Brendan, you bubbly, spirit ribbon wearing, cliche using, pom pom shaking, senior-week-theme-day, cheerleader.  We left Plant, right?  Presumably, the Rays left high school too.

Dressing up for team unity is childish.  Why?  Because you don’t dress up at work.  My law firm had a paralegal that came to work on Halloween dressed as a bearded lady.  Notice I said we had a paralegal.  Because when people are paying you to be somewhere, you owe them the respect to take that somewhere seriously.

Think this theme trip built unity? She looks like she's having fun?

You know who dresses up in themes?  My 3-year-old and 1-year-old daughters.  You know who doesn’t make any money?  My daughters.  They have that luxury.

You know who doesn’t have that luxury?  Grown freaking men.

Hey, I am all for fun at work and team unity.  But not at the expense of self-respect.  Here’s a crazy idea for Joe Maddon and the traveling circus: you want to have some fun, then win some dang ballgames.  Because, according to the great Gordon Gibbons, winning is the greatest thing in the world (Well, to be specific, there is one thing that might be better, no wait, the other thing is only better if it is caused by winning. Yeah, that’s how it goes.  Coach Gibbons is hard to paraphrase on a family-friendly site…).

Also, this idea that baseball teams need to get along is the silliest, Oprah-show notion I ever heard.  Baseball is the least team of team sports.  It is merely a series of individual interactions.  If Lebron gets mad at Bosh, he stops passing.  If Shields gets mad at Shop, what’s he going to do, pitch towards first base to ice the catcher?  I don’t care if the Rays like each other because I know, no matter what, they are all going to show up for work every day.  You know how I know that?  It’s because they are getting paid to be there.

So, here’s my proposal for the next “theme” trip.  Maybe the Rays should dress like a group of adults that win ballgames.