commentatiat has been abuzz with discussion of the “comeback.”
They are wrong. There was no comeback.
For something to be a comeback, it is a prerequisite that there was a point when defeat was the most likely outcome. While it may seem to those who have not been paying attention that defeat was the most likely outcome in Game 5 and in the series, to those of us who have been watching this team for the past five years, it is evident that victory was the most likely outcome.
BOOM. Dru homers.
Making runs Rain down like a MON-soon.
The thing about monsoons is that they don’t come out of nowhere. You see them coming. They happen every year like clockwork. What the Red Sox did last night was like a monsoon, terrifying but predictable.
Ever since Pokey Reese picked a little grounder on a cold October night in the Bronx, victory has been like a monsoon. Predictable, powerful. Victory has been the new normal. Before 2004, it was different. Defeat was the monsoon then. If now, being down 3-1 almost ensures victory, then being up 3-1 nearly guaranteed defeat. It’s not a choke if everyone expects you to lose; it’s just normal.
This was not a comeback, this is just how it’s gonna be. The Red Sox explode, they overpower, they competition pays the price.
It is game six. Your team is down three games to two and you literally have no purpose on this Earth other than to win tonight’s game. This is not a misuse of “literally” a la Joe Biden. Jose is not saying “literally” when he means figuratively. If you do not win this game, you will in the most meaningful sense, cease to exist.
You are not like other people. Other people, even when the stakes are high, have things to fall back on. When Dice K pitched poorly in Game 5 he got to fall back on an adoring nation. When Wakefield pitched poorly in Game 4, he got to fall back on his reputation as a humanitarian. When Lester pitched poorly in Game 3, he got to fall back on a loving family. (Note: Lot of poor pitching on that list isn’t there?) They get to do this because they are people, complex and multi-faceted, three-dimensional entities in a three dimensional world. You cannot fall back on something else because you are not a person. You, Josh Beckett, are a pitcher.
People do not like you. And by all reports, this is with good reason. You are, they say, not a pleasant fellow. You lack social graces. You do not tell amusing anecdotes. In fact, you are kind of a dick. You do not bring comfort to the afflicted, or joy to the sad. You do not nurture, and you do not nourish. All you can do, all you are good for is throwing a horsehide on the corners at frightening velocity.
So do it already. Hit the corners. Snap off the curve.
Pitch, you bastard. Pitch.
If you cannot pitch, then you are not. That is not a typo, there is not a noun missing from the end. A drill that cannot drill is not, and a pitcher who cannot pitch is not. Absent the ability to thrown strikes, to make hitters swing and miss, you are the null set, a void, utter nothing.
So when you take the mound tonight, do not do.
Be.
You are a pitcher.
And all a pitcher does it pitch.
3. Jose has muttonchops now.
They’re quite stylish in an 1860s kind of way. He got them in the way that everyone from New England got whatever odd deformity, affect or odor they have right now. He acquired them after the fifth inning. Now he has to keep them.
After the Sox bowed in the fifth, Jose did what all right thinking people did; he changed his facial hair and went to a bar. The playoff beard wasn’t working so he reduced it to Yaz style mutton chops and a goatee. His house wasn’t working so he left and went to a bar. Not singing Cab Calloway classics wasn’t working so he sang Minnie the Moocher at karaoke. And presto change-o by the time he had finished belting out “Poor Min, poor Min, poor Min” The Sox had one in, two on and Big Papi at the plate.
Jose is well aware that none of this works and none of this matters, but it can’t possibly hurt, right? Well, except for Jose’s possibility of getting a job. Muttonchops tend not to impress employers unless one is seeking work in the Grand Army of the Republic.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE ALCS.
1. Don't call it a comeback, I been here for years.
--Ladies Love Cool James
Jose did not expect to be typing these words—ever—but LL Cool J is talking sense.
In the day and a half since the Red Sox recovered from a 7-0 seventh inning deficit to defeat the Tampax Bay Rays 8-7, the commentatiat has been abuzz with discussion of the “comeback.”
They are wrong. There was no comeback.
For something to be a comeback, it is a prerequisite that there was a point when defeat was the most likely outcome. While it may seem to those who have not been paying attention that defeat was the most likely outcome in Game 5 and in the series, to those of us who have been watching this team for the past five years, it is evident that victory was the most likely outcome.
Rockin my peers and puttin suckas in fear Makin the tears rain down like a MON-soon Listen to the bass go BOOMBOOM. Ortiz homers.
BOOM. Dru homers.
Making runs Rain down like a MON-soon.
The thing about monsoons is that they don’t come out of nowhere. You see them coming. They happen every year like clockwork. What the Red Sox did last night was like a monsoon, terrifying but predictable.
Ever since Pokey Reese picked a little grounder on a cold October night in the Bronx, victory has been like a monsoon. Predictable, powerful. Victory has been the new normal. Before 2004, it was different. Defeat was the monsoon then. If now, being down 3-1 almost ensures victory, then being up 3-1 nearly guaranteed defeat. It’s not a choke if everyone expects you to lose; it’s just normal.
Explosion, overpowerin Over the competition, I'm towerin Wreckin shop, when I drop these lyrics that'll make you call the cops Don't you dare stare, you betta move Don't ever compare Me to the rest that'll all get sliced and diced Competition's payin the priceDon’t ever compare this to the great comebacks of the past. This is different. When the Bills came back from 35-3 at halftime to beat the Oilers, that was a comeback. When the Celtics reduced a 20-point deficit to zero in six minutes against the Lakers that was a comeback.
This was not a comeback, this is just how it’s gonna be. The Red Sox explode, they overpower, they competition pays the price.
I'm gonna knock you out (HUUUH!!!)2. You are Josh Beckett, and tonight you are pitching for your life.
Mama said knock you out (HUUUH!!!)
Don't Call it a comeback.
It is game six. Your team is down three games to two and you literally have no purpose on this Earth other than to win tonight’s game. This is not a misuse of “literally” a la Joe Biden. Jose is not saying “literally” when he means figuratively. If you do not win this game, you will in the most meaningful sense, cease to exist.
You are not like other people. Other people, even when the stakes are high, have things to fall back on. When Dice K pitched poorly in Game 5 he got to fall back on an adoring nation. When Wakefield pitched poorly in Game 4, he got to fall back on his reputation as a humanitarian. When Lester pitched poorly in Game 3, he got to fall back on a loving family. (Note: Lot of poor pitching on that list isn’t there?) They get to do this because they are people, complex and multi-faceted, three-dimensional entities in a three dimensional world. You cannot fall back on something else because you are not a person. You, Josh Beckett, are a pitcher.
People do not like you. And by all reports, this is with good reason. You are, they say, not a pleasant fellow. You lack social graces. You do not tell amusing anecdotes. In fact, you are kind of a dick. You do not bring comfort to the afflicted, or joy to the sad. You do not nurture, and you do not nourish. All you can do, all you are good for is throwing a horsehide on the corners at frightening velocity.
So do it already. Hit the corners. Snap off the curve.
Pitch, you bastard. Pitch.
If you cannot pitch, then you are not. That is not a typo, there is not a noun missing from the end. A drill that cannot drill is not, and a pitcher who cannot pitch is not. Absent the ability to thrown strikes, to make hitters swing and miss, you are the null set, a void, utter nothing.
So when you take the mound tonight, do not do.
Be.
You are a pitcher.
And all a pitcher does it pitch.
3. Jose has muttonchops now.
They’re quite stylish in an 1860s kind of way. He got them in the way that everyone from New England got whatever odd deformity, affect or odor they have right now. He acquired them after the fifth inning. Now he has to keep them.
After the Sox bowed in the fifth, Jose did what all right thinking people did; he changed his facial hair and went to a bar. The playoff beard wasn’t working so he reduced it to Yaz style mutton chops and a goatee. His house wasn’t working so he left and went to a bar. Not singing Cab Calloway classics wasn’t working so he sang Minnie the Moocher at karaoke. And presto change-o by the time he had finished belting out “Poor Min, poor Min, poor Min” The Sox had one in, two on and Big Papi at the plate.
Jose is well aware that none of this works and none of this matters, but it can’t possibly hurt, right? Well, except for Jose’s possibility of getting a job. Muttonchops tend not to impress employers unless one is seeking work in the Grand Army of the Republic.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE ALCS.
Thursday, October 16
ALCS Game 5-God Does Not Play Dice
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE ALCS.
1. “God does not play dice.”
That’s what Einstein said when faced with the problems of quantum mechanics. He was wrong, of course. God does play dice. And he makes some stupid bets too. Horn high yo? Please.
What Einstein did not discuss, however, was the inverse. While God may or may not play dice, we know for certain that tonight, Dice plays God.
To play God, or at least a god, is to have the power over life and death. And that is the awful power that the man from Japan has on this fall evening. If he pitches well, the Red Sox live, if he pitches poorly, the Red Sox die. Heads or tails, on or off. It is really that simple, and that difficult.
So what do the Red Sox want tonight? What all those on the verge of death crave—to remain alive. We would like to remain alive for another month, but we would take another week, another day, even another hour. The Red Sox know this craving; we have felt it before. We felt it in 2004, when we remained on life support for days and in 2007. We know what it is like to fear that each breath is your last. But we also know how divine it is to taunt death, to escape his icy grip and flip him the bird.
Justin Masterson knows. The pious pitcher informed his Facebook friends that he is “happy to be alive. He gets it. Masterson has taken to heart the simple message of a preacher from Pittsburgh “It’s such a good feeling to know you’re alive.”
And on Friday morning, when the series is 3-2 Jose, and Justin Masterson and Dice K will make a snappy new day. Jose will be back, when they day is new, and he will have more KEYS for you. You’ll have things you want to talk about. Jose… will… too.
2. According to Wikipedia, Tampa is a Calusa Indian word that means “sticks of fire.”
Having watched the Rays brutalize Red Sox pitching, for three straight games, it seems that the first settlers of what is now Hillsborough County saw something coming. The Tampa sticks have been alight.
