No prizes for guessing what George Mitchell was up to last weekend. A self-confessed baseball enthusiast, he must, like millions of Americans, have settled down in front of the box to see the New York Yankees claim the first matches of the World Series by dispatching Atlanta's curve balls to the heavens like Exocet missiles.
Maybe he was at the game, seated anonymously in the bleachers: he doesn't look like the kind of guy who would relocate to the local sports bar, to share pitchers of beer while checking out the season's batting averages with the barman.
All that must now seem a world away. The senator is back in Belfast, wearing the umpire's jersey and trusting that the politicians won't be playing hardball as he tries one last time to move a tortuous political process beyond first base.
In baseball, it's a simple case of three strikes and you're out. In Northern Irish politics, the trick is to keep the big hitters in the game.
The game plan is crushingly simple. A little movement from Gerry Adams, a sideways shuffle by David Trimble, and bingo, George can repack his bags and be home in time for a Yankees victory parade.
That's the theory: the execution has been rather more difficult. To his credit, the talks review chairman has been unfazed by setbacks, unflappable in the political dug-out, irrepressible in terms of his personal commitment. But he would not be human if at times he did not consider that facing 100 m.p.h. fastballs in the World Series would be less intimidating than edging Northern Ireland's politicians towards implementation of the Belfast Agreement.
Yet there are signs that while he has been away, things have been picking up.
Crucially, David Trimble has reasserted his authority in the UUP, first by cuffing his party's fractious juveniles around the ears at their party conference, then by taking centre stage at the Conservative Party conference, and winning the war of words at his own.
After months of looking over his shoulder to see where the next knife in his back is coming from, he felt confident enough last week to aim a dagger of his own at the prima donnas within unionism who, to use an old Adams cliche, are ducking the challenge of creating a better Northern Ireland.
He mentioned by name only his old adversary, Bob McCartney, but more than a few within his own ranks have felt the sting of Trimble's waspish riposte to the Faustian jibes which accuse him of making a pact with the devil.
So keen are some to demonise Trimble that they conveniently forget how every other unionist leader has failed to see the point of encouraging republicanism to the stage where it is eager to engage in a partitionist settlement which, after decades of drift, has effectively drawn a constitutional line in the sand. If all else fails, that will be the lasting testimony to his leadership.
Last weekend we heard Mitchel McLaughlin and Dermot Nesbitt poring over the entrails of the review like two men determined to make sense of the mess in front of them. There was talk of the improving ambiance between them and of helping each other to find "the right forms of words".
Astonishing stuff, really. Can we truly have reached the point where finding the right language to place before unionists and republicans is all that is required to make things work?
George Mitchell and the rest of us will know the answer shortly. It is unlikely that George Mitchell will return to the US in a blaze of glory, but bankable progress has been made and he will leave the peace process in much better shape than he found it when his review began.
But there is no escaping the reality that even the most positive prognosis still requires risks to be taken. Taking chances is what we all have to do in our daily lives. Why should politics be any different? Few of us are in a position to obtain the things we want without entering into a leap of faith, and requiring others to do the same, particularly where finances are concerned.
If we apply the same logic to the current impasse, the complex issues of decommissioning and membership of the executive could be overcome if both sides entered into a binding transactional agreement based on trust and payback.
Decommissioning is the currency. Nobody is going to sell anyone a share of the big house on the hill on the vague promise of payment to follow at some unknown date in the future.
But if unionists accept that it is impossible for republicans to meet the asking price upfront, they should be prepared to allow Sinn Fein to find an honest broker and enter into a mortgageable arrangement in which a first deposit is provided, and instalments become due on a regular basis until the obligation has been fulfilled.
If the parties come up with such a deal, who could disapprove? Anti-agreement unionists who