Today I heard someone being interviewed on the radio, and he used the expression "behind the 8-ball." At once I thought of the people here at Shoptalk, who might not know what the expression means.
It comes from the game of billiards, where players move balls around on a table by hitting them with the ends of sticks. Each ball has a number, and if your ball is "behind the 8-ball," it's almost impossible for you to continue the game. So when you are behind the 8-ball, you can't do anything useful.
That made me think about other expressions from games. For example, a "Hail Mary pass" in American football involves a player throwing the ball and just hoping another teammate will catch it. It's a desperate move.
In baseball, a player who gets onto a base is safe as long as he is close to the base. But players like to slip away from the base so that they can run to the next base if another player hits the ball. Sometimes the pitcher sees that the runner is far away from his base--so the pitcher throws to the baseman. If the baseman can touch the runner with the ball before the runner can step on the base again, the runner is "caught off base." When someone feels surprised by events, he or she may say: "I was caught off base by this."
Can you think of other expressions like these?
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