But Jose knows a thing or two about fire (note: he got his fireman ‘chit as a Scout), and it gives him reason to be hopeful. Let’s put it this way, there is a reason that eternal flames are not fueled by wood. Wood burns bright and beautiful crackling and colorful, but all of sudden, a funny thing happens—it goes out. There is no doubt that the Rays’ sticks have been burning bright for three nights now, but they cannot burn forever. They are not the Maccabees, we are not the Syrians and this is not Chanukah.
3. Jose spent much of Monday and Tuesday hanging around with a dog named Kazmir. It might have been Cashmere on Kashmir, but those are all really just regional variations on spelling. Little did he know at the time, that his aunt and uncle’s dog would get the call to start for Tampax Bay in the crucial fifth game of the ALCS.
Joe Maddon has managed brilliantly this series, but you’ve got to wonder what he’s thinking right now. Given the opportunity to choose between pitching Jamie Shields, who has been brilliant in the post season and a dog, he went with the dog.
What’s that, tonight’s starting pitcher is a man named Kazmir and not a canine? Are you sure? Well, what’s the difference? Neither of them is going to pick up the win tonight and either of them would have been a good acquisition in return for Victor Zambrano.
Actually, check that, there is one difference. The dog, when he barks enough can actually convince people that he’s dangerous. There’s nothing the lefty can do these days to scare anyone.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE ALCS.
1. “God does not play dice.”
That’s what Einstein said when faced with the problems of quantum mechanics. He was wrong, of course. God does play dice. And he makes some stupid bets too. Horn high yo? Please.
What Einstein did not discuss, however, was the inverse. While God may or may not play dice, we know for certain that tonight, Dice plays God.
To play God, or at least a god, is to have the power over life and death. And that is the awful power that the man from Japan has on this fall evening. If he pitches well, the Red Sox live, if he pitches poorly, the Red Sox die. Heads or tails, on or off. It is really that simple, and that difficult.
So what do the Red Sox want tonight? What all those on the verge of death crave—to remain alive. We would like to remain alive for another month, but we would take another week, another day, even another hour. The Red Sox know this craving; we have felt it before. We felt it in 2004, when we remained on life support for days and in 2007. We know what it is like to fear that each breath is your last. But we also know how divine it is to taunt death, to escape his icy grip and flip him the bird.
Justin Masterson knows. The pious pitcher informed his Facebook friends that he is “happy to be alive. He gets it. Masterson has taken to heart the simple message of a preacher from Pittsburgh “It’s such a good feeling to know you’re alive.”
And on Friday morning, when the series is 3-2 Jose, and Justin Masterson and Dice K will make a snappy new day. Jose will be back, when they day is new, and he will have more KEYS for you. You’ll have things you want to talk about. Jose… will… too.
2. According to Wikipedia, Tampa is a Calusa Indian word that means “sticks of fire.”
Having watched the Rays brutalize Red Sox pitching, for three straight games, it seems that the first settlers of what is now Hillsborough County saw something coming. The Tampa sticks have been alight.
But Jose knows a thing or two about fire (note: he got his fireman ‘chit as a Scout), and it gives him reason to be hopeful. Let’s put it this way, there is a reason that eternal flames are not fueled by wood. Wood burns bright and beautiful crackling and colorful, but all of sudden, a funny thing happens—it goes out. There is no doubt that the Rays’ sticks have been burning bright for three nights now, but they cannot burn forever. They are not the Maccabees, we are not the Syrians and this is not Chanukah.
3. Jose spent much of Monday and Tuesday hanging around with a dog named Kazmir. It might have been Cashmere on Kashmir, but those are all really just regional variations on spelling. Little did he know at the time, that his aunt and uncle’s dog would get the call to start for Tampax Bay in the crucial fifth game of the ALCS.
Joe Maddon has managed brilliantly this series, but you’ve got to wonder what he’s thinking right now. Given the opportunity to choose between pitching Jamie Shields, who has been brilliant in the post season and a dog, he went with the dog.
What’s that, tonight’s starting pitcher is a man named Kazmir and not a canine? Are you sure? Well, what’s the difference? Neither of them is going to pick up the win tonight and either of them would have been a good acquisition in return for Victor Zambrano.
Actually, check that, there is one difference. The dog, when he barks enough can actually convince people that he’s dangerous. There’s nothing the lefty can do these days to scare anyone.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE ALCS.
Tuesday, October 14
ALCS Game 4--My Name is Wakefield
It's time for Jose Melendez's KEYS TO THE ALCS.
1. Jose though a lot about not writing for today’s game.
Why should he? If the Red Sox aren’t going to bother to show up for a critical ALCS game, then why should Jose? The Red Sox came back from a 3-0 deficit in 2004 and a 3-1 deficit in 2007, so why should Jose even worry until the season is on the line?
In fact, it made sense for Jose to skip out on writing. He had a long day of touring Montgomery (note: move along, nothing to see here) and traveling to Atlanta and he was tired. After sucking down half a burger for dinner with his cousin Chris, Chris’s girlfriend Jen and his fellow travelers, catching a little bit of blues at the Northside and then going to sleep seemed like a perfectly reasonable alternative to writing a baseball blog about a team that was humiliated and didn’t even seem to care.
But something happened at the Northside, a dank Atlanta bar where upon entering one seems about as likely to be murdered as to see some good blues. The band showed up late. They showed up late, but they showed up. On a Monday night they showed up. In front of ten people they showed up. For almost certainly no money, they showed up. And they wailed. In front of ten patrons, half shooting pool or playing Donkey Kong, the other half quietly pulling on Pabst tall boys, they wailed. Johnny Triggers and his accomplices played as thought it were Friday night at CBGB, as if they were Robert Johnson on the Mississippi Delta. They played with all the fire and fury of a Baptist revival.
The patrons showed up too. Not many, but the folks who were there, well three of them anyway, roared into action as the band struck up Folsom Prison Blues. A graying lump of a man, a San Antonio native turned Atlanta long timer, sucked from a pitcher gripped tightly in each fist as a tromped around the dance floor, hopping up on to chairs, making sweet love to a supporting column for the roof and writhing on the floor like a fish on the door of sweet death. He was joined by two other men, younger fellows, but at least as drunk, swinging each other around, gesticulating like an epileptic on crack… convulsing.
“I have seen some crazy things in this bar,” said Jen. “I have seen a couple go at it on the bar. I have seen men who did not know it dance with prostitutes but I have never seen this.”
It was a Monday night.
It was a Monday night and fueled by nothing more potent than beer and Jack with a chaser of self-loathing, these men had shown up and given it their all.
So why couldn’t Jose?
Why couldn’t Jose show up on the proverbial Monday night of the ALCS? Why couldn’t the Red Sox?
What the Red Sox need, what Jose needs, is to go mad. We need to writhe on the floor; we need to convulse; we need to double fist pitchers of watery suds. It’s what Kevin Millar would do. It’s what the Red Sox must do. It’s what Jose will do.
2. You know what? Maybe we don’t understand the Rays? Maybe we have to get inside of their skulls to have a chance at beating them. Jose has done some research and he has turned up some insights from one of the most celebrated Rays of all, Ray Kroc the founder of McDonald’s, which Jose assumes is some kind of Scottish restaurant.
Kroc said, and this is important, that “We take the hamburger business more seriously than anyone else.”
Think about that. Consider the fact that the Rays have had access to that kind of wisdom for the entire year and we just got it now. Wait, that doesn’t seem right. The difference of hamburgers in yesterdays game was at most two runs and we lost by like eight.
“Creativity is a highfalutin word for the work I have to do between now and Tuesday.” There we go, that makes some sense. The Rays know what they have to do between now and Tuesday (note: today). Do the Sox?
We need to hit. That’s creativity. We need to pitch. That’s creativity. We need to catch—creativity. We need to throw—curiously, not creativity. If watching soccer has taught Jose anything, it’s that Kroc is right. Matches are won by creativity, specifically creativity in the midfield, and if the Sox have it Jose has not seen it. It’s Tuesday men, let’s create.
3. It’s up to Wakefield. That’s fine Weezer is down with it.
My name is Timmy
I'm hurling for my team
Haven’t pitched in weeks
But this is now a theme
Come and pitch Game Four
Don’t let Tampa Score
I don’t need the dome
I’ll pitch fine at home
In the LCS
I have pitched my best
On two weeks of rest.
Let me tell you 'bout it
The knuckler can travel through time
A break that makes you lose your mind
The batter said, "Hey man, how’s it move that way"
They couldn’t get the ball into play.
My name is Wakefield
I keep my nails filed real fine
Ain’t got much of a fastball
But this game is still mine
It’s still mine...
“Tell me what to do.
We can’t hit this guy.
Never pitches flat”
And you know what else?
Guess what I received in the mail today
Words of deep concern from my manager
The series goes not as he planned
Big Papi has injured his hand
Beckett can’t throw for a strike
So he grooves them right down the pike.
The Red Sox are playin’ at home
The Red Sox are playin’ at home
The Red Sox are playin’ at home
Yeah
The Red Sox are playin’ at home
The Red Sox are playin’ at home
The Red Sox are playin’ at home
Yeah yeah yeah
My name is Wakefield.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE ALCS.
1. Jose though a lot about not writing for today’s game.
Why should he? If the Red Sox aren’t going to bother to show up for a critical ALCS game, then why should Jose? The Red Sox came back from a 3-0 deficit in 2004 and a 3-1 deficit in 2007, so why should Jose even worry until the season is on the line?
In fact, it made sense for Jose to skip out on writing. He had a long day of touring Montgomery (note: move along, nothing to see here) and traveling to Atlanta and he was tired. After sucking down half a burger for dinner with his cousin Chris, Chris’s girlfriend Jen and his fellow travelers, catching a little bit of blues at the Northside and then going to sleep seemed like a perfectly reasonable alternative to writing a baseball blog about a team that was humiliated and didn’t even seem to care.
