You can say that again...and again

Last week I made the mistake of reading my own story on the local high school basketball games. Having read it I threw the newspaper down in disgust. It wasn’t that I didn’t consider it to have been an accurate description of the games I covered, it’s just that the story was littered with cliches. I know most sports articles read as though they were entries in a cliche contest, still I like to think my writing is a little more fresh and original than that. Of course, once upon a time I liked to think I was a musician, too, until I married one that is.
Cliches are the bane of everybody who makes their living with the written word. Ever paused to think how something becomes a cliche? Basically, it works like this: Somebody comes up with a catchy way to verbally express an experience or idea or impression that just about everybody has shared. Since most writers are constantly in search of new ways to convey old ideas, they flock to this catchy expression like moths to a flame.
And since most people want to be thought of as clever, soon not only the writers but also everyone who reads what they write is using this expression like they’d thought of it. Before you know it, this assemblage of syllables has become overused and, despite its original catchyness, even the guy who really did come up with it first gets sick and tired of hearing it.
For some reason, sports writers are particularly prone to using hackneyed expressions, such as, “You’ve got to play them one game at a time.” To the best of my knowledge, nobody has figured out any other way to play them. If you can think up a way of playing them two at a time, you’ve really come up with something not only new, but down right revolutionary.
The original intent of this, now, grossly overused sentiment was to put into words the idea that it is unwise to overlook one’s next opponent and concentrate on the opponent in a game further down the road. One must admit that this is a rather cumbersome way of saying the same thing, hence we have the birth of another cliche.
I consider myself fortunate that I am not exclusively a sports writer. At least I get to vary the genre of my cliches. Although it is not uncommon for sports cliches, especially baseball cliches, to find their way into the parlance of other forms of human endeavor. For instance, all of us have “struck out” at one time or another, whether or not we have ever played baseball. Still, to quote that imminent philosopher Foghorn Leghorn, “There’s something kind of Y-u-u-h-h” about a kid who’s never played baseball.”
Hopefully, the next time I have the impression that the city council has done something goofy in trying to solve a problem, I can refrain from saying they “hit a foul ball.”
And please Lord, help me to keep from saying that the school board “cleared the bases” the next time they manage to get shed of a useless employee, not that they’ve ever done that yet.
Now that I’ve got just about everybody mad at me whose cooperation I require to do my job, I suppose I’d better shut up before I “shoot myself in the foot” again. Incidentally, I do wonder what the members of the Foot family think about when they hear that one.