In fact, if I am to be believed,* a "ballpark" estimate is etymologically unrelated to the brick-and-mortar ballparks in which America's favorite pastime is indulged. "Ballpark" in the temporal sense began life as "by all perquisites," a phrase first utilized by seventeenth-century bureaucrats to acknowledge that a fiscal estimate was just that—an estimate. (Merriam-Webster notes that a "perquisite" is "a privilege, gain, or profit incidental to regular salary or wages; especially: one expected or promised" [my emphasis]. Appending "by all perq." to a budgetary item was what we might call an instance of "CYA." Over the centuries, this term compressed itself to Hawthorne's "byalperk" [as seen in "More on the Custom-House; or, I Forgot to Tell You Some of the Fascinating Details of My First Summer Job"] and, in due course, Sinclair Lewis's "ballperk" [as seen in Hartdale, his satire about a social-climbing golden retriever]. It was only in the second half of the twentieth century that the association with baseball venues became irresistible and then indelible.

*Note: I am not.

And by the time they get here, it will be almost night, honey, so that's already one day done.

This accounts for why I am usually late... it's my throwback approach that time needs merely to be reckoned. Minutes are much more exciting this way!