Evan Schaeffer is bothered by the Lawsuit Reduction Act for a number of reasons. But the question one of his post raised, is why the sanctions only kicked in after the third offense. He wondered if this was the baseball metaphor of "three strikes, you're out" getting out of hand.
I thought otherwise:
It *might* be the baseball analogy run amok, but the baseball example itself manifests a certain perception that three chances may be fair. Which is certainly tenable:The first strike might have been an accident. A bad pitch call [perhaps], etc. So it wouldn't be fair to punish someone for that.
The second strike is more serious. It is likely that at least one of these two actions (bad swings [etc]...) was truly bad. But, it's not fair to punish without a warning, so consider this second strike designation a warning.
By the third strike you've certainly had adequate warning. So NOW you get punished.
...
Of course, this raises the question of why there are four balls allowed. But I think it can be distinguished by the fact that a walk is vastly less punitive than a strike out. A team is only entitled to 27 at-bats to try to beat the other team. Whereas a pitcher can face as many batters as he'd like... Granted, it's hard to win a game if he faces a lot, and it's definitely hard if his inaccuracy puts a lot of them on base, but a walk is not such a critical event – not such a dramatic loss of opportunity – as a strike-out necessarily is.