Baseball Remembers: Wally Moses

Pretty fair.

Describing something as “pretty fair” puts it in a very distinct place in the grand scheme of things. In baseball card grades, “fair” isn’t a good place to be, and they don’t let you claim it’s “pretty fair” to elevate it a bit. “Fair” is just a half-tick better than “poor” in baseball card land, and it distinctly isn’t “good.” But that’s not a reasonable scale. I mean, it has six different levels that include the word “excellent,” so it’s heavily skewed from reality.

In normal terms, though, “fair” isn’t that low on the scale, and “pretty fair” isn’t a bad place to be at all. It’s much better than “awful,” or “bad,” or “poor,” for instance. It’s even a bit better than “fine,” which implies that you’re getting the job done, whatever that may be, but not by much. “Fine” and “fair” are essentially synonyms, but adding “pretty” to it is reserved just for “fair.” It raises it up to something more.

“How you doing, Bob?”

“Pretty fair.”

Now we know that Bob’s in a good place, at least in his mind. Much more so than if he’d said “fine” or “fair,” unmodified. He’s not “good,” and he’s far from “great,” but “pretty fair” is a nice place to be.

I’m noting all of this because “pretty fair” was the first thing that popped into my mind when I looked at the career of Wally Moses.