Middlefield, Ohio- During a corporate appearance on site at one of Flambeau, Inc.’s plastics manufacturing plants today, Hall of Famer Cal Ripken, Jr. quickly ran out of baseball metaphors during a motivational lecture.

Ripken began, “When I played for the Baltimore Orioles, I was known for strapping on the cleats for every game. But out here in the real world, you’ve got to have what it takes to hit the corporate changeup everyday. To be an MVP employee you’ve got to swing away, aim for the fences and hit a home run in your sales pitch. You’ve got to try for the grand slam, but also pepper in some singles, doubles and triples to round out your team stats. When your faced with a potential double play in the plant, you’ve got to slide hard into second and try break it up…um… much like breaking up the necessary compounds in a ratten extruder or fixing a pelletizing machine.”

The normally affable slugger, seemed somewhat out of sorts in his public speaking engagement. He continued, “when its the bottom of the ninth, and you’ve got to make you quarterly numbers, just remember that its one…two…three strikes your out of the old ball game. Phew…is it hot in here? Anybody got any peanuts or crackerjacks?”

After fumbling with a projector for a full 2 minutes, the 19-time All Star put together quite possibly the lamest power point presentation ever. Pointing to the single screen presentation, Ripken laid out “Cal’s Triple Play of Success” which was met with a serious lack of enthusiasm.

Product coordinator Meldon Kikus was on hand for the presentation. “I’ve seen this guy on TV a bunch, I figured he’d done it before. I knew he was in trouble when he cross referenced respecting the work space with the infield fly rule. At least when [NBA Hall of Famer player] Alex English came by he seemed somewhat natural. He shot three 18-millimeter silicone flange caps into an industrial waste bin and said “now that’s like slam dunking a perfect safety record,”  at last year’s plastic’s safety conference in Walla Walla.”

Things really took a turn for the worse when Ripken, while standing next to a vertical injection molding machine, a machine designed for the molding of plastic materials, said “now you see why I’m the Iron Man.” Whispers filled the manufacturing floor when it became apparent that Ripken had no idea he was actually speaking at a plastics manufacturer and not some sort of iron or steel plant. The mood became downright uncomfortable when after speaking for only 15 minutes Ripken made references to a first baseman’s mitt, Mike Boddicker, throwing a slurve and finally “making a touchdown.”

Sports motivational speech analysts have called this the worst sports motivational speech since Olympic gold medal sprinter Usain Bolt, explained at length his “challenges” and “hardships” in learning to run fast to a group of wheelchair bound children with cerebral palsy.