Batting Last
Not always a winner but an advantage and perhaps THE advantage in many "games."
Loo
In baseball, home field has always been important. The crowd always a force. At their best they are participants, members of the home team. In the old days they would meet their “teammates” in a local bar and buy them drinks. Not that they were always faithful. When not yelling threats at the umpire, they were “booing” a fallen hero. And there were days where rows of empty seats stared out at the field.
But they aren’t the biggest advantage. The home team also bats last. In case of rain ending a game, you can’t count the runs the ”others” score at the top of an incomplete inning. And as Yogi is alleged to have said, “it ain’t over until it’s over.”
Russia faces the home team in Ukraine. So do immigrants. And those who will count the ballots in the next election.
There are many “last batters.” I there perhaps also a last “last batter.” In a recent Smithsonian magazine, the author of a story on the shrinking of Lake Powell and the slow return of a once flooded river valley to its “natural” state, ends with a simple observation. “Nature bats last.”