But something happened at the Northside, a dank Atlanta bar where upon entering one seems about as likely to be murdered as to see some good blues. The band showed up late. They showed up late, but they showed up. On a Monday night they showed up. In front of ten people they showed up. For almost certainly no money, they showed up. And they wailed. In front of ten patrons, half shooting pool or playing Donkey Kong, the other half quietly pulling on Pabst tall boys, they wailed. Johnny Triggers and his accomplices played as thought it were Friday night at CBGB, as if they were Robert Johnson on the Mississippi Delta. They played with all the fire and fury of a Baptist revival.
The patrons showed up too. Not many, but the folks who were there, well three of them anyway, roared into action as the band struck up Folsom Prison Blues. A graying lump of a man, a San Antonio native turned Atlanta long timer, sucked from a pitcher gripped tightly in each fist as a tromped around the dance floor, hopping up on to chairs, making sweet love to a supporting column for the roof and writhing on the floor like a fish on the door of sweet death. He was joined by two other men, younger fellows, but at least as drunk, swinging each other around, gesticulating like an epileptic on crack… convulsing.
“I have seen some crazy things in this bar,” said Jen. “I have seen a couple go at it on the bar. I have seen men who did not know it dance with prostitutes but I have never seen this.”
It was a Monday night.
It was a Monday night and fueled by nothing more potent than beer and Jack with a chaser of self-loathing, these men had shown up and given it their all.
So why couldn’t Jose?
Why couldn’t Jose show up on the proverbial Monday night of the ALCS? Why couldn’t the Red Sox?
What the Red Sox need, what Jose needs, is to go mad. We need to writhe on the floor; we need to convulse; we need to double fist pitchers of watery suds. It’s what Kevin Millar would do. It’s what the Red Sox must do. It’s what Jose will do.
2. You know what? Maybe we don’t understand the Rays? Maybe we have to get inside of their skulls to have a chance at beating them. Jose has done some research and he has turned up some insights from one of the most celebrated Rays of all, Ray Kroc the founder of McDonald’s, which Jose assumes is some kind of Scottish restaurant.
Kroc said, and this is important, that “We take the hamburger business more seriously than anyone else.”
Think about that. Consider the fact that the Rays have had access to that kind of wisdom for the entire year and we just got it now. Wait, that doesn’t seem right. The difference of hamburgers in yesterdays game was at most two runs and we lost by like eight.
“Creativity is a highfalutin word for the work I have to do between now and Tuesday.” There we go, that makes some sense. The Rays know what they have to do between now and Tuesday (note: today). Do the Sox?
We need to hit. That’s creativity. We need to pitch. That’s creativity. We need to catch—creativity. We need to throw—curiously, not creativity. If watching soccer has taught Jose anything, it’s that Kroc is right. Matches are won by creativity, specifically creativity in the midfield, and if the Sox have it Jose has not seen it. It’s Tuesday men, let’s create.
3. It’s up to Wakefield. That’s fine Weezer is down with it.
My name is Timmy
I'm hurling for my team
Haven’t pitched in weeks
But this is now a theme
Come and pitch Game Four
Don’t let Tampa Score
I don’t need the dome
I’ll pitch fine at home
In the LCS
I have pitched my best
On two weeks of rest.
Let me tell you 'bout it
The knuckler can travel through time
A break that makes you lose your mind
The batter said, "Hey man, how’s it move that way"
They couldn’t get the ball into play.
My name is Wakefield
I keep my nails filed real fine
Ain’t got much of a fastball
But this game is still mine
It’s still mine...
“Tell me what to do.
We can’t hit this guy.
Never pitches flat”
And you know what else?
Guess what I received in the mail today
Words of deep concern from my manager
The series goes not as he planned
Big Papi has injured his hand
Beckett can’t throw for a strike
So he grooves them right down the pike.
The Red Sox are playin’ at home
The Red Sox are playin’ at home
The Red Sox are playin’ at home
Yeah
The Red Sox are playin’ at home
The Red Sox are playin’ at home
The Red Sox are playin’ at home
Yeah yeah yeah
My name is Wakefield.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE ALCS.
Monday, October 13
ALCS Game 3--We Need to Be More Desperate
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE ALCS.
1. On Saturday, for the first time since 2003, Jose missed parts of a Red Sox playoff game. There were innings that he did not see on television, that he did not hear on the radio, that he did not even follow on Gamecast.
Jose was in Chattanooga, Tennessee on vacation and was doing what one does in Chattanooga, namely, going out to eat ribs. Jose had made the perfectly reasonable assumption that at any rib joint, the ALCS would be on at the bar. He was wrong. Apparently, in Chattanooga people would rather watch a college football game between two non-local games that will probably give everyone watching it eye cancer than a critical contest in the national pastime.
Jose wasn’t sure what to think. At first he was angry. How dare these people claim to be the real Americans, when they won’t even watch the national pastime? Any yokel can wear a flag pin, but sitting through a 5 and a half hour game? That takes some real patriotism and commitment to country.
Next he felt pity. How sad that these people don’t know the joy, the salvation that comes from Red Sox baseball.
Then he felt angry again. Finally he felt hungry, so he relied on the four different varieties of pork ribs to sooth his agitated soul.
The point is that when Jose left his hotel room, the Red Sox were up 2-0 with two outs in the bottom of the first, and when he returned, seven home runs later, they were down 8-6. Perhaps, the Tennesseans were on to something. Yes Jose missed five innings, but what had he really missed? Heartbreak? Anger? Despair? A $500 tab for smashing a hotel television?
By almost every normal standard, it would appear that Jose had made the right choice. He avoided pain (the blown lead) and received pleasure (ribs). He should have been a happy man. And yet he wasn’t.
Jose looks forward to this; we look forward to this. We crave the opportunity to feel. We are addicts. And like any addict we have built up tolerance. It is no longer enough to enjoy the elation of victory. We need it to hurt, to drag us through excruciating pain to create an ever-sharper contrast with the pleasure. We came back from 3-0 against the Yankees. We came back from 3-1 against the Indians. We will not feel truly alive in this series until we have to come back from down four games to the Rays. And that is where the danger lies. You can’t go down by four games. It is against the rules. It is up to the Red Sox to remember that in the relentless pursuit of thrills, of greater and greater highs, getting down four games is the overdose of playoff baseball—exciting but fatal.
2. Following St. Josh a Beckett’s second straight horrendous post-season outing, it is probably safe for us to assume that his oblique is not fine and that he is seriously injured. This is a problem, a big problem, but it is not unsolvable. There is precedent for remedying this. It’s just a few simple steps:
3. Sons of Sam Horn Stalwart Tudor Fever raised a great question the other day. “What is ‘Kotsay’ Pig Latin for? Jose is not a Latin Scholar, his second tongue is Gibberish, but he still knows enough—he thinks—to give it a try.
So we decline it right? And then decline it again? And we remove the “ay,” move the “s” to the front. And we get “Skot.” Suddenly, the reason for Kotsay’s inability to hit becomes clear—he’s a Scott. Think of the Scott’s in Red Sox history, Scoot, Williamson, Scott Sauerbeck, Scott Cassidy, Scott Bankhead and Scott Taylor were all pitchers. Scott Fletcher wasn’t a pitcher, but he hit like one. That leaves us with Scott Cooper, the worst two-time All-Star in MLB history as the upside for Scotts.
Of course, there is some evidence that while our translation is correct, our interpretation is lacking. Skot, is the translation of Kotsay’s last name, so perhaps the better historical analogy is George Scott. If Kotsay can hit like Boomer, that would help.
On a related note, since Jason Bay’s name ends in “ay” it is presumably Pig Latin as well, but what can it possibly be Pig Latin for? It would have to just be “B” right? In which case it’s good he’s playing in Boston, because if his name is “B” and he had a “”P on his head, like in his Pirate days, it might really confuse people.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE ALCS.
1. On Saturday, for the first time since 2003, Jose missed parts of a Red Sox playoff game. There were innings that he did not see on television, that he did not hear on the radio, that he did not even follow on Gamecast.
Jose was in Chattanooga, Tennessee on vacation and was doing what one does in Chattanooga, namely, going out to eat ribs. Jose had made the perfectly reasonable assumption that at any rib joint, the ALCS would be on at the bar. He was wrong. Apparently, in Chattanooga people would rather watch a college football game between two non-local games that will probably give everyone watching it eye cancer than a critical contest in the national pastime.
Jose wasn’t sure what to think. At first he was angry. How dare these people claim to be the real Americans, when they won’t even watch the national pastime? Any yokel can wear a flag pin, but sitting through a 5 and a half hour game? That takes some real patriotism and commitment to country.
Next he felt pity. How sad that these people don’t know the joy, the salvation that comes from Red Sox baseball.
Then he felt angry again. Finally he felt hungry, so he relied on the four different varieties of pork ribs to sooth his agitated soul.
The point is that when Jose left his hotel room, the Red Sox were up 2-0 with two outs in the bottom of the first, and when he returned, seven home runs later, they were down 8-6. Perhaps, the Tennesseans were on to something. Yes Jose missed five innings, but what had he really missed? Heartbreak? Anger? Despair? A $500 tab for smashing a hotel television?
By almost every normal standard, it would appear that Jose had made the right choice. He avoided pain (the blown lead) and received pleasure (ribs). He should have been a happy man. And yet he wasn’t.
Jose looks forward to this; we look forward to this. We crave the opportunity to feel. We are addicts. And like any addict we have built up tolerance. It is no longer enough to enjoy the elation of victory. We need it to hurt, to drag us through excruciating pain to create an ever-sharper contrast with the pleasure. We came back from 3-0 against the Yankees. We came back from 3-1 against the Indians. We will not feel truly alive in this series until we have to come back from down four games to the Rays. And that is where the danger lies. You can’t go down by four games. It is against the rules. It is up to the Red Sox to remember that in the relentless pursuit of thrills, of greater and greater highs, getting down four games is the overdose of playoff baseball—exciting but fatal.
