Play Ball?

This week is “World Series Week” at work. Never mind that the actual World Series won’t take place until October; this is an opportunity for “cost effective team building” and/or a way to distract the herded masses from the forthcoming layoffs. Your choice.

So yesterday was “World Series Word Search” day. Find the 20 hidden baseball-themed words and enter to win a prize! It took me about 3 minutes flat to find them – it wasn’t exactly a Mensa test. It had the usual suspects hidden in the grid – hit, ball, bat... but then it had nontraditional baseball terms, too: Hot dog? Beer? I know that they go hand-in-hand, but that’d be like having a Halloween themed puzzle and searching for “cavities”.

Today is “World Series Trivia Day”. I guess they’re going to ask baseball trivia, although based on that word search yesterday, they may ask “What beer is best to drink after the seventh inning stretch?”

But tomorrow and Friday are when the Real Fun begins.

Thursday’s event is “Enjoy a Baseball Movie on your Break!” They’re going to pop Major League or Bull Durham in an old VCR somewhere, and everyone is welcome to come watch 15 minutes of it. Ah, good times. What would be fun though is to go see if they show Field of Dreams, and see how many of these he-man macho sales dudes are crying like babies.

Friday is Baseball Jersey & Cap Day. They’re breaking from their traditional dress code for one day and are letting us wear hats and non-collared shirts. (It’s one notch above Wacky Tacky Tie Day, isn’t it?)

But I’m prepared. You see, I don’t own a baseball jersey, and my one baseball cap is for a AA farm team in Dunedin, Florida.

But I do have a Mickey Mouse baseball jersey that the Lovely Mrs. G. bought me for Christmas. And I have 3 different Mickey caps to choose from. So I’m all set. And if I happen to strike out that day and receive a pink slip as a consolation prize (layoffs are now rumored to be this Friday), then at least I’ll go out with a smile.

But maybe I’ll hit a home run instead. You never know until you step up to the plate. (Today's businesses just love sports analogies!!!)

Batter up!