I've loved baseball for as long as I can remember. I don't remember my first baseball game, but there's photographic evidence; I'm perched in a seat with sunglasses on, a sign reading "Go Twins" resting against me. It was July 4th, 1999, and I was not even two months old at the time. The game has always made sense to me, its rules fairly simple and easy to follow, especially for small kids who might lack the attention spans for longer, more complicated games. The rules never change: you hit the ball, you run. If you miss the ball, you (likely) get a strike. Three strikes and you're out.

Baseball translates so easily to life. The strike system is something I believe works beyond baseball, pushing into life and the relationships in it. You see the strike system everywhere: parents give kids timeouts when they misbehave, some jobs give three chances before they ask employees to leave, misdemeanors lead to crimes. Three strikes lead to punishments, its effective in many situations.

The strike system can and should be used, in personal life as well. Chances are given too freely to people, allowing negative behaviors to persist even when they shouldn't continue. In baseball, you're out for the inning when you get three strikes, and I think the same should happen in our own lives. You don't want to give someone more opportunities to hurt you, to err, or to otherwise wreak havoc? Call them out. You're ultimately the umpire of your own life, no matter how cliche that metaphor might seem. Everyone decides who stays in their lives and for what reason, and giving people a million chances to do the right thing rarely works.

While I believe in the strike system and its entirety, I am all-too-often guilty of allocating more than three strikes to people. I actively seek out the best in people, I choose to take things at face value, and I always hope that people can change. The thing about this mindset, however, is this: if you give people more chances than they deserve, it's more than likely that they will use this to their own advantage.

People will work with as much rope as you can give them. If you keep forgiving transgressions, misguided actions, and behaviors that cause damage to yourself and others, you end up being worse off. You decide who belongs in your life, who makes the cut, but sometimes you need to let go of negativity. Three chances are a lot; if someone really needs to ask for forgiveness from you more than twice, they probably need to be evaluated a little more.

As baseball season starts to pick up, I've been watching games more and more. I see strikes happen when batters miss their mark. They happen when you get foul balls. They even happen when the batter could've hit the ball, could've done the right thing, but they just didn't. Strikes happen when you aren't doing what you're supposed to, and you only get three chances for a reason. The next time someone doesn't treat you right, or you're tired of excuses and misdoings, that's okay. It's just time for them to strike out.