Out of left field

[fechtbuch]

My boss was commenting on the management-speak phrase "drill down" this afternoon, which prompted me to look it up. Found a few articles on business-speak, like this one. Noticed that quite a few of them are baseball or softball metaphors. Some of which make sense to me to be fair, if I'm understanding them correctly. But that made me think how meaningless they are to many of the British managers using them. If you've never seen a base fielder leave their position to field a ball then try to make a play only to discover that none of their team-mates has moved in to take their place, with the ensuing frustration as the runner escapes what should be an easy out, then "make sure the bases are covered" is just a meaningless thing you've learned to say. Likewise, anyone who says "step up to the plate" without ever having had to do just that, coming in to bat (or pitch, I suppose) at a pivotal point in a match, and felt the pressure on them. And you make sure you "touch base" so you don't get called out for a technical infraction. How that came to mean "talk with someone", I'm not sure.
And I'm still not sure about "out of left field". Nor is anyone else, it seems, though it's most likely that a throw to home from left outfield will be coming in from behind a runner so they won't see the ball till it's already reached the Catcher. Or it's because in the old days of professional baseball managers used to have their groundsmen make left outfield irregular, sloped, filled with obstructions etc, to foil the majority of batters who tend to hit in that direction.