Were Wolf wrote:This paragraph is almost at teh begininng of the chapter. I have next to NO knowledge of baseball, and perhaps that is hindering me from understanding his comparison. Help please?
I'm going to take that to heart, and be as detailed as I can, so please don't think I'm trying to be condescending in my description, because I'm not. If he had given a cricket reference, I'd be just as in the dark as you.
In baseball, as I'm sure you probably do know, the point is to hit the ball, not have it caught, and make it to all three bases in order, around to home plate, which is where the batter (now called the runner, once he has batted) bats from, all the while trying not to be tagged out by the team that is on the defense. Often this has to be done a base at a time, if the runner cannot safely get to the next base. Sometimes when a runner is able to get to first base, he will try to "steal" second base, meaning he will try to run to the base while the pitcher is pitching to the next batter, and hopefully get there before the catcher can throw the ball to someone that can tag him out before he gets there. He has to wait until the pitcher is in the middle of pitching to do so, since he can be tagged out if he is touched with the ball while not on a base. This only counts as "stealing" if he does so before the ball is "in play" (ie: hit by one of the subsequent batters).
In order to have a better chance to steal, or just to get a better jump on running should the next batter hit the ball into play, often the runner will "lead off" of the base, edging closer toward the next base. When it is a runner who is likely to steal, this will often unnerve the pitcher, causing him to make mistakes in his pitching, as he has to worry about the runner stealing the base. In order to dissuade the runner from stealing, the pitcher will sometimes throw the ball to the first baseman (the player on the defense who is guarding first base) in the hope that the runner will not be paying enough attention, or will slip, or have lead off too far, etc., and be tagged out before he can get back to first base. This is called a "pickoff move" (or "pickoff throw," "pickoff attempt," etc.) and if successful is called a "pickoff." This can also occur, and is called the same thing, when the runner is on second or third base, but is much less common, due largely to the greater difficulty in stealing third base or home plate, respectively.
The Wiki page for "
pickoff" goes into more exact detail than I have, but also assumes you have a rudimentary idea of baseball (which it of course gives generous numbers of lnks to, as Wiki pages are wont to do).
Now, that said, I have
absolutely no idea what Kyon is trying to get at here, especially since a pickoff doesn't have much to do with the runner getting on first base. Maybe "getting
back on first base" (if the pitcher is too slow) or "getting on
second base" (should he muff the throw), but neither of those make much sense to me either, in respect to the analogy. I think this might be one of those Japanese analogies that just doesn't translate literally, or maybe the Japanese use slightly different ways of phrasing baseball terms than Americans, and I'm missing something (probably some of both). Maybe we can get one of the native speakers (who is a baseball fan, hopefully) to put in their two cents?
