The league also ensures the media-oriented makeup of the teams. Said Lane, who has been batting around the idea of a media league since he was captain of the Forbes team, "There's no great thrill to getting bragging rights over an accounting firm."

So far, BusinessWeek has bragging rights over everyone, inside and out of the league, with 11 wins this season and a 27-game winning streak from last year. Its last game of the year is against Condé Nast Portfolio, which — in a baseball-mirrors-life scenario — will pit respective editors in chief and former WSJ colleagues Joanne Lipman and Stephen Adler against each other on the diamond. Sadly, High Times, which is among the most ardent softball teams in all of media, can claim no such direct competition to trump in a game. "I'm not sure who our rivals would be," mused Bloom, who is no longer directly affiliated with the magazine. "Well, I guess there are some Canadian marijuana magazines. Let's say we were playing Cannabis Culture. That would be a competitive game."

Bloom's current project, CelebStoner.com, doubles as a tally for the media league games, leading BusinessWeek coach and senior writer Tom Lowry to point out, "I'm sure all the suits upstairs at McGraw-Hill are wondering what all the BusinessWeek guys are doing at CelebStoner.com." Had they decided to check it out, the aforementioned suits would have found the retouched BusinessWeek logo created by upcoming softball rivals CollegeHumor.com. It read, "BusinessWeak," and with slightly less nimble wordplay, BusinessWeek rebutted with "College Tumor."

But it's not all one-upmanship out there. High Times has nourished a close relationship with VNU, which owns Billboard and Mediaweek, and the two play an annual 9/11 commemorative game on Randall's Island, complete with bulb planting, and a High Times delegation camped out at the VNU company retreat on Long Island last weekend.

Meanwhile, a vital act of cross-cultural understanding took place at the DC Comics-Paris Review game, at least told by a DC Comics correspondent on its Web site.

"While [DC Comics] expected a team of 40-year-old, Champagne-sipping, French-speaking snobs to show up, PR surprised the Bullets by instead bringing a team of athletic youngsters who promptly took a 2-0 lead in the top of the first." (The Paris Review, possibly still feeling the loss of legendary editor and player George Plimpton, eventually lost.)