Celebrate Good times? Come on.

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

1. Lost amid the hubbub of the Yankee Stadium closing is the news that the Red Sox will clinch their fifth playoff birth in six years tonight. Jose is excited about this because it means an insane celebration that will make Jose love this team.

But what if that doesn’t happen?

What if this group is so much more professional and serious than teams past that they refuse to cut loose? Millar is gone, Manny is gone, Pedro is gone, Damon is gone. Hell, we’re down to one Jew, so seeing anyone dance the Hora is unlikely. (Note: Who would lift the chairs?) All that we have no is Papelbon who, in fairness, may be crazy enough to compensate for all of them. But one lunatic does not an asylum make. Jose’s fear is that Papelbon will, like last year, celebrate by stripping down to his jockstrap, but that Sean Casey will quickly hand him a towel and tell him “Put on some God damn pants and quick making an ass of yourself.”

Will DJ Dru just celebrate with an understated fist pump? Will Mike Lowell party with a glass of chilled Chablis? Perhaps Dice and Oki will do nothing more than offer a simple bow. Maybe Mark Kotsay will do…well, whatever it is that Mark Kotsay does.

Frankly, Jose is worried. This is not the gang of idiots, so perhaps they need a more structured way to celebrate. So Jose will step in and offer a suggestion for a fun yet responsible way to celebrate.

Here’s what Jose has come up with: An arcade party at the Dream Machine in the Watertown Mall followed by pizza at Papa Gino’s. Jose knows this may sound like it lacks in drama, but trust him, it’s super fun. Jose did this for his birthday like five years. For an hour you can play all the video games you want for free. Like Curt Euro isn’t going to be in to that? Also, as a plus, there’s an Old Country Buffet there, so Mike Timlin will be good. On the down side, it seems absolutely possible that DJ Dru could injure himself playing skee ball.

2. Yankee Stadium is not the only New York institution to fold this week. The musical Rent also left Broadway after a 12-year run. Despite the fact that the 5,124 performances of Rent, greatly exceeds the number of games played since this Yankee Stadium finished construction in 1976, the close of Rent has not gotten nearly the same press attention. Thus, Jose presents a list of reasons why the closing of Rent is more important than the closing of Yankee Stadium.

• Rent is not being replaced with a new, $1.3 billion publicly funded musical.
• Rent only made Jose want to slit his wrists on one occasion in 1999. Events in Yankee Stadium made Jose want to slit his wrists annually from 1995-2003.
• While Rent includes many long annoying songs, it has never featured a 45-minute rendition of God Bless America.
• Amazingly, far less slapping in Rent.
• If a 12-year-old kid, had interrupted a performance of Rent, he would not have been put on television and given really great seats to the next performance.
• In Rent, the rich guys are the villains.
• If the star of Rent’s vocal repertoire can barely reach one octave, he is not praised for his amazing range.
• Even though Rent is a remake of an old opera called La Boheme, people don’t count performances of La Boheme in Rent’s run. Yet, people do count games at the old Yankee Stadium in the new Yankee Stadium’s run.
• Rent addresses many adult and disturbing issues, but nothing as disturbing or perverse as Wade Boggs on horseback.
  

3. They called it the House the Ruth Built, even though George Hermann Ruth never played in the iteration of Yankee Stadium that closed last night.

Still, there is a certain appropriateness to the appellation. The big, ugly concrete bowl does look like something that a fat alcoholic might have built. (Note: Actually, given that it was built by contractors in New York, it probably was built by a fat alcoholic.)

No, the architecture, the aesthetics were never what made Yankee Stadium great. What made it great, what allowed it to transcend its structural mediocrity, were the events that transpired there: A-Rod’s slap, Beckett’s gem, D battery night. There are probably some good things that happened to the Yankees there too, but they were so long ago that Jose can’t really remember them.

By contrast, Fenway Park, despite its innumerable flaws, is remarkable for what it is, an uncomfortable yet quirky gem. If Fenway is the Eiffel Tower, an elegant proof of its own importance, Yankee Stadium is Tokyo Tower, a gaudy affront to elegance made important only by its own self-importance. If Fenway is a Pollock painting, discordant yet somehow lovely, Yankee Stadium is a work by Thomas Kinkade “Painter of Light,” widely liked while completely lacking in merit.

It will be easy for critics to say that Jose is just bashing New York, and that is certainly the case. But, Jose would say the same thing about the Boston Garden. It was a dump that was important for what happened there, not for what it was. In that regard, perhaps Yankee Stadium is more like the 99 Restaurant in Charlestown. It’s not famous because it’s beautiful or interesting but because some bad, bad stuff went down there.

