From SoSH: Re: 10/2 Boston vs. Baltimore Game 2 - Astacio vs. Ponson

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

1. Apparently, they called the Minnesota-Cleveland game after 12 innings this afternoon with the score tied at 5 in order to convert the Metrodome for a University of Minnesota Golden Gophers football game. (Note: It would have been much funnier if they had halted the game in order to premiere a production of Heidi in the Metrodome.) The game will be completed tomorrow. Jose would not have chosen this solution. Since gophers live underground, Jose would have allowed the college football game to be played in the vast catacombs beneath the Metrodome. Wouldn’t that have been a more egalitarian solution? On the up side Jose fears the Twins a little less now before. Any team that would allow a game to be halted for the benefit of a college team can not possibly advance in the playoffs. Would the Red Sox every halt a game so the BU Terriers football team, could get in a game? Of course not. Hell, the Red Sox even ordered the BU Football team destroyed so as to eliminate even the vaguest possibility of that happening.

2. Jose has often said that the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Freedom Bridge was worth the $14.2 billion cost of the Big Dig all by itself. That’s how much Jose like that bridge. Also, going over it reminds him of Space Mountain. But now that is ruined forever.

A civil engineer who was Jose’s father’s college roommate told Jose today that a guy he knows who worked on the Big Dig thought that the struggle over the bridge’s name should have been resolved by calling it the "Bill Buckner Bridge." Get it? Because one drives through the legs of the Y frame, and Buckner…oh forget it, it’s just depressing. Now Jose will never be able to drive over tat beautiful bridge, or even walk down the street in Boston’s historic North End without thinking of the 1986 series.

This isn’t a Jose original, he is happy to say, it pops on Google a few times, so he can’t take credit for it. But Jose will take credit for this – following this year’s ALCS, an equally appropriate name will be the Derek Jeter Bridge. Jose will not elaborate.

3. Jose is glad to see Pedro Astacio get one start before the end of the season, especially since he may be a starter for us next year. But Jose reminds the Red Sox brain trust that all Pedros are not created equal. If you lose Pedro Martinez, neither Pedro Astacio, not Pedro Guerrero, nor even former WWF champion Pedro Morales himself could fill the void.

Was that a week KEY 3? Well, yes, but don’t worry about it, Jose is just trying to get his regular work in and keep loose as we head towards the playoffs. Jose does not want to hear rumors hat he tanked this post because he was agitated about not being chosen as the SoSH Game Thread started for Game 1. The way Jose is writing right now, he is lucky to be posting at all. Jose understands and accepts his role as a poster rather than a thread starter and is focused on the good of the team. (Note: Look for the Tony Castrati piece in tomorrow’s Herald saying that despite his comments, Jose Melendez is furious that he will not be starting the Game 1 Game Thread.)

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