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"Way out in left field" is a phrase whose baseball meaning was questioned in another thread. I was wondering what other sayings or phrases we use may have come from that game, also:
off-base?; caught out? If you are off base in the game,
you certainly can be caught out!
If you are way out in left field, most of the time you'll be too far away to participate in the action. Though why we say left field and not right field, I haven't a clue.
I have a feeling this may happen anyway, so I'll just go ahead and issue the invitation to include phrases and sayings from other sports. This could be a good learning experience, as was the rogaine and XC skiing talk for me.
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member
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Though why we say left field and not right field, I haven't a clue.
As I recall from my brother's Little League experiences so many years ago, left field may be the place the ball is least likely to go. My brother was not a good player at that time. He might have been one of the worst on the team. He was always in left field. Perhaps somehow the physics of hitting the ball makes it tend to go toward right field instead of left..
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Carpal Tunnel
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when I was in little league, I was banished to *right field -- most little leaguers are right-handed and right-handed batters (all else being equal, as it generally is in little league) usually hit to the left side of the field.
here is what I found the last time this came up:
William Safire poses two theories (in his book "I Stand Corrected"): 1) it was an insult hurled at kids stupid enough to buy left field seats at Yankee Stadium in the days when Babe Ruth (great hitter, poor fielder) patrolled right field for the Yanks [but weren't most of his homeruns hit to left?] 2) at the old West Side Park in Chicago there was a mental hospital in back of left field.
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Carpal Tunnel
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No, it is the other way around xara. The left field is where most balls go because a right-handed batter will always (well 99% of the time) hit towards the left. Try it...pretend you are batting a ball and see where your arms end up pointing (unless you are left-handed, then you will wind up batting right).
The weaker players are put in the right field because fewer balls go there since a much lower percentage of the population is left-handed.
An expression from a sport...
How about 'he is straight as an arrow' (from archery)
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old hand
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old hand
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Jackie (et al)
My current favourite phrase, insofar as it intrigues me, is 'flied out'. This has not, I have to admit, entered common parlance, but Stephen Pinker's defence of it, in The Language Instinct, is so vigorous that I reached the 'methinks the lady...' stage very soon.
After some consideration (and I haven't the book to hand, I must admit) I have come to the conclusion that Pinker's reasoning is fallacious. His claim is that 'to fly out' must be viewed as a compound formation, a verb phrase, if you will. Therefore, it would go against the deep structure of the grammar to construct it in the past tense as 'flew out'. Hence 'flied out'. But as far as I can see, nothing he says prefers 'flied out' over 'fly outed'. In fact, if it is a compound verb phrase, I can only see it going the way of similar (allegedly erroneous) formations like 'mother-in-laws'.
But what do I know. The only baseball game I ever saw was one in which Sammy Sosa (1999 it was) hit two home runs, and the Cubs overwhelmed their opponents, at Wrigley Field, 6-2. I still wear my Cubs baseball cap with pride, and from time to time see how far down the table they are. There's a familiar feeling to ones favourite team not doing too well, if one also supports England in cricket, and Tottenham Hotspur in football.
cheer
the sunshine warrior
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Carpal Tunnel
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There's a familiar feeling to ones favourite team not doing too well, if one also supports Tottenham Hotspur in football.In the spirit of refined, genteel intellectualism that prevails here I would like to respond to that with a simple, restrained ARSENAL RULES! 
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Carpal Tunnel
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Allo shanks Fly in this sentence is not a verb. It is a noun, actually a contraction for a fly ball (names a ball that has been hit way up in the air). The term "fly out" is part of a family of terms that designate the way the player has been called out (or eliminated) from the inning/game (includes ground out, strike out). When a batter hits a fly ball the chances are he is going to be called 'out' because those are seriously easy to catch. Thus the name for that move became a "fly out". It becomes a compound verb phrase when you say "he fly'd out". In its <non contracted form> this would actually be said as "he fly-balled out". But human nature being what it is, this was contracted it to "fly'd out". That is why you do not say fly outed. I hope this is clear. I haven't really had to talk grammar for many moons so I am a little rusty on the terms. I do play softball though and those are the terms we use (a bit of bragging here  ...I never fly out )
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
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...I never fly out
Hit 'em hard and straight, eh? Trés bon!
I thought your explanation was very good, me.
I think "flied out" is caused by the same type of mentality
that made you-all call your $2 money 'two-ny', after loony.
I guess the absolutely correct phrase is: (the batter)
hit a fly ball (which was caught, thus earning the team an out). But to say the batter "hit out" would be much too confusing (hit out of the field completely? hit out of the
fair area?). Fly-balled, or flied, out, tells exactly what
happened.
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Carpal Tunnel
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[bleu]Hit 'em hard and straight, eh?[/bleu(sic)] Jackie, are you tip-toeing in the gutter again? And if so, may this ol' southpaw join you? (looks like fun!) 
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Joined: Mar 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Well, Anna, I don't know what it is that I'm doing
(hey--I heard that!), but you're welcome to join me anytime!
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