NAVY YARD – Georgetown has granted the Class of 2021 the opportunity to celebrate graduation together. The only catch: the powers that be have mandated that graduation take place in Nationals Park, which is, tragically, a baseball thing. Now, there are some notable pros for Nats Park as a graduation venue. There’s the prospect of sucking down chili dogs while celebrating extraordinary scholastic achievement. There’s also the fairly slim chance of catching a shirt out of the t-shirt cannon (which are supposed to be one size fits all, but let me tell you they do NOT fit all. You will look bad in them. This is more of a con). And, of course, there’s the organist. What a ridiculous thing to have for athletic events in 2021! But, it is actually very well suited for the pomp and circumstance of a graduation ceremony.

Among all the many cons, one stands out in particular. This is that the national pastime will inevitably provide fodder for very, very strained analogies. Maybe some really clumsy wordplay. Also, some metaphors that have the nerve to suggest that baseball may illustrate something profound about the human experience, which of course it does not. If the sport had even an ounce of humanity in it then Shoeless Joe Jackson would be in the Hall of Fame. 

If I hear something like, “you knocked it out of the park,” “you all are next up to bat,” or “you poked one through the gap, but got greedy looking for extra bases and just barely beat the tag at 2,” I swear I will do something drastic. I will eat my soft-serve cone first. I will moon the kiss cam. I will grill President Joe Biden (who will be throwing out the ceremonial first pitch) about several of his most public and damning scandals. All this is to say, if a speaker focuses on the baseball aspect of the event, it will come off as a bit obvious and may damage their credibility.