2. Following St. Josh a Beckett’s second straight horrendous post-season outing, it is probably safe for us to assume that his oblique is not fine and that he is seriously injured. This is a problem, a big problem, but it is not unsolvable. There is precedent for remedying this. It’s just a few simple steps:
1. The team physician invents a procedure that temporarily fixes a strained oblique.If the Red Sox pursue these simple steps, Jose is pretty sure the old Josh Beckett will be ready for Game 6.
2. The physician practices the technique on dead people.
3. Beckett receives the procedure before each remaining start.
4. Beckett bleeds out of his wound and on to his jersey.
5. People talk about how heroic Beckett is.
6. Red Sox win the World Series
7. Beckett puts on 40 pounds.
8. People who don’t like Beckett start suggesting that the blood was fake and he just spilled marinara sauce on his shirt because look at him, he’s a fat slob.
3. Sons of Sam Horn Stalwart Tudor Fever raised a great question the other day. “What is ‘Kotsay’ Pig Latin for? Jose is not a Latin Scholar, his second tongue is Gibberish, but he still knows enough—he thinks—to give it a try.
So we decline it right? And then decline it again? And we remove the “ay,” move the “s” to the front. And we get “Skot.” Suddenly, the reason for Kotsay’s inability to hit becomes clear—he’s a Scott. Think of the Scott’s in Red Sox history, Scoot, Williamson, Scott Sauerbeck, Scott Cassidy, Scott Bankhead and Scott Taylor were all pitchers. Scott Fletcher wasn’t a pitcher, but he hit like one. That leaves us with Scott Cooper, the worst two-time All-Star in MLB history as the upside for Scotts.
Of course, there is some evidence that while our translation is correct, our interpretation is lacking. Skot, is the translation of Kotsay’s last name, so perhaps the better historical analogy is George Scott. If Kotsay can hit like Boomer, that would help.
On a related note, since Jason Bay’s name ends in “ay” it is presumably Pig Latin as well, but what can it possibly be Pig Latin for? It would have to just be “B” right? In which case it’s good he’s playing in Boston, because if his name is “B” and he had a “”P on his head, like in his Pirate days, it might really confuse people.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE ALCS.
Saturday, October 11
ALCS Game 2--Jose Sees the Future
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE ALCS.
1. Jose is taking a terrible risk here and breaking a cardinal rule. He is writing this KEYS before Game 1 even happened. It’s not that Jose wanted to do this, it’s just that this seemed like the only way to guarantee that there would be an actual KEYS for Game 2. You see, as you are reading this, Jose is somewhere on the road between Asheville and Chattanooga, which are, as best Jose understands, cities in the United States. Jose just somehow got it in his head that since he had a few days off, it would be okay to hit the road, even with the ALCS on. It works out pretty well. Jose gets to travel, and probably to still watch the games. The only loser is you. Instead of getting to read a 264 line epic retelling of the Bhagavad Gita via the story of Rays pitcher Scott Kazmir, you get this meta KEYS written on Friday 1AM. Suckers. Err… Patrons.
What Jose was trying to figure out was whether he should write this as if the Sox won Game 1 or as if they lost it. After careful consideration, Jose decided to assume the Sox lost Game 1, so then if the win everyone will be happy and not notice that he is kind of a jackass. Also, Jose was concerned that if he wrote that the Sox won game one and they lost, players might get confused and think that they only needed three more wins to get to the World Series. But then Jose remembered that Manny is no longer on the team, so he stopped worrying about that.
Here we go.
This was not how Jose imagined this series starting. In retrospect he should have known it was a bad sign when Gerald Williams threw out the first pitch. Still, he couldn’t have imagined that after hitting Jacoby Ellsbury to start the game, Jamie Shields would set down the next 25 batters in a row.
What he could have seen, what he should have seen, was that DiceK was going to struggle. Yes, Jose was an advocate of starting DiceK in Game 1 to eliminate the awful risk that he might have to start an eventual Game 7, but he couldn’t have foreseen that Dice would throw 240 pitches over five innings, walking 15 and scattering three runs. Wait, actually he could have foreseen it. It’s like pretty much every other DiceK playoff start.
On the upside, since, Dice did what he always does in the ALCS, when Jose writes his KEYS for Game 3 before Game 2 is over, he can write that St. Josh a Beckett won, because Beckett always pitches great in the ALCS. As anyone who plays the stock market can tell you, past performance is always a guarantee of future results. Right?
2. While Jose is not going to right a poem about Scott “Disputed Territoty” of Kazmir, Jose does feel like he is obliged to give you some background information on Tampa’s starter for tonight’s critical second game. So, let’s open it up. Any questions?
Yes, you. Why is Scott Kazmir disputed?
Well, no messing around from you is there? Does anyone have any questions about his childhood? Maybe his prom? Jose can tell you how Kazmir lost his virginity. It’s a funny story actually. No?
Well, on to the meat of the subject then.
As best Jose can tell, Kazmir, going back centuries, has been sacred to both Mets fans and Rays fans. Not so long after Tampa was given independence from the Yankee Empire, which had claimed it is a minor league fiefdom, it set up a major league team called the Devil Rays. Whereas the Yankees once had control over all the talent flowing into and out of baseball in Tampa, the new Devil Rays team was independent, and, however, clumsily, feeling its oats.
Freed from interference, the Devil Rays got any number of independent players to agree to side with them, such as Wade Boggs, who defected from the Yankees and Fred McGriff. Under the terms of the partition, Tampa could even deal with the New York Mets, the Yankees hated cross-town rival.
Under attack from a Yankees team that made the playoffs every year in recent memory, New York Mets acting GM Jim Duquette made a desperate agreement to cede Kazmir to Tampa under the condition that he would receive Victor Zambrano and Bartolome Fortunato to help him fend off Yankee aggression within the New York baseball market. When the deal was made, Mets fans, an overwhelming majority of whom wanted to keep Kazmir, were incensed and demanded Duquette’s firing. Ever since, Rays fans have insisted that the deal was legal and valid, while Mets fans have claimed that it cannot be valid as the man who signed it must have been brain dead.
As the Mets have suffered through intense turmoil over the past several years, the cause of Kazmir remains a focal point in public dissatisfaction. Major League Baseball has attempted to manage the hostility, but it turns out that they have even less power than the UN and only slightly less corrupt management.
3. It is really too bad for the Rays that they are not a hockey team. It just kind of seems like a waste to have, in Grant Balfour, the child of two of the greatest goalies of all time, Ed Belfour and Grant Fuhr, and no net to put him in. (Note: Why they changed his name from Belfour to Balfour Jose doesn’t know. Maybe they Americanized it when he immigrated from Canada.)
Do you think if they started to call the innings periods they could get him to pitch three instead of just one? Jose bets they’ve tried that, because Joe Maddon is awfully clever. Do you think Balfour spends his seven to eight innings in the bullpen wondering what infraction got him put in the penalty box for two hours and 45 minutes? When the Rays are at bat with the bases loaded does he get confused and thing that the Red Sox have a five-man advantage on the power play?
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE ALCS.
1. Jose is taking a terrible risk here and breaking a cardinal rule. He is writing this KEYS before Game 1 even happened. It’s not that Jose wanted to do this, it’s just that this seemed like the only way to guarantee that there would be an actual KEYS for Game 2. You see, as you are reading this, Jose is somewhere on the road between Asheville and Chattanooga, which are, as best Jose understands, cities in the United States. Jose just somehow got it in his head that since he had a few days off, it would be okay to hit the road, even with the ALCS on. It works out pretty well. Jose gets to travel, and probably to still watch the games. The only loser is you. Instead of getting to read a 264 line epic retelling of the Bhagavad Gita via the story of Rays pitcher Scott Kazmir, you get this meta KEYS written on Friday 1AM. Suckers. Err… Patrons.
What Jose was trying to figure out was whether he should write this as if the Sox won Game 1 or as if they lost it. After careful consideration, Jose decided to assume the Sox lost Game 1, so then if the win everyone will be happy and not notice that he is kind of a jackass. Also, Jose was concerned that if he wrote that the Sox won game one and they lost, players might get confused and think that they only needed three more wins to get to the World Series. But then Jose remembered that Manny is no longer on the team, so he stopped worrying about that.
Here we go.
This was not how Jose imagined this series starting. In retrospect he should have known it was a bad sign when Gerald Williams threw out the first pitch. Still, he couldn’t have imagined that after hitting Jacoby Ellsbury to start the game, Jamie Shields would set down the next 25 batters in a row.
What he could have seen, what he should have seen, was that DiceK was going to struggle. Yes, Jose was an advocate of starting DiceK in Game 1 to eliminate the awful risk that he might have to start an eventual Game 7, but he couldn’t have foreseen that Dice would throw 240 pitches over five innings, walking 15 and scattering three runs. Wait, actually he could have foreseen it. It’s like pretty much every other DiceK playoff start.
On the upside, since, Dice did what he always does in the ALCS, when Jose writes his KEYS for Game 3 before Game 2 is over, he can write that St. Josh a Beckett won, because Beckett always pitches great in the ALCS. As anyone who plays the stock market can tell you, past performance is always a guarantee of future results. Right?
2. While Jose is not going to right a poem about Scott “Disputed Territoty” of Kazmir, Jose does feel like he is obliged to give you some background information on Tampa’s starter for tonight’s critical second game. So, let’s open it up. Any questions?
Yes, you. Why is Scott Kazmir disputed?
Well, no messing around from you is there? Does anyone have any questions about his childhood? Maybe his prom? Jose can tell you how Kazmir lost his virginity. It’s a funny story actually. No?
Well, on to the meat of the subject then.
As best Jose can tell, Kazmir, going back centuries, has been sacred to both Mets fans and Rays fans. Not so long after Tampa was given independence from the Yankee Empire, which had claimed it is a minor league fiefdom, it set up a major league team called the Devil Rays. Whereas the Yankees once had control over all the talent flowing into and out of baseball in Tampa, the new Devil Rays team was independent, and, however, clumsily, feeling its oats.
Freed from interference, the Devil Rays got any number of independent players to agree to side with them, such as Wade Boggs, who defected from the Yankees and Fred McGriff. Under the terms of the partition, Tampa could even deal with the New York Mets, the Yankees hated cross-town rival.
