a
reference to the
game of
baseball where a
team is forced to give up a good chance of scoring. In
baseball, to
score a
point a player must
hit a
ball,
run around three bases and
return to where he began (called
home base). A player may only make it to the first,
second or third
base after a
hit. Another player can then
hit the
ball and the player
standing on one of the bases can continue
running around the remaining bases and back to
home base to
score. If a player hits the
ball and the other
team catches it, the player is out of the
game. Once there are three "
outs," the other
team gets a chance to
hit the
ball and
score points. In a
situation where there are players on all the bases, there is a good chance of scoring several
points if the player hitting the
ball does well. If, however, the
ball hit by the player is caught by the opposing
team, and there are already two
outs, the
team loses any chance they had to
score in that round of
play.
(baseball) in a
position where one has just lost his
team's chance to
score any further
points or has just lost the
game. In the
game of
baseball, there are four "bases" called first,
second, third and
home, laid out in a diamond shape, which players have to
run through and
touch in
sequence in
order to
score points. The
objective of the offensive
team is to get players onto and through each of the bases, and the
defensive team's aim is to
prevent them. Specific actions on the part of the
defensive team count as "
outs" against the offense, and when the offense has accumulated three "
outs," they become the defense, giving the other
team a chance to
score points. Thus,
having runners on first,
second and third would be a
potential of three
points which could be scored, but with two
outs, one more out would mean the
loss of that
potential.