Businesses downtown and across Metro Detroit are relaxing dress codes, hosting baseball-themed lunches and looking the other way as employees turn the Detroit Tigers game on office televisions and computers, Michael Martinez reports in the Detroit News.
An unofficial regional holiday, Opening Day will result in decreased productivity, especially at firms around Comerica Park. At least one nearby business, graphic design firm Skidmore Studios, is embracing the revelry and closing after noon.
Detroiters aren’t the only ones who see this day as special. There’s a petition circulating across the country to make Major League Baseball’s Opening Day an official holiday. Organizers have collected more than 86,000 digital signatures.
“For baseball fans, it’s something you can’t miss,” John Challenger, CEO of Chicago-based Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., a firm that tracks worker productivity, told Martinez.
“There’s something special about baseball that these games take place during the workday. They’re tied into the workplace in some ways that other sports just don’t have.”
After a brutal winter and early spring, the weather forecast is almost a miracle: Temperatures in the upper 50s and sunny skies.
While the Opening Day routine is well established downtown, one major change this season is upgraded security at Comerica Park, which is certain to cause delays. Fans will have to be walk through metal detectors at all entrances, and they must empty their pockets of keys, cell phones and other items.
First year Tiger manager Brad Ausmus revealed his lineup Sunday; he has second baseman Ian Kinsler hitting first.
