Only in metereology and baseball...

...can you be successful only part of the time and not be considered a failure...

How often are weathermen (sorry, metereologists!) right? Half the time? 75 percent of the time? Am I giving them too much credit? Do you know how often I've heard that we're going to be hit by a huge winter storm and to expect lots of snow and ice...only for it to be a downpour with a little bit of slush? If a weatherman (sorry, metereologist!) tells you it's going to rain and it's sunny instead, he or she doesn't get fired. And they get to be on tv! Some are probably local celebrities! If they have a really good gig on say The Today Show or Good Morning, America, they might be considered bona fide celebrities! For doing their job well, some of the time.

If I got 25 percent of the information wrong in my job, I'm pretty sure I would be fired. And possibly sued for libel.

Now, to baseball. I'm sure this applies to other sports as well, but I'm going to use batting average as my example for today. When Joe Mauer of the Minnesota Twins won the American League batting title in 2006, his batting average was .347. That's a little more than 1/3. That means, the best hitter in the American League was hitting once every 3 at bats. And probably got a raise for it. I think any batting average above .300 is considered doing well. That's less than 1/3. So, Joe Mauer or Derek Jeter or A-Rod or whoever is doing his job (getting hits) less than 1/3 of the time and not only not being fired, but being applauded for it. Oh, and making a couple million bucks for it as well.

This is information they should really tell you early on, before you make all your important life decisions like what to do for the rest of your life. Don't go to college for writing because you love it, unless you also love living with your parents till you're 30 because you'll be too broke to move out! Study metereology because you won't actually have to study! And keep playing Little League! And make sure you're born a boy!

Oh well. I guess I can't be a baseball player...but I can still always be a weather girl (sorry, metereologist!)