Every day, Rob brings the newspapers with him to work and reads them on the bus as he rides in to the city. If he finds an article that he thinks I would appreciate, he’ll bring it home. Today, Rob brought me the sports section of the Wall Street Journal. I thought he was kidding given that neither sports nor business are really my thing until I started reading.

One of Rob’s favorite sports writers, Jason Gay, wrote an article about a meeting held between the Red Sox players and owners. The players are having lots of problems with their manager and the purpose of this meeting was to air their grievances. Apparently, people believe that the players are acting a bit babyish and Gay’s writing played off this fact.

The article included a 63 point fictitious  agenda for the meeting. It began with the serious “Why Bobby Valentine must go.” and moved on to items such as “Why we need a team puppy.”,  “Perfect places inside Fenway Park for a tree house.” and “Bedtime: why 9 p.m. is the new 8 p.m.”

While the tone of the entire article was incredibly clever and funny , the reason it held my attention was the multiple references to children’s literature. These fictitious, child-like players were ready by point # 8 on their agenda for “Story book: “‘Make Way for Ducklings’.” And then again, #23- “Story book: ‘The Story of Ferdinand’.”.  And #37- “Story book: ‘Goodnight Moon’.”

Something makes me think that Jason Gay is either a dad or a man who still remembers all his favorite children’s books. Then again, he is also a man that wrote #57- “Story book: ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’.” so perhaps he is a man with varied interests…