Baseball has been a game of "ins" and "outs" since before its earliest sandlot days.
Yesterday a friend of mine sent me a creative little piece on the game of baseball. Although this friend is not a baseball fan, he passed it on to me because he knows my interests so well. Someone had sent it to him and he thought I might get a kick out of it, which I certainly did. I’d never read it prior to Tuesday. As per usual, it also perplexed and frustrated me a little that the little work came with anonymous authorship mention. I would have enjoyed giving credit to whomever wrote it.
Sans author identity, here it is:
A Simple Explanation of Baseball
Baseball is a game played by two teams, one out, the other in.
The one that’s in sends players out, one at a time,
To see if they can get in – before they get out.
If they get out before they get in, they come in, but it doesn’t count.
If they get in before they get out, they also come in, and it does count.
When the ones who are out get three outs from the ones who are in
Before they get in without being out, the team that’s out comes in,
And the team that was in goes out to get those going in out
Before they get in – without being out. ….. Got that? Good! Let’s move on!
When both teams have been in and out nine times, the game is over.
The team with the most in without being out before coming in wins,
Unless the ones in are equal on both sides.
In these cases, the last ones in go out to get the ones now in out – before they get in without being out.
The game will end when each team has the same number of ins and outs,
But one team has more in without being out before coming in.
Thank you, humble anonymous writer. You’ve left us with a nice crunch moment in mental gymnastics about a subject that most readers of these columns and this writer hold dear. Say, anonymous author, you don’t happen to know who played right field behind Who at fist base, do you? Yeah, we know what you’re probably going to say – something like, “Who’s on first. ‘You-don’t happen-to-know’ is in right!” – Have a nice Wednesday, folks.
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Availability Note: Because of a major loss of faith in Comcast, I am going through a major change of my television channels, Internet, and phone service from cable to DirectTV and AT&T over the next five days. TV is set to change by installation today; New Internet and phone service comes in next Monday, May 16th.
I’m sharing this news only because I’m not sure if the TV installation today is going to somehow knock out my Comcast Internet and phone service until next Monday. I hope it doesn’t, but if it does, that will be the reason I disappear for a few days. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
The Pecan Park Eagle 
May 13, 2011 at 3:08 am |
Great project, Bill. Can’t wait to see the end result!