Home Base

(4 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

The baseball season is upon us, and I want to pay homage to that yearly optimism I feel no matter how bad my team stunk up the joint last year.  And they did stink.  Injuries?  We had ’em.  We even have a new medical condition, bilateral leg weakness, in honor of the 2011 Twins.  Sloppy play, players giving up, poor pitching, undisciplined hitting, all of it combines for 99 losses.  But it’s a new year.  The M and M boys are healthy.  And all is right again, for the time being.  

This essay is about metaphors, and about optimism, and how weird things like a lap around the sun just wipes the slate clean so you can begin again.  

Ever notice how many things we say has a root in baseball?  Sure, we use a lot of sports metaphors and we do it without thinking most of the time.  

But when’s the last time you said the game’s on the line and you have a one and one in a business meeting?  Or said that we need to get on the green in two to describe a work strategy?  Or said to your spouse that it’s forty love?  Ok, it’s fifty love at chez lemming, but you know what I mean.  Oh sure, there are football metaphors, but baseball is so ingrained in our culture, you don’t even need to be a fan to use them or understand them.  And you know this is true as an American when you meet someone from another English speaking country that doesn’t have baseball.  If you tell someone from India they need to swing for the fences, you get a very strange look in return.  

We have a law called three strikes and you’re out.  No explanation necessary.  A supreme court court justice, in his job interview, said he saw his role as that of an umpire.  What could be more fair?  Now wait a minute.  When is the last time you thought an umpire was fair?   People call them all kinds of names, none of them good.  But would you want to play a game without one?  I think that’s how justice Roberts got nominated, because all of his other qualities were reprehensible, except for the cute kids.  We get a sense of perfect shorthand for these simple and uniquely American metaphors.  

Baseball is slow, boring, geeky, and dull.  But if you watch an entire game, you will see something you’ve never seen before.  And you can watch it while you do something else.  The action comes in small bursts, spaced out by strategy, people scratching and spitting, and commercials.  But when the ball is in play, there is always a moment of excitement.  

Some of my most indelible memories are from baseball games.  I can’t remember anything about my son’s third birthday party, but I’ll never forget Kirby Puckett’s performance in game 6 of the 1991 world series.  

Here is another metaphor that needs no explanation.  I’m making Stars Hollow Gazette my home base for 2012.  Other blogs throw a lot of junk and just can’t close the game out without going to the bullpen.  Other blogs are all gas and no cheese.  

I don’t need to wear the pinstripes to feel like I’m in the majors.  

I just want to help the ball club, and women don’t get wooly.  Home base.  Touch ’em all.