Easy as one, two, three

I was wandering the aisles of a large store the other day, searching in vain for something the Lovely Mrs. Smith decided we couldn't live or she couldn't cook without (basically, one and the same), when I overheard a mother playing a classic Mom card.

"All right, young man," she told some barely ambulatory moppet. "That's Strike One. Two more and you're in big trouble!"

Now, I'm working off the assumption that (A) it was her child, and (B) he was old enough to understand the concept of strikes, or, frankly, that two and three come after one (at least they used to. It's been a while. Things may have changed.).

I'm also going to assume that, in later years, he wouldn't have followed the lead of a certain columnist you may be familiar with who suggested to his mother that the strike looked a little outside to him, he'd like to appeal to the first base ump and that she should try some new glasses and open her eyes because she was missing a good game here.

I'm going to assume this because he seemed like a young man with no authority issues, a healthy sense for the place of sarcasm in everyday life and the ability to see self-preservation as both a long- and a short-term game.

At that point I came to understand one more great thing about the three-centric nature of baseball: If it wasn't for the game, we'd have no idea how to discipline our children or sentence people.

Can you imagine, for instance, the mother falling back on football and telling her offending offspring, "all right, young man, that's your two-minute warning and you've got no timeouts. You're going to have to go Shotgun out of an empty backfield and don't even think about throwing over the middle or you won't be sitting down for a week!"

Or, in honor of the upcoming World Cup of Soccer, "here's your yellow card, buddy. One more penalty and I'm whipping out the Vuvezela!"

No, somehow we've come to accept that you get three, count'em, three chances to straighten up and fly right, or you have to head back to the dugout. Which is where you get to sit in the shade, eat sunflower seeds and not stand out in blazing heat while some alleged 10-year-old who can throw a baseball through a car wash without it getting wet but can't find home plate with a radar and a guide dog fires away in your general vicinity.

That may explain why, while I love the game, I wasn't much of a baseball player.

Still, as perfect as three may be as a yardstick of everything from batting ineffectiveness to childhood misconduct, there's no good reason, historically, for it. A quick review of baseball lore indicates the reason for three strikes shares much in common with more parental commands. Namely, it's because someone said so.

Apparently, for at least one year in the 1800's, the powers that be required four strikes for an out. Then they decided it ate into valuable time better spent adjusting pieces of personal equipment and spitting, so it was changed back to three.

You do have to admit, there is something about three that just seems right. There are three circus rings and three branches of U.S. government, things which may be more closely connected than we once thought.

Three is the perfect number for Wise Men, Stooges and Musketeers. It is however, a crowd, especially when it's wheels, or "Godfather" movies. It is (nerd Alert), the number you count to before hurling the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," having been repeatedly cautioned not to stop at two or proceed on to four.

We give three cheers (unless you're a Miami Heat fan, in which case you show up too late for the first cheer, leave before the last one, but act like you've always been cheering). Horse racing has three crowns, the Arkansas Razorbacks had the Triplets and no one knows if, after their won their third straight title, the Chicago Bulls paid former Los Angeles Lakers coach Pat Riley, who is supposed to have patented the phrase "Three Peat," to describe three consecutive NBA championships.

So next time you come upon some harried parent playing the three-strike card, compliment them on taking their place in the three-ness that is inherent in both our National Pastime and, apparently, our very nature.

And tell them not to worry. Give the kid a couple more chances. After all, the third time is the charm.

GARY SMITH IS A RECOVERING JOURNALIST LIVING IN ROGERS.