Under attack from a Yankees team that made the playoffs every year in recent memory, New York Mets acting GM Jim Duquette made a desperate agreement to cede Kazmir to Tampa under the condition that he would receive Victor Zambrano and Bartolome Fortunato to help him fend off Yankee aggression within the New York baseball market. When the deal was made, Mets fans, an overwhelming majority of whom wanted to keep Kazmir, were incensed and demanded Duquette’s firing. Ever since, Rays fans have insisted that the deal was legal and valid, while Mets fans have claimed that it cannot be valid as the man who signed it must have been brain dead.
As the Mets have suffered through intense turmoil over the past several years, the cause of Kazmir remains a focal point in public dissatisfaction. Major League Baseball has attempted to manage the hostility, but it turns out that they have even less power than the UN and only slightly less corrupt management.
3. It is really too bad for the Rays that they are not a hockey team. It just kind of seems like a waste to have, in Grant Balfour, the child of two of the greatest goalies of all time, Ed Belfour and Grant Fuhr, and no net to put him in. (Note: Why they changed his name from Belfour to Balfour Jose doesn’t know. Maybe they Americanized it when he immigrated from Canada.)
Do you think if they started to call the innings periods they could get him to pitch three instead of just one? Jose bets they’ve tried that, because Joe Maddon is awfully clever. Do you think Balfour spends his seven to eight innings in the bullpen wondering what infraction got him put in the penalty box for two hours and 45 minutes? When the Rays are at bat with the bases loaded does he get confused and thing that the Red Sox have a five-man advantage on the power play?
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE ALCS.
Friday, October 10
ALDS Game 1 Good vs. Neutral
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE ALCS.
1. In years past, this would be where Jose wrote about an epic struggle between good and evil, of the forces of light and darkness twirling in their endless tango, or dancing the forbidden dance--lambada. Jose was not exaggerating. The Red Sox are good and the Yankees are evil. (Note: Well, now the Red Sox are good and the Yankees are bad.) The Cleveland Indians, if not outright evil, are at least racist and insensitive. While good vs. insensitive isn’t quite as potent as good vs. evil, it at least has a little bit of kick. But Tampa? This year’s ALCS is more of a story of good vs. neutral.
The story of good vs. neutral has already been told in comic form in the cartoon Futurama. In the relevant episode 25 Star General Zapp Brannigan takes the Democratic Order of Planets to war with “the neutral planet.” It reminds Jose quite a bit of the Red Sox current crusade against neutrality, though Tito does not, blessedly, wear Brannigan’s crushed red velour uniform. (Note: He can’t; MLB discipline chief Bob Watson has ruled that velour violates the MLB uniform policy.)
This is a problem. We are in a battle of good vs. neutral, and neutral is simply hard to get excited about. If one were to put together one of those head-to-head charts that reporters without ideas so love, it would be a one sided affair.
Food
Boston: Clam Chowder
Tampa: Meh
Edge: Boston
Historic Sights
Boston: Old North Church
Tampa: Meh
Edge Boston
Favorite Sons
Boston: JFK
Tampa: MEH
Edge: Boston
Local TV Show
Boston: Cheers
Tampa: Meh
Edge: Boston
Local Movie
Boston: Celtic Pride
Tampa: Meh
Edge: Tampa
What? Staring at a grey screen for three hours would be dramatically better than Celtic Pride. Damon Wayans as an NBA star? The Jazz winning a championship? Please.
So it is hard for Jose to get too fired up about a series that can only be described as meh. Still, it is Jose’s job to get fired up and get fired up he will. Bring on the kiln!
Since we have established Tampa as neutral, think of it as Switzerland. Switzerland is neutral, and everyone loves them, what with their excellent chocolate, versatile knives and $35 bagels.
Not Jose.
Jose is pissed off at the Swiss.
Some of you may remember a Kids in the Hall bit years ago about a guy named Ed who hated the Swiss. Jose is not imitating that. That was a joke. Jose is not joking. He really hates the Swiss. He is probably a little racist towards them. (Note: Okay, maybe he is joking a little bit. Please don’t sick the Anti-Swiss Defamation League on Jose, he can’t bear to issue apologies in their unintelligible German, French, Italian and Romansh.) \
His hate, like most hate, is simple. The entire Swiss economy for nearly 80 years has been built on money laundering. The Swiss launder money for anyone: terrorists, tax evaders, drug dealers, the CIA, the KGB, Nazis, everyone. They are the Zoots of money laundering. Now, normally if a country did this, like say Vanuatu, we would shun them. Maybe we wouldn’t shut them off from the world, but we would point out that they were a bunch of jerks profiting on the misery of others. But not the Swiss. No, no, they get to have UN institutions, even though they weren’t even a UN member until recently, and the International Committee of the Red Cross and to guard the Pope. Everyone loves the Swiss.
But at root, neutrality veers awfully close to amorality. There are individual people who are neutral like the Swiss. There are people who, like the Swiss, look only to their own interests, steering clear of committing to any position save their own personal good. We call these people sociopaths. We do not give them UN offices (note: Kurt Waldheim excepted). We do not let them guard the Pope.
So as we head into this series with Tampa, remember that there is nothing quite so insidious as creeping neutrality. Demand that the Tampa Rays give up their stolen Nazi gold.
2. Over the years, Jose has had a lot of fun with the Rays, calling them Tampax Bay and comparing the to tuberculosis. Back when they were the Devil Rays or D Rays, Jose may even have suggested that they should change their name to the Tampa Bay Dres and have a picture of the Yo! MTV Raps star Dr. Dre on their caps. Dr. Dre could also be team physician. (Note: He would probably not be noticeably worse than former Red Sox physician Dr. Arthur Pappas. As best Jose knows, Marty Barrett has never sued Dr. Dre for malpractice.)
Now that the Tampa Rays are good, people have asked Jose if he needs to change the way he talks about them. Are feminine hygiene jokes really appropriate when one is talking about the reigning A.L. East champions? It’s a fair question.
After a lot of thought, Jose has concluded, reluctantly that it is no longer fair to call them the Tampax Bay Rays.
It just isn’t fair… to Tampax.
Tampax is the number one selling brand of tampon, and Jose doesn’t think it’s right to connect them to a baseball team that will finish only second in the American League. Also, it didn’t take Tampax ten years in existence for their product to be successful. If Tampax had waited 10 years to perform adequately, then… well, let’s just sat it would have been sloppier than the Rays’ pre-2008 defense. So not only is Jose renouncing the use of the term “Tampax Bay” (note: at least until tomorrow) Jose is demanding that the Rays remove the libelous TB from their caps. Jose suggests that they replace it with a nice OB, which Jose understands, is a less successful brand of tampon.
3. How weird is it that the Rays have decided to start Jamie Shields in Game 1? Have the Red Sox ever beat two pitchers named Shields in consecutive games before? (Note: The Sox defeated Scott Shields to win Game 4 of the ALDS.)
Also, what is David Price, who is Jose’s Congressman here in Durham doing pitching for the Rays? Can he stay in Congress, or did he just get elected from here when he was playing for Tampa’s AAA affiliate the Durham Bulls?
This just makes Jose really mad. There’s a financial crisis, a war and some sort of emergency involving commemorative coins going on, and this guy Price is going to be sitting in the Tampa bullpen? Some congressman. Jose knows, Price will probably claim that there’s a phone in the bullpen, so he can do work from there, but Jose does not believe that for a second. Price needs to get out of the Tampa bullpen and back to Washington so he can work hard on getting Durham the bioweapons lab we need to defend ourselves against Raleigh.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE ALCS.
1. In years past, this would be where Jose wrote about an epic struggle between good and evil, of the forces of light and darkness twirling in their endless tango, or dancing the forbidden dance--lambada. Jose was not exaggerating. The Red Sox are good and the Yankees are evil. (Note: Well, now the Red Sox are good and the Yankees are bad.) The Cleveland Indians, if not outright evil, are at least racist and insensitive. While good vs. insensitive isn’t quite as potent as good vs. evil, it at least has a little bit of kick. But Tampa? This year’s ALCS is more of a story of good vs. neutral.
The story of good vs. neutral has already been told in comic form in the cartoon Futurama. In the relevant episode 25 Star General Zapp Brannigan takes the Democratic Order of Planets to war with “the neutral planet.” It reminds Jose quite a bit of the Red Sox current crusade against neutrality, though Tito does not, blessedly, wear Brannigan’s crushed red velour uniform. (Note: He can’t; MLB discipline chief Bob Watson has ruled that velour violates the MLB uniform policy.)
This is a problem. We are in a battle of good vs. neutral, and neutral is simply hard to get excited about. If one were to put together one of those head-to-head charts that reporters without ideas so love, it would be a one sided affair.
Food
Boston: Clam Chowder
Tampa: Meh
Edge: Boston
Historic Sights
Boston: Old North Church
Tampa: Meh
Edge Boston
Favorite Sons
Boston: JFK
Tampa: MEH
Edge: Boston
Local TV Show
Boston: Cheers
Tampa: Meh
Edge: Boston
Local Movie
Boston: Celtic Pride
Tampa: Meh
Edge: Tampa
What? Staring at a grey screen for three hours would be dramatically better than Celtic Pride. Damon Wayans as an NBA star? The Jazz winning a championship? Please.
So it is hard for Jose to get too fired up about a series that can only be described as meh. Still, it is Jose’s job to get fired up and get fired up he will. Bring on the kiln!
Since we have established Tampa as neutral, think of it as Switzerland. Switzerland is neutral, and everyone loves them, what with their excellent chocolate, versatile knives and $35 bagels.
Not Jose.
Jose is pissed off at the Swiss.
