Friday, May 16, 2014

The Baseball Metaphor.

I'm lying here listening to the Texas Rangers play the Oakland Athletics. They're playing in Oakland so the game is on late in our Central Standard Time. The Rangers just hit into a double play and a third out followed quickly, we're down 4-3 in the 7th.

My son sent me a text the other day saying how nice it was to have the game on in the background of whatever he is doing. I agree. For me, it's a habit going back to childhood lying in bed with an AM-band transistor radio listening to Richie Ashburn do the play by play for the Philadelphia Phillies' games.

And for those of us so inclined baseball became the metaphor for life. Just tonight I used the phrase "it's a Mays/Mantle comparison," meaning whether you come down on the side of Mays or Mantle as the best player you're right.

Who hasn't said after a successful activity "I just hit one out of the park." Or the opposite. Maybe the boss threw you a curve ball when he said you could have Friday off but asked you to work Saturday. And your plans for Saturday are now a big swing and a miss. But the boss plays hardball and you just have to deal with it.

Many people face life with two strikes against them and hope just once someone would throw them a softball instead of the brush-back.

But that's life. If you bat near .300 you're doing pretty good. And if you really don't like something you can take your bat and ball and go home.


2 comments:

John said...

I listened to the Indians at night on WWWE radio through one of those red spherical Panasonic "ball and chain" radios. Raking leaves in the backyard was the domain of the Browns.

Francis Shivone said...

I remember the round radio with a chain. Thanks.