My job doesn’t have a ton of perks, but every now and then a bone gets thrown my way. This afternoon, in order to make nice with a Gartner analyst who might decide to write up my company, we all went to see the Braves trounce the As at the Oakland Colosseum.

Some of you who know me are now thinking: Greg at a sports event? He must have had about as much fun as Martha Stewart in front of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Yeah, but everything’s fun when you’re there in the flesh. I can go see a polka show and afterwards I’ll be all “Dude, did you see the way he played that accordian? As though it was an extension of his very soul?”

Anyway, I was highly disturbed at a promotion for an upcoming game. Apparently, the first few hundred visitors will receive—and I am not making this up—Russian nesting dolls.

I admit that it’s been a while since I took myself out to the ol’ ball game. But in my day, we got hats. We got pennants. We got jars filled with the home team’s tobacco spit. Much less frequently: promotions that simultaneously threatened my gender and challenged my economic system of choice.

I don’t want to alarm anyone unnecessarily. I’m not saying it’s time to stock the basement with tins of spam. I’m not saying it’s time to rent Red Dawn and take copious notes.

But if the Colosseum starts handing out Ukranian hair curlers, it might be time to start voting Republican.