What would the world do without sports analogies?

The latest example: of all places, Circuit Judge Wilson's dissent in the decision issued by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday. Wilson, explaining one of the standards for judging whether someone deserves the granting of an injunction, wrote: "The establishment of a 'substantial likelihood for success on the merits' is a heavy burden, but not an insurmountable one. A movant need not establish he can hit a home run, only that he can get on base, with the possibility of scoring later."

I think that analogy is pretty good. You don't have to prove that you'll score the winning touchdown, only that you may come within field goal range--wait, maybe the baseball one works better. I have no plans to move into the public sector as a judge, but if it involves making up sports analogies, I think I'd be pretty good. I'd probably try to bring in Derek Jeter as a cross-promotion. He's the ultimate get-on-base guy.

My high school calculus teacher always used to say, "Don't blow the layup." That meant: after you've finished dissecting all kinds of variables according to esoteric mechanics, don't be careless and add two and two incorrectly. It happened all the time.

From business ("keep your eye on the ball") to dating (I'll leave that to people's imaginations), the sports analogy always seems perfect. Sports provide an easy and entertaining way to assess expectations, judge success and failure, and ascertain degrees of opportunity. There's no need to be too clever--you can just find the opening and go for the easy two.