Some of you may remember a Kids in the Hall bit years ago about a guy named Ed who hated the Swiss. Jose is not imitating that. That was a joke. Jose is not joking. He really hates the Swiss. He is probably a little racist towards them. (Note: Okay, maybe he is joking a little bit. Please don’t sick the Anti-Swiss Defamation League on Jose, he can’t bear to issue apologies in their unintelligible German, French, Italian and Romansh.) \
His hate, like most hate, is simple. The entire Swiss economy for nearly 80 years has been built on money laundering. The Swiss launder money for anyone: terrorists, tax evaders, drug dealers, the CIA, the KGB, Nazis, everyone. They are the Zoots of money laundering. Now, normally if a country did this, like say Vanuatu, we would shun them. Maybe we wouldn’t shut them off from the world, but we would point out that they were a bunch of jerks profiting on the misery of others. But not the Swiss. No, no, they get to have UN institutions, even though they weren’t even a UN member until recently, and the International Committee of the Red Cross and to guard the Pope. Everyone loves the Swiss.
But at root, neutrality veers awfully close to amorality. There are individual people who are neutral like the Swiss. There are people who, like the Swiss, look only to their own interests, steering clear of committing to any position save their own personal good. We call these people sociopaths. We do not give them UN offices (note: Kurt Waldheim excepted). We do not let them guard the Pope.
So as we head into this series with Tampa, remember that there is nothing quite so insidious as creeping neutrality. Demand that the Tampa Rays give up their stolen Nazi gold.
2. Over the years, Jose has had a lot of fun with the Rays, calling them Tampax Bay and comparing the to tuberculosis. Back when they were the Devil Rays or D Rays, Jose may even have suggested that they should change their name to the Tampa Bay Dres and have a picture of the Yo! MTV Raps star Dr. Dre on their caps. Dr. Dre could also be team physician. (Note: He would probably not be noticeably worse than former Red Sox physician Dr. Arthur Pappas. As best Jose knows, Marty Barrett has never sued Dr. Dre for malpractice.)
Now that the Tampa Rays are good, people have asked Jose if he needs to change the way he talks about them. Are feminine hygiene jokes really appropriate when one is talking about the reigning A.L. East champions? It’s a fair question.
After a lot of thought, Jose has concluded, reluctantly that it is no longer fair to call them the Tampax Bay Rays.
It just isn’t fair… to Tampax.
Tampax is the number one selling brand of tampon, and Jose doesn’t think it’s right to connect them to a baseball team that will finish only second in the American League. Also, it didn’t take Tampax ten years in existence for their product to be successful. If Tampax had waited 10 years to perform adequately, then… well, let’s just sat it would have been sloppier than the Rays’ pre-2008 defense. So not only is Jose renouncing the use of the term “Tampax Bay” (note: at least until tomorrow) Jose is demanding that the Rays remove the libelous TB from their caps. Jose suggests that they replace it with a nice OB, which Jose understands, is a less successful brand of tampon.
3. How weird is it that the Rays have decided to start Jamie Shields in Game 1? Have the Red Sox ever beat two pitchers named Shields in consecutive games before? (Note: The Sox defeated Scott Shields to win Game 4 of the ALDS.)
Also, what is David Price, who is Jose’s Congressman here in Durham doing pitching for the Rays? Can he stay in Congress, or did he just get elected from here when he was playing for Tampa’s AAA affiliate the Durham Bulls?
This just makes Jose really mad. There’s a financial crisis, a war and some sort of emergency involving commemorative coins going on, and this guy Price is going to be sitting in the Tampa bullpen? Some congressman. Jose knows, Price will probably claim that there’s a phone in the bullpen, so he can do work from there, but Jose does not believe that for a second. Price needs to get out of the Tampa bullpen and back to Washington so he can work hard on getting Durham the bioweapons lab we need to defend ourselves against Raleigh.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE ALCS.
Monday, October 6
ALDS Game 4--Must Win Game
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE ALDS.
1. The Sox may be up 2 games to 1, but let’s not kid ourselves, tonight is a must win game.
There are plenty of reasons it’s a must win. Jose doesn’t want to go back to Anaheim, and he sure as hell doesn’t want to see Dice pitch another winner take all game. Dice in a decisive game is like having ulcer surgery. It will probably work out but there will be a lot of nausea and discomfort. But that’s not the real problem. The real problem is that if there is a game on Wednesday night, Jose is almost definitely going to fail his microeconomics exam at 8:30 Thursday morning.
Think of Jose as the Mark Kotsay of microeconomics. You look at Jose’s resume, his background and his skills and you think, “Hey, Jose should be a pretty nice fit here. He’s the sort of guy I might like to have doing microeconomics for me. I wouldn’t want him to be the first guy I go to when I need to do a utility maximization problem, but having him as a second or third option might be pretty good.”
So you trade some junk to another team to acquire Jose as a backup economics student, and you have him do a problem when one of your economists goes down with, social anxiety disorder probably. So far so good. But then you see him work. Awful. Abysmal. Just flailing at the problems really.
Jose’s approach to economics is a lot like Kotsay’s approach to a critical at bat. He gets in there, guesses a few times and then ends up looking foolish.
On the other hand, no one has ever asked why Sean Casey isn’t doing Jose’s microeconomics problem sets.
2. One of the headlines in an Orange County Register blog this morning was “Hunter Escapes Ridicule.” The entry points out how unspeakably awful the Angles centerfielder was last night; he allowed a ball to drop for a three run single and was thrown out trying to stretch a single by what the Register calls the “length of a bowling ally” and Jose calls the length of a candlepin bowling alley. They are right, he was awful, but they go on to suggest that because the Angles won he will escape ridicule.
Wrong. Maybe he’s escaped ridicule so far but that ends now.
Torii, sure Jose could pick on you for the things that happened last night, or for hurting your knee jumping up and down in protest of a call. Jose could do that… and he will. You suck. Your judgment is poor at best! Snap.
But that’s not really what Jose wants to talk about. What he wants to talk about is your parentage. Torii Hunter? That’s really your name? You sound like singer/songwriter Torii Amos and Spider Man villain Kraven the Hunter had a baby.
Wait... did Jose hurt your feelings? Does the ridicule sting?
Jose is just saying he could see you sitting there at the piano singing weepy songs and breathing audibly, all while wearing a vest made from the head of a lion. And you know what? That would still be less humiliating than your performance in last night’s game.
These are your parents Torii Hunter. Feel the shame.
3. As Jose did his research for tonight’s game, he discovered that there was once a dot com called mylackey.com, which Jose can only assume, is affiliated with tonight’s Angels starter John Lackey. The idea behind mylackey was that busy professionals could use it to schedule services like dry cleaning and dog grooming. True to its namesake, mylackey guaranteed excellent service in non-essential situations. If you needed your dry cleaning done in two days but four days would be fine, no problem. However, in a really important situation, say if you needed a suit cleaned for a big meeting, mylackey would almost definitely come up short. Not only would it not get you your suit on time, it might set it on fire.
For example, let’s say you needed some flowers for your girlfriend’s birthday. With mylackey you could order them sent to her no problem, but there was a good chance that she would end up getting a bouquet of poison ivy with a wasps nest in it.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE ALDS.
1. The Sox may be up 2 games to 1, but let’s not kid ourselves, tonight is a must win game.
There are plenty of reasons it’s a must win. Jose doesn’t want to go back to Anaheim, and he sure as hell doesn’t want to see Dice pitch another winner take all game. Dice in a decisive game is like having ulcer surgery. It will probably work out but there will be a lot of nausea and discomfort. But that’s not the real problem. The real problem is that if there is a game on Wednesday night, Jose is almost definitely going to fail his microeconomics exam at 8:30 Thursday morning.
Think of Jose as the Mark Kotsay of microeconomics. You look at Jose’s resume, his background and his skills and you think, “Hey, Jose should be a pretty nice fit here. He’s the sort of guy I might like to have doing microeconomics for me. I wouldn’t want him to be the first guy I go to when I need to do a utility maximization problem, but having him as a second or third option might be pretty good.”
So you trade some junk to another team to acquire Jose as a backup economics student, and you have him do a problem when one of your economists goes down with, social anxiety disorder probably. So far so good. But then you see him work. Awful. Abysmal. Just flailing at the problems really.
Jose’s approach to economics is a lot like Kotsay’s approach to a critical at bat. He gets in there, guesses a few times and then ends up looking foolish.
On the other hand, no one has ever asked why Sean Casey isn’t doing Jose’s microeconomics problem sets.
2. One of the headlines in an Orange County Register blog this morning was “Hunter Escapes Ridicule.” The entry points out how unspeakably awful the Angles centerfielder was last night; he allowed a ball to drop for a three run single and was thrown out trying to stretch a single by what the Register calls the “length of a bowling ally” and Jose calls the length of a candlepin bowling alley. They are right, he was awful, but they go on to suggest that because the Angles won he will escape ridicule.
Wrong. Maybe he’s escaped ridicule so far but that ends now.
Torii, sure Jose could pick on you for the things that happened last night, or for hurting your knee jumping up and down in protest of a call. Jose could do that… and he will. You suck. Your judgment is poor at best! Snap.
But that’s not really what Jose wants to talk about. What he wants to talk about is your parentage. Torii Hunter? That’s really your name? You sound like singer/songwriter Torii Amos and Spider Man villain Kraven the Hunter had a baby.
Wait... did Jose hurt your feelings? Does the ridicule sting?
Jose is just saying he could see you sitting there at the piano singing weepy songs and breathing audibly, all while wearing a vest made from the head of a lion. And you know what? That would still be less humiliating than your performance in last night’s game.
These are your parents Torii Hunter. Feel the shame.
3. As Jose did his research for tonight’s game, he discovered that there was once a dot com called mylackey.com, which Jose can only assume, is affiliated with tonight’s Angels starter John Lackey. The idea behind mylackey was that busy professionals could use it to schedule services like dry cleaning and dog grooming. True to its namesake, mylackey guaranteed excellent service in non-essential situations. If you needed your dry cleaning done in two days but four days would be fine, no problem. However, in a really important situation, say if you needed a suit cleaned for a big meeting, mylackey would almost definitely come up short. Not only would it not get you your suit on time, it might set it on fire.
