Meaning:
This is an expression used in baseball, meaning `enter the batter's box to
take a turn to bat'.
Background:
Clearly, this is an American expression deriving from baseball. Americans
may forgive a little further simple explanation for those of us outside the
USA, understanding as much about baseball as you do about cricket, and
wouldn't know Yogi Berra from Yogi Bear.
Firstly, what's the plate? Well, it's a real plate marking the batter's
position. `Step up' is what it sounds like - batter's step up to the plate
when it's their turn to bat.
The expression began to be used towards the end of the 19th century. The
first example that I know of comes from the Illinois newspaper The Chicago
Tribune, May 1874, in a game between the White Stockings and Hartford:
The visitors were put out as fast as they stepped up to the plate.
There's little else to say about this expression.
- www.phrases.org.uk [edited]
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Really? Mr. Martin, the British author of the above (God Bless him), hasn't even
given the idiomatic meaning of the phrase! Here's what Ginger Software (via
google) said:
The phrase 'Step Up to the Plate' means to accept a challenge or
responsibility for something; to rise to the occasion. Example of Use: "It's
time for Tom to step up to the plate and take on his share of work."
I wouldn't care hadn't I just read a section in the American Heritage Dictionary
under the word "strike." "The central role that baseball has played in American
culture is known to all," it says, "but is particularly evident in the abundance
of baseball expressions applied to circumstances outside the sport" and goes on
with a slew of examples.
When people say that they have struck out in an endeavor, they are using one
such expression. We routinely speak of ballpark figures or estimates, of
some unexpected quirk of fate or tricky question on an exam being a curve
ball, of minor-league or bush-league players in a field or business, who
might one day enter the big leagues, if we can't go to lunch with a person
who invites us, we take a rain check. We can go to bat or pinch-hit for a
friend. We can be off base about something or so disconnected we are out in
the left field. When we cooperate we are playing ball, and when we get
serious or even ruthless about something, we are playing hardball. Some
unfortunate people are said to have been born with two strikes against them
if bad things come right off the bat. The list could go on and on, but that
would only be running up the score.
