You can now order through Amazon at the same $9.99 price. Or continue to order through Lulu for that price (you do the math on the shipping). Great stocking stuffer!

“Covered all the bases.” Don’t know why it did not occur to me that that was a baseball metaphor.

By the way, I found a typo: bottom of page 35, “college” should be “softball” (or maybe “college softball”).

And thanks to Brian Kernighan for helping me understand the “getting to first base” scale.

A friend from Red Sox Nation wrote to suggest that I add “choke,” “meltdown,” and “wait ’til next year” to my list. Not sure any of those qualifies as more baseball than another sport, but they all feel appropriate.

On the other hand, “There is no joy in Mudville” is a baseball-ism that gets used to describe many other kinds of despair.

A nice review appears here.

I am told there is an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm in which Larry David and Rosie O’Donnell are after the same woman who is (natch) bisexual. “Just like in baseball, tie goes to the runner,” Larry argues. “Tie goes to the heterosexual!”

That has to go into the book, but I need the exact dialog and the date. As CYE is shot without a script, this may not be easy, but I know there are a lot of Larry David fans out there, so I am hopeful!

Definitely need to include this one in the next printing:

No man can excel at two national pastimes. — Comedian Oscar Levant, following the breakup in 1954 of the marriage between Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio.

I need a source for this though. It is apparently reported in Henry Haun, The Cinematic Century (2000), but I need to check.

An old friend offers this dandy, which I had forgotten: “He was born on third and thinks he hit a triple.” Some of us will remember this as a line used against George W. Bush at the 1988 Democratic convention, but the history is more complicated, as was documented a few years ago on the NPR web site. That has to go into the next edition!

With B2L now published, I want to challenge my readers to improve it. The ground rules are very simple: Each week I will post a section of the book, and challenge you to find better illustrations than the ones I have used. I will be the exclusive judge of quality. This will give you an idea of how the book reads and give me some improvements for the next edition! My quality criteria include current relevance, recency, prominence of the speaker, and general amusement value. To get the ball rolling, here is my section on “Step up to the plate”:

Step up to the plate

I once took a French couple to a baseball game. At the beginning of the game, before I had a chance to explain much of anything, one team took the field and the first batter came to bat. “What’s this?” one of them exclaimed. “Nine against one??”

Western mythology has many tales of heroic individuals beating such odds. A courageous man, Odysseus for example, sets out on a mission from the safety of his home. Through physical prowess and cunning, he travels far and wide. He encounters dangers along the way but repeatedly reaches safe harbors. Ultimately he returns home, a hero.

In baseball as in legend, the individual faces his adversaries alone, but he bears responsibility for what will happen to others. The batter hopes to score with the help of his teammates. But at the beginning, as he stands facing the pitcher, he must act on his own. For this reason stepping up to the plate means taking personal responsibility for something, acting for the welfare of others as well as yourself.

Step up to the plate and be responsible. I have no doubt that this is Eddie’s baby. Maybe one day Eddie will tell me why this happened.[i]—Singer Melanie Brown, also known as Scary Spice, calling on actor Eddie Murphy to acknowledge fathering her child. Murphy wanted a DNA test first

 

How do you get them to do the reconciliation process as long as you give them a blank check? It’s time for the Iraqis to step up to the plate.[ii]—Comment by a former Pentagon official advising the Obama campaign

 

Residents need to step up to the plate and show these “concerned citizens” who is going to run this town or they are going to take over.[iii]—Resignation letter of a town official who claims she was driven out of office by a few malcontents

Our country faces a daunting task to get your spending under control, and I commend your decision to step up to the plate and take on the tremendous responsibility of serving on the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction.

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