• cover one's bases; cover all the bases

• down to the last out

• hardball, play hardball
• left field
• off base
• step up to the plate

cover one's bases; cover all the bases — Ensure safety. In baseball, a defensive
player covers a base by standing close to it, ensuring a runner can not reach it safely.
In business, covering one's bases means being prepared for every contingency.[10]
Mentioned but not dated by Oxford University Press.[11]

"Arson investigators sifted through the rubble of an Airdrie

Stud barn today, but failed to determine the cause of a fire
that killed 15 thoroughbred broodmares and yearlings
Saturday night. The horses were worth more than $1 million,
according to Brereton Jones, owner of the 3,000-acre
(12 km2) stud farm. 'We do not have any reason to believe it
was arson, but you just want to be sure you cover all the
bases,' he said." — Associated Press "Fatal Barn Fire Still A
Mystery", The New York Times, 7 January 1985

"Cisco’s FastHub 400 series has the bases covered".[12]

down to the last out — To have just one last chance, to be

near the end of the competition. Also sometimes expressed as
"down to the last strike."

"Hillary Clinton is now down to her last out."[16]

"If politics were baseball, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt

Romney might be down to his last out"

hardball, play hardball — (Be or act) tough, aggressive. Refers to the comparison
between balls in baseball and softball. As a synonym for baseball, OED dates this use
of "hardball" to 1883; its non-baseball use appears in 1973.[21]

"Hauser would like to extend its three-year contract with

Bristol-Myers, becoming a supplier of the material for semi-
 synthetic Taxol. 'I think this is just tough bargaining,' said
Deborah Wardwell of Dain Bosworth Securities. 'It seems to
suggest hardball tactics.'" — Milt Freudenheim, The New
York Times, 10 January 2007

• left field, as in "that insult really came out of left field" — Unusual,
unexpected, or irrational. AHDI dates this idiom back to the mid-1900s; it also
states that the precise allusion is disputed, but a number of theories exist.[35]
Rumored to originally describe fans who came to Yankee Stadium to see Babe
Ruth (a right fielder, and also a left-handed hitter whose home runs most
frequently went to right field) but who bought tickets for the wrong side of the
field. Another legend is that the phrase originates from the location of the
Neuropsychiatric Institute building of the University of Illinois College of
Medicine, which was built on land that was once part of left field at West Side
Park, the former home of the Chicago Cubs.[36]

"Depp's performance came out of left field in The Curse of

the Black Pearl; nobody had ever thought of channeling
Keith Richards and Pepé Le Pew before." — Kent Williams,
Isthmus: The Daily Page

• off base — Unawares or by surprise, usually in the phrase "caught off base";
OED dates to 1935. Meaning misguided, mistaken, or working on faulty
assumptions, this usage dates to 1940. Both of these uses derive from the
situation of a runner being away from a base and thus in a position to being
put out (1872).[43]

"The absence of any sharp new angle, any strong new drive
in Mr. Roosevelt's messages reflected the fact that he and
his Cabinet (only Messrs. Hull. Murphy, Woodring, Edison and
Ickes were at hand) had been caught off-base with the rest
of the world by the Hitler-Stalin deal, the sudden push for
Poland." — Time, 3 September 1939[44]

"Lotte Ulbricht replied that Madame Yang was way off base.
No one was demanding that oppressed nations live happily
with their oppressors, she said, and added that Russia was,
as always, 'wholeheartedly behind the revolutionary
struggles of colonial peoples.'" — Time, 5 July 1963
• step up to the plate, or shortened to step up — To rise to an occasion in life.
Refers to when a player must approach home plate to take a turn at batting.
OED cites baseball usage in 1875, general usage in 1919.[64]

headline: "First Responders Stepped Up to the

Plate".[65]

headline: "Pig Farmers Have Stepped Up to the

Plate