For example, let’s say you needed some flowers for your girlfriend’s birthday. With mylackey you could order them sent to her no problem, but there was a good chance that she would end up getting a bouquet of poison ivy with a wasps nest in it.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE ALDS.
Sunday, October 5
ALDS Game 3--Jose Ain't Got His Taco
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE ALDS.
1. Jose was hungry.
Not hungry like the Yankees after an impossibly long eight years without a championship, but still pretty hungry. He wanted something salty, something savory.
“Tacos!” he thought to himself. “Tacos would be fantastic.” To his great good fortune he no longer lived in the Mexican food wasteland known as Boston, so there was an actual chance of getting some decent Mexican food.
An authentic dive taqueria emerged from the glare of the noontime sun to his left, and Jose lopped a lazy left into the parking lot. Excited, obsessed even, he scampered out of the car and stomped towards the impending deliciousness.
Something wasn’t right. Jose felt too light, empty almost. At first he thought it was only his ravenous hunger but then he realized that he was literally too light. His keys were missing.
Now at first this might not sound too bad. So what if Jose didn’t have his KEYS. Why would he need KEYS for a taco stand? That was not the problem. Even if Jose doesn’t have KEYS, he always has KEYS. Right up here. (Note: Jose is pointing at his head.) Jose had his KEYS, what he didn’t have was his keys. Those were dangling from the ignition of his still running car.
Realizing his mistake, Jose yanked at the door of his Carolina blue Corolla. No luck. The door was locked tighter than an Angels team down two games.
Desperate, Jose turned to the middle aged Latino fellow one spot over.
“Hi, sorry to bother you, but you don’t know how to pop a car door do you?”
The man flashed a sheepish, embarrassed grin. “ No, I don’t know how to. Sorry.”
What he meant, Jose is pretty sure, is “You think that because I’m Latino I know how to pop open a locked car door? That’s racist.”
This would be a reasonable assumption, but Jose isn’t racist, he just really needed to get into his car, and this guy was the closest possible person. Also, how could this guy have though Jose was racist against Latinos? He must somehow not have known that Jose pretends to be a Latino on the Internet.
As panic gave way to calm, Jose noticed that across the street there was a garage. He walked over and approached the two mechanics as they took a break from working on an elevated automobile.
They were two black guys. “Great,” thought Jose to himself. “They will think Jose is racist too. And maybe they will be right. It’s not like Jose pretends to be a black guy on the Internet.”
“Sorry to bother you guys,” Jose began. “But do either of you know how to pop a locked car door?”
“Sure,” chirped the taller one, his short dreadlocks framing a gleaming grin. “He used to steal cars!” He pointed at his colleague, a round-faced fellow with cherub cheeks.
“He’s joking,” the cherub cheeked mechanic added, after allowing enough to for it to be awkward.
These two fellows, Kenyans it turned out, were decidedly not car thieves. They spent ten minutes reading an instruction booklet on how to break into a car, and shoving wooden wedges into Jose’ door before finally managing to wriggle a tool in and depress the window switch. It was not quick work with a slim Jim, but it did the job.
Jose thanked them profusely, gave them $10, all the cash he had on him, and they returned to work, and Jose returned to…. Shit. Jose had given all of his cash to the friendly Kenyans who had earned it. This left him unable to purchase even a single taco.
This brings us to the point, which as you recall, is that this is a Red Sox blog. As Royce Clayton might put it, “Jose ain’t got his taco.” Therefore, the Red Sox absolutely must make the World Series. As Jose recalls, when you get to the World Series, if someone steal a base, you get a free taco, and Jose still really wants a taco.
2. St. Josh a Beckett will pitch tonight despite a strained oblique, which is pretty amazing given that we were all concerned that his season might be over a week ago. What Jose wonders is whether the Catholic Church has started the process of certifying that this is indeed a miracle. Obviously, St. Beckett doesn’t need it to be a miracle. He’s already got the two required for sainthood, the 2003 and 2007 postseasons, still, it seems important that these things be properly documented.
As Jose understands it, the first step of the process takes place within the diocese, so presumably Cardinal O’Malley has sent a team to Fenway tonight to interview the witnesses to this miracle.
Jose feels pretty good about the chances that this will be certified. It’s probably not a first-degree miracle such as resurrection from the dead, we haven’t seen that here since October 2004, but it seems like it could absolutely be a third degree miracle, recovery from an illness in a remarkably short period of time.
Either way, it puts Josh Beckett way above that other St. Beckett, who couldn’t even keep England Catholic four hundred years after his death.
3. In tonight’s do or die game, the Angels throw Joe Saunders against St. Josh a Beckett. Jose is not worried. He has seen the show French and Saunders a few times on Comedy Central, so he knows that Saunders is a slightly overweight British woman. Jose has seen weirder things in the playoffs (note: see Eric “I don’t need to touch home plate, home plate needs to touch me” Byrnes.) but he just doesn’t see the Red Sox being shut down by an aging comedienne.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE ALDS.
1. Jose was hungry.
Not hungry like the Yankees after an impossibly long eight years without a championship, but still pretty hungry. He wanted something salty, something savory.
“Tacos!” he thought to himself. “Tacos would be fantastic.” To his great good fortune he no longer lived in the Mexican food wasteland known as Boston, so there was an actual chance of getting some decent Mexican food.
An authentic dive taqueria emerged from the glare of the noontime sun to his left, and Jose lopped a lazy left into the parking lot. Excited, obsessed even, he scampered out of the car and stomped towards the impending deliciousness.
Something wasn’t right. Jose felt too light, empty almost. At first he thought it was only his ravenous hunger but then he realized that he was literally too light. His keys were missing.
Now at first this might not sound too bad. So what if Jose didn’t have his KEYS. Why would he need KEYS for a taco stand? That was not the problem. Even if Jose doesn’t have KEYS, he always has KEYS. Right up here. (Note: Jose is pointing at his head.) Jose had his KEYS, what he didn’t have was his keys. Those were dangling from the ignition of his still running car.
Realizing his mistake, Jose yanked at the door of his Carolina blue Corolla. No luck. The door was locked tighter than an Angels team down two games.
Desperate, Jose turned to the middle aged Latino fellow one spot over.
“Hi, sorry to bother you, but you don’t know how to pop a car door do you?”
The man flashed a sheepish, embarrassed grin. “ No, I don’t know how to. Sorry.”
What he meant, Jose is pretty sure, is “You think that because I’m Latino I know how to pop open a locked car door? That’s racist.”
This would be a reasonable assumption, but Jose isn’t racist, he just really needed to get into his car, and this guy was the closest possible person. Also, how could this guy have though Jose was racist against Latinos? He must somehow not have known that Jose pretends to be a Latino on the Internet.
As panic gave way to calm, Jose noticed that across the street there was a garage. He walked over and approached the two mechanics as they took a break from working on an elevated automobile.
They were two black guys. “Great,” thought Jose to himself. “They will think Jose is racist too. And maybe they will be right. It’s not like Jose pretends to be a black guy on the Internet.”
“Sorry to bother you guys,” Jose began. “But do either of you know how to pop a locked car door?”
“Sure,” chirped the taller one, his short dreadlocks framing a gleaming grin. “He used to steal cars!” He pointed at his colleague, a round-faced fellow with cherub cheeks.
“He’s joking,” the cherub cheeked mechanic added, after allowing enough to for it to be awkward.
These two fellows, Kenyans it turned out, were decidedly not car thieves. They spent ten minutes reading an instruction booklet on how to break into a car, and shoving wooden wedges into Jose’ door before finally managing to wriggle a tool in and depress the window switch. It was not quick work with a slim Jim, but it did the job.
Jose thanked them profusely, gave them $10, all the cash he had on him, and they returned to work, and Jose returned to…. Shit. Jose had given all of his cash to the friendly Kenyans who had earned it. This left him unable to purchase even a single taco.
This brings us to the point, which as you recall, is that this is a Red Sox blog. As Royce Clayton might put it, “Jose ain’t got his taco.” Therefore, the Red Sox absolutely must make the World Series. As Jose recalls, when you get to the World Series, if someone steal a base, you get a free taco, and Jose still really wants a taco.
2. St. Josh a Beckett will pitch tonight despite a strained oblique, which is pretty amazing given that we were all concerned that his season might be over a week ago. What Jose wonders is whether the Catholic Church has started the process of certifying that this is indeed a miracle. Obviously, St. Beckett doesn’t need it to be a miracle. He’s already got the two required for sainthood, the 2003 and 2007 postseasons, still, it seems important that these things be properly documented.
As Jose understands it, the first step of the process takes place within the diocese, so presumably Cardinal O’Malley has sent a team to Fenway tonight to interview the witnesses to this miracle.
Jose feels pretty good about the chances that this will be certified. It’s probably not a first-degree miracle such as resurrection from the dead, we haven’t seen that here since October 2004, but it seems like it could absolutely be a third degree miracle, recovery from an illness in a remarkably short period of time.
Either way, it puts Josh Beckett way above that other St. Beckett, who couldn’t even keep England Catholic four hundred years after his death.
3. In tonight’s do or die game, the Angels throw Joe Saunders against St. Josh a Beckett. Jose is not worried. He has seen the show French and Saunders a few times on Comedy Central, so he knows that Saunders is a slightly overweight British woman. Jose has seen weirder things in the playoffs (note: see Eric “I don’t need to touch home plate, home plate needs to touch me” Byrnes.) but he just doesn’t see the Red Sox being shut down by an aging comedienne.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE ALDS.
Friday, October 3
ALDS Game 2--SNAP!
It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE ALDS.
1. George Elliott, the famous transsexual author, once wrote “The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.”
Jose is not sure exactly when (s)he wrote that, but he suspects it was after one of the ten consecutive post season games the Red Sox have taken from the Los Calanaheim Angles.
Unlike many moments in the history of the Boston Red Sox, these games against the Angels have been golden moments, all of them. From Hendu’s homer, to Roger Clemens inexplicably winning a Game 7 (note: thank God, Jeff Suppan wasn’t starting for the Angles that night), to Papi’s walk off, to Manny’s fly into the night last fall, the good moments against the Angels are wound together in such a smooth and subtle continuum that it is easy to miss exactly how special, how golden each of these shimmering singularities is.
