From SoSH: Re: September 2nd - Lowe is Just

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

1. At about 1:20 AM last night, Jose went to bed to the mellifluous tones of the British Broadcasting Company on WBUR concluding an evening of baseball and blogging about France. At 1:30 the local news update came on including “The World’s Shortest Sports Report” (the 15 seconds BUR gives to the game). Jose was about half asleep by then, but he couldn’t help but notice that not only did the news reader have no clue about baseball, but whoever wrote the newscast (Note: Okay, it was probably the same guy.) had no idea about baseball. What gave it away was the phrase “Opening pitcher Bronson Arroyo lasted only 2 2/3 innings.” Opening pitcher? Does that make Johnny Damon our opening hitter?

Jose is sure that there are many newsreaders and writers who know nothing about sports, but most of them probably have the good sense to stick to the score. “The Red Sox beat the Anaheim Angels 12 to 7. In other news…)

Sadly, Jose doesn’t remember too much about the rest of the game report, as he was half asleep, but he imagines it went something like this:

“In sport this evening, The Boston Red Sox… wait ‘Sox?’ Shouldn’t that be ‘Socks?’ The Red Socks defeated the Anaheim Angles by the score of 12 points to 7 points. While opening pitcher Bronson Arroyo lasted only 2 2/3 innings, second pitcher Mike Myers, tertiary pitcher Terrence Adams, quaternary pitcher Mike Timlin and two other pitchers held the Angles to only two more points. A man with a beard had four hits for the Red Sox, and that gentleman who is always eating fried chicken on the television had four RsBI. The Red Sox conclude their tet a tet with the Angles tomorrow followed by a jostle with the Texas Saxons.”

Jose has written quite a bit this year about DLowe the Paranoid Android’s various robotic problems, from violating the three laws of robotics, to blisters in his metallic skin to his desperate desire to feel more human, to understand our hopes and aspirations, our mortality. But Jose may have overlooked something.

2. For so much of the season, DLowe was so bad, and yet now he has turned the corner (Note: Turned the corner? Apparently Jose’s brain is cross wired with the Republican party talking points) and transformed himself into almost an entirely different pitcher. How can this be? What has Jose missed until today? Jose has reached the conclusion that DLowe the Paranoid Android is no mere robot. He is a Transformer, or possibly a Gobot. But unlike most Transformers, he does not transform from a robot into a car, a plane, a gun or even a boom box. He transforms from the worst starting pitchers in baseball to one of the better ones. So if DLowe gets in trouble early tonight, listen for that distinctive transforming sound (Note: It’s ee-ee-aa-aa-rrrr) and watch him transform and roll out!!!

3. In their last two games, the Sox have scored an impressive 22 runs against one of the American League’s elite squads. How is this possible? As always, Jose has a theory.

On the old Bullwinkle show, there were a number of episodes that revolved around upsidasium, the anti-gravity metal. There has been a long running debate in the Melendez family about where upsidasium would fall on the periodic table of elements. Of course, this assumes, upsidasium is an element and not a compound like adamantium.

Jose’s father Dick Melendez, who knows nothing about chemistry, argues that it should come in at number 0, because it would have to be lighter than Hydrogen, in order to have its anti-gravity properties. Jose, who knows maybe a little more about chemistry, thinks that’s total BS. First of all, upsidasium isn’t just really light, it actually creates a force that is not only equal and opposite gravity, but is greater and opposite gravity. (Note: Take that Sir Isaac Newton!) Second, as best Jose understands, as one moves from left to right across the periodic table, each element has one electron/proton more than it’s predecessor. Jose doesn’t think there could be an element with 0 electrons and protons. What are a bunch of neutrons gonna do all alone? Nothin’.

As of today, elements with 1 to 116 electrons have been discovered. An element with 118 electrons also appeared to have been discovered in 1999, but the results have not been successfully reproduced. Moreover, upsidasium cold not be 117 because 117 falls in the halogen period or 118 because 118 should be a noble gas, while upsidasium is a metal Therefore, Jose would say upsidasium must be number 119 on the periodic table or higher. It could really fall in any metallic period after 116 ununhexium. (Note: Jose’s favorite element is 48, cadmium.)

But what does this have to do with baseball? Oh yes, Jose is pretty sure that the Angels are throwing balls laced with upsidasium, because once they go up, they don’t come down.

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