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

You Have No Idea

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

1. Jose has finally answered one of the great imponderables of life.

Which one is it, you say?

What is the meaning of life? Nope.

Why do bad things happen to good people? Nah. Jose answered that back in 2006.

What Jose has answered is whether relief pitchers get really bored in the bullpen.

Last night, Jose attended his first Durham Bulls game, and had the good fortune in the late innings to sneak down one of the picnic areas where he got to chat with Evan Meek, who was at the time, the only member of the Indianapolis Indians (note: not affiliated with the Cleveland Indians, Cherokee Indians or sub continental Indians) bullpen who spoke English. Meek, a pudgy fireballer, who has been unimpressive in his 13 innings in The Show, turned out to be fairly desperate for someone to talk to. As Meek lofted a high arc and drained his third wad of gum into a trash barrel ten feet away, Jose asked the only question he had ever really wanted to ask to a reliever pitcher: “Do you guys get really bored out here?”

“You have no idea,” the mournful reply slipped through weary lips below glassy eyes.

What Jose regrets now is that he didn’t offer any suggestions for how Meek and his colleagues could liven up the bullpen experience. Relievers, of course, have spend a century developing ways to amuse themselves, from spitting seeds competitively, to the Red Sox bullpen drum corps to David Cone’s unfortunate experiment in bullpen self-gratification. But perhaps, these fellows are deep in the system, too stultified by dreary repetition to come up with anything inventive.

Thus, Jose offers a few ideas.

• Memorize the Koran. When you memorize the Koran then you earn the title “Hafiz.” Jose would enjoy hearing the announcement, “Now pitching for the Red Sox… number 50… Hafiz Mike Timlin…Timlin.”
• Pursue the X prize for the 100-mile per gallon car. At $10 million, that’s still enough to motivate a major leaguer. Just ask Manny.
• Start a crystal meth lab. Not only is it profitable, the product will make the games go faster. Better still, amphetamines are part of baseball’s cultural heritage, so it’s kind of like a throw back thing.
• Plot a revolution in your native country. (Note: Americans, do not do this. Jose in no way advocates the overthrow of the U.S. government, unless U.S. stands for Upper Silesia, the government of which is crap.)
• If you plan on attacking employees with a machete in the future (note: see Urbina, Ugueth Urtain) prepare defense strategy.
• And of course, finally, what every reliever coming up through the minors should focus on is what his entrance music will be.

Not paying attention?

2. A Red Sox fan in Jose’s program revealed to Jose yesterday that her English-American Catholic brother named his son Kapler, in honor of Gabe Kapler, “The World’s Most Perfectly Sculpted Jew.”

At first Jose was going to write about how this had to have been the first goyish child on earth named after Gabe Kapler. But then Jose thought about it and realized, that this is probably the first child anywhere named after Kapler. The only people who would likely want to name their kid after him would be Jews, but Jews famously, do not name their children after living people. To do so, is extremely bad luck for the person from whom the name is taken. Which raises an important question: Why does Jose’s classmate’s brother want Gabe Kapler to die?

3. The Red Sox begin their final trip to Yankee Stadium this week, and Jose is awash in memories. The Slap, clinching in 2004. There was probably some other stuff that happened before 2004, but Jose doesn’t really remember. Funny that.

But Jose wants to share one special memory with you, the story of his first and only trip to Yankee Stadium. The only time Jose made it there was in 1989 as the terrible Yankees played the slightly less terrible Red Sox, in a meaningless late season game. It was rainy that day in the Bronx or perhaps it was the odor hanging thick in the air. Jose’s predominant memory, as part of a group of 80 seventh graders there, was that there was a Yankee fan, perhaps 18 or 19 who wanted to fight us. What strength! What nobility! What courage a man must have to take on 80 children accompanied by several middle aged ladies!

And that, more than anything, is what Jose will miss about Yankee Stadium—
the passion. The passion that drives a man to threaten students. The passion that sends D cells flying into the field. The passion that encourages New Jersey brats to interfere with balls in play. The passion that demands that the police come on to the field to protect players following a correct call.

So long Yankee Stadium. Next year you may be gone, but Jose knows a lot of Bostonians who will keep you alive in little plastic bags, filled one October night in two thousand four, year of our lord.

