Took his ball and gone home: a failed metaphor

General
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This has always annoyed me with Austin’s 2002 departure, “Austin took his ball and went home.”

In both a literal and metaphorical sense he didn’t.

This comes from the idea that the person who supplies a ball for a game amongst friends can end a game at any time if things aren’t going their way, and end the game for everyone.

When Austin left, he didn’t prevent anyone else from playing. He didn’t take his ball and go home, he simply went home.

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You may be missing an S at the end of ball.

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As a nerd who gets paid to write and has to restrain himself from correcting people on stuff like this, I love this post. Never thought about it before.

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Also, Austin didn’t bring a ball in the first place. To go with @Tony

Austin wasn’t exactly a huge star when he joined WWF and it was Vince who made a ball for him to play with. Vince could have made another ball for another star and he did with Cena.

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