Comments on: Hit a ball, help a cause

By: The Ridger

The Ridger — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 16:54:04 +0000

I’d agree that the point is that the pitcher generally wins the game by (a) pitching well and (b) getting run support. So when he makes a great play or hits a homer, he’s doing something unusual to help himself out. I believe it’s that unusualness that leads to the phrase being used. You’d never say “Johnson helped his own cause by pitching a no-hitter”, for instance.

By: Russell

Russell — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 02:54:28 +0000

Huh, that's true, about the win/loss record. I thought that maybe soccer goalkeepers were sometimes assigned a win/loss/(tie?) record, but I don't know if stats are even all that important in the soccer world. I'll bet there are endless debates about who of pitchers, quarterbacks, goalkeepers, etc are most responsible for the outcome of their team's win or loss.

seems to me that "help one's cause" involves stating something that should be obvious or taken as a given, as a way of pointing out something out of the ordinary. Must be other things like that...

By: Faldone

Faldone — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 20:01:08 +0000

I don't think there's any other team sport in which the win/loss record is recorded for any particular team member and, even in baseball, it's only recorded for the pitcher. Another aspect of the phrase is that it's used to indicate that the person who helped out his own cause was doing something other than his normal duties. For a pitcher to field the ball or hit the ball successfully is relatively rare and worthy of note. For all the other players fielding and hitting are expected and pitching would not be a possibility.

OK, maybe a football quarterback gets a win/loss record, but the only thing I can think of that would qualify as helping out his own cause would be for him to tackle an opposing player and that would only be possible if he had thrown an interception (not likely to inspire anyone to say that he had helped out his own cause) or if the ball had been fumbled.