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

Change of Life

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

1. One of you asked, on Friday, where Jose had gone, why he had forsaken you, if you will.

It’s a good question, and as is the case with many good questions, there are a variety of reasonable answers. For instance, if one were to ask why Joe Borowski is still the Cleveland closer, the answer could be that he is Eric Wedge’s illegitimate son (note: this is not that realistic as the WWF has taught Jose that most illegitimate sons are midgets), that someone got confused after hearing his name only through the first syllable of his last name and thought they had Joba rather than Jobo, or something as simple as Eric Wedge suffering from a severe form of retardation. In the case of the good question of why Jose missed an all important April series against the hated New York Yankees, he can, likewise, offer a variety of answers. Perhaps it’s because of something you did or perhaps it is because an April series against a team that hasn’t won a championship in eight years seems unimportant.

Either of those answers would be a good answer, but neither of them would be a true answer. The true answer is that Jose is preparing for a major change of life. How big a change? Think of it as bigger than converting from catcher to first baseman, but not as big as menopause. (Note: Jose really didn’t want to bring up menopause, but as soon as he used the phrase “change of life” he kind of had to.)

Jose is leaving Boston.

Okay. Maybe it’s bigger than menopause, or even bigger than Menopause the Musical.

Jose is not leaving Boston because he wants to. Far from it. He is leaving Boston because he has to. He is doing it for you.

When Jose started this blog in May 2004, he was armed with nothing but the stunning grasp of cross-cultural minutia that only a liberal arts education combined with tens of thousands of hour of watching television ranging from the cartoon “Wheeled Warriors” to “Cop Rock” can provide. (Note: This is a lie. Like everyone else who ever lived, Jose never watched Cop Rock.) These tools served him well. They served him long. But, to stick with the tool metaphor, with repeated misuse cutting low branches off of Christmas trees, even the sharpest steak knife will grow dull.

The KEYS, and frankly the Red Sox, have grown tired and redundant. Year after year, it is the same. Jose makes quips about wrestling and comic books; the Red Sox win the World Series after a spectacular ALCS comeback. Lame. Just boring, repetitive and lame. (Note: Not lame.)

Thus, Jose has made a decision that it is time for him to get some new tools, possibly a jigsaw of allusion or a nail gun of enjambment. Jose is going back to school.

Staring this fall, Jose will be attending one of the several worthwhile universities in the country that is not in Boston and studying new and varied fields, reading texts exotic and subtle so he can more accurately compare their authors to Alex Cora.

But what does this mean for the KEYS? How will this affect you the reader? Well, there are a few ways this could play out. The one that appeals the most to Jose is the Keyser Soze option wherein Jose simply walks away and then all of a sudden starts talking in the first person, thereby undermining everything you thought you knew about him, and then gets in a car with Indians reliever Masahide Kobayashi and is never heard from again. The other possibility is that Jose will simply cut back to a reduced schedule, writing a couple of times a week, rather than at his current, grueling pace.

The truth is, Jose is not sure what will happen between now and the end of the season, or even when he will leave Boston. Perhaps he’ll stay until September, or perhaps he’ll open a small mission is rural Laos and teach the villagers that David Oritz is more powerful than their so-called gods. It could really go either way.

2. Among the stories emerging from the first 2007 World Series Champion Red Sox vs. 2000 World Series Champion Yankees series of 2008 was the strange tale of a David Ortiz jersey churned in with the concrete at the new Yankee Stadium. Apparently, a Bronx construction worker who was a Red Sox fan mixed it into the concrete in order to curse the new building. After an absurd five hours of jack hammering, the Yankees found and removed the jersey.

While the news reports have largely fixated on the mystical aspects of the story, Jose is far more interested in the architectural angle. What this story reveals is the dramatic conceptual flaws in Yankee architecture. The biggest single flaw is the decision to build the stadium out of concrete. That is just foolish. By building the structure out of hard, heavy, inflexible concrete, the Yankees guaranteed that any response to this sort of mischief would be a debacle.

Compare this to when the Red Sox built the new Fenway Park. By refraining from using concrete and instead opting to use supple, flexible abstract as the principle building material, the Red Sox ensured that they would avoid all of the problems that the Yankees are facing and would not place a burden on the taxpayers.

If some idiot Yankee fan tried to mix a Jeter shirt in with the abstract that makes up the new Fenway, you can be certain that it wouldn’t take nearly five hours to find it.

3. Jose keeps seeing advertisements for this new vaccine called Zostavax which prevents shingles. Why anyone would invest money in a drug that is specifically designed to help lisping pitchers combat base hits is beyond Jose, but he will confess that he doesn’t really understand the pharmaceutical business.

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