This series will fade. We will not remember most of its splendid moments. The 2004 ALDS is absent from the World Series DVD collection. The same holds for 2007. These series are forgotten, picayune overtures that hint at Act I and Act II before being retired to hazy memory. Despite the dramatic walk off homers in 2004 and 2007, do we remember those moments the way we remember ALDS moments against other opponents? Will anything from this series remind us of O’Leary seven RBI’s in the 1999 ALDS finale or Pedro’s six no hit innings? Will any pitch seem as extraordinary as Derek Lowe’s back door breaking ball to strike out Terence Long in 2003?
These series against the Angels begin with haste and end as quickly and unceremoniously as a series in May. We cannot see them and savor them. We know them only as something has passed and is then forgotten.
Jose never thought he would say this after reading Silas Marner, George Elliott is making sense.
Still, the story in incomplete. There is more going on here then the abrupt evaporation of golden moments. There is something more sinister, violent even.
There is another quote about the Angels that is a partner in describing the long streak, and the short series. Jack Handy of Saturday Night Live once said over soothing music and calming images “It’s true that every time you hear a bell, an angel gets its wings. But what they don’t tell you is that every time you hear a mouse trap snap, an angel gets set on fire.”
SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! SNAP!
Huh, that was 11. Funny.
2. In 1867, Japan began the period of transition from feudalism to industrial society and colonial power called the Meiji Restoration. The Restoration came in direct response to Commodore Matthew Perry’s success at forcing Japan to open in 1853. The superior firepower of Perry’s black ships convinced elements in Japan that the country needed to modernize rapidly or else it would succumb to Western power. In other words, the Japanese needed to learn from their enemies and make fundamental adjustments in how they organized themselves in order to compete.
Over the past year, the Angels have undergone a similar process. After being humiliated by Commodore Tito, and his black, err black, white and Dominican, fleet in 2007, the Angels realized that they needed to learn from the Red Sox if they were to compete with them. As a result, they shifted from being a team that relied entirely on speed and acquired Mark Teixera to give them the best possible (note: though still inadequate) facsimile of Boston’s 3-4 slugger combination.
It worked. Just like Japan in the Meiji period, the Angels went through a rapid and spectacular transformation.
The crowning validation of the Meiji Restoration was Japan’s victory in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05. Japan won despite the fact that Jose’s great-grandfather had gotten the hell out of the country one-year prior, so they were at a huge disadvantage.
So the validation of the Angels Restoration should be a victory over the Boston Red Sox. But where is it? It is as though a strong and modernized Japan laid siege to Port Arthur and then gave up after three days because it was hard and kind of boring. If the Angles don’t show some spine, the Red Sox won’t even need to Teddy Roosevelt to cut us a sweetheart deal in Portsmouth, we will just dictate terms.
When all was said and done, the British presented the Japanese with a lock of admiral Nelson’s hair, to commemorate their victory in the battle of Tsushima. If the Angels keep playing like they have been, they won’t even get a lock of Jeff Nelson’s hair.
3. Orange County Register columnist Randy Youngman, which Jose assumes is his porn name, joined in the Greek chorus of columnists muttering in monotone that the Angles postseason losing streak against the Sox goes back to 1986. But Youngman breaks free from the crowd and distinguishes himself as the choragus by invoking the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in his recollection.
While he does not explicitly compare the losing streak to Chernobyl, the comparison is implicit and it is devastating.
People died as the result of both events (note: Donnie Moore and Chernobyl victims rest in piece) and the impacts of both disasters continue to this day.
But the analogy is profoundly imperfect. Whereas Chernobyl destroyed an entire city, the Angels losing streak has only destroyed Orange County. Also, the Chernobyl reactor was enclosed in a massive concrete sarcophagus in order to contain the radiation. As best Jose knows, no one has considered building a massive sarcophagus to contain the Angels, even though teammates of 1986 team member Reggie Jackson regard him as radioactive.
If one insists on comparing the Angels losing streak to a Soviet disaster in 1986, Jose would suggest that the obvious analogy is the sinking of the SS Admiral Nakhimov, a passenger boat that collided with the bulk carrier Pyotr Vasyov in the Tsemes Bay, killing 423. The Pyotr Vasayov, was Japanese built, lending credence to the notion that the Angels will, this evening, be sunk by something built in Japan.
In addition, much like Angels skipper Mike Scioscia, the Admiral Nakhimov’s captain Vadim Markov seemed utterly unconcerned about the impending disaster, saying, “Don't worry. We will pass clear of each other. We will take care of everything."
There is one major difference, however, that may prove decisive. The Admiral Nakhimov did not have monkey.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE ALDS.
1. George Elliott, the famous transsexual author, once wrote “The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.”
Jose is not sure exactly when (s)he wrote that, but he suspects it was after one of the ten consecutive post season games the Red Sox have taken from the Los Calanaheim Angles.
Unlike many moments in the history of the Boston Red Sox, these games against the Angels have been golden moments, all of them. From Hendu’s homer, to Roger Clemens inexplicably winning a Game 7 (note: thank God, Jeff Suppan wasn’t starting for the Angles that night), to Papi’s walk off, to Manny’s fly into the night last fall, the good moments against the Angels are wound together in such a smooth and subtle continuum that it is easy to miss exactly how special, how golden each of these shimmering singularities is.
This series will fade. We will not remember most of its splendid moments. The 2004 ALDS is absent from the World Series DVD collection. The same holds for 2007. These series are forgotten, picayune overtures that hint at Act I and Act II before being retired to hazy memory. Despite the dramatic walk off homers in 2004 and 2007, do we remember those moments the way we remember ALDS moments against other opponents? Will anything from this series remind us of O’Leary seven RBI’s in the 1999 ALDS finale or Pedro’s six no hit innings? Will any pitch seem as extraordinary as Derek Lowe’s back door breaking ball to strike out Terence Long in 2003?
These series against the Angels begin with haste and end as quickly and unceremoniously as a series in May. We cannot see them and savor them. We know them only as something has passed and is then forgotten.
Jose never thought he would say this after reading Silas Marner, George Elliott is making sense.
Still, the story in incomplete. There is more going on here then the abrupt evaporation of golden moments. There is something more sinister, violent even.
There is another quote about the Angels that is a partner in describing the long streak, and the short series. Jack Handy of Saturday Night Live once said over soothing music and calming images “It’s true that every time you hear a bell, an angel gets its wings. But what they don’t tell you is that every time you hear a mouse trap snap, an angel gets set on fire.”
SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! SNAP!
Huh, that was 11. Funny.
2. In 1867, Japan began the period of transition from feudalism to industrial society and colonial power called the Meiji Restoration. The Restoration came in direct response to Commodore Matthew Perry’s success at forcing Japan to open in 1853. The superior firepower of Perry’s black ships convinced elements in Japan that the country needed to modernize rapidly or else it would succumb to Western power. In other words, the Japanese needed to learn from their enemies and make fundamental adjustments in how they organized themselves in order to compete.
Over the past year, the Angels have undergone a similar process. After being humiliated by Commodore Tito, and his black, err black, white and Dominican, fleet in 2007, the Angels realized that they needed to learn from the Red Sox if they were to compete with them. As a result, they shifted from being a team that relied entirely on speed and acquired Mark Teixera to give them the best possible (note: though still inadequate) facsimile of Boston’s 3-4 slugger combination.
It worked. Just like Japan in the Meiji period, the Angels went through a rapid and spectacular transformation.
The crowning validation of the Meiji Restoration was Japan’s victory in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05. Japan won despite the fact that Jose’s great-grandfather had gotten the hell out of the country one-year prior, so they were at a huge disadvantage.
So the validation of the Angels Restoration should be a victory over the Boston Red Sox. But where is it? It is as though a strong and modernized Japan laid siege to Port Arthur and then gave up after three days because it was hard and kind of boring. If the Angles don’t show some spine, the Red Sox won’t even need to Teddy Roosevelt to cut us a sweetheart deal in Portsmouth, we will just dictate terms.
When all was said and done, the British presented the Japanese with a lock of admiral Nelson’s hair, to commemorate their victory in the battle of Tsushima. If the Angels keep playing like they have been, they won’t even get a lock of Jeff Nelson’s hair.
3. Orange County Register columnist Randy Youngman, which Jose assumes is his porn name, joined in the Greek chorus of columnists muttering in monotone that the Angles postseason losing streak against the Sox goes back to 1986. But Youngman breaks free from the crowd and distinguishes himself as the choragus by invoking the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in his recollection.
While he does not explicitly compare the losing streak to Chernobyl, the comparison is implicit and it is devastating.
People died as the result of both events (note: Donnie Moore and Chernobyl victims rest in piece) and the impacts of both disasters continue to this day.
But the analogy is profoundly imperfect. Whereas Chernobyl destroyed an entire city, the Angels losing streak has only destroyed Orange County. Also, the Chernobyl reactor was enclosed in a massive concrete sarcophagus in order to contain the radiation. As best Jose knows, no one has considered building a massive sarcophagus to contain the Angels, even though teammates of 1986 team member Reggie Jackson regard him as radioactive.
If one insists on comparing the Angels losing streak to a Soviet disaster in 1986, Jose would suggest that the obvious analogy is the sinking of the SS Admiral Nakhimov, a passenger boat that collided with the bulk carrier Pyotr Vasyov in the Tsemes Bay, killing 423. The Pyotr Vasayov, was Japanese built, lending credence to the notion that the Angels will, this evening, be sunk by something built in Japan.
In addition, much like Angels skipper Mike Scioscia, the Admiral Nakhimov’s captain Vadim Markov seemed utterly unconcerned about the impending disaster, saying, “Don't worry. We will pass clear of each other. We will take care of everything."
There is one major difference, however, that may prove decisive. The Admiral Nakhimov did not have monkey.
I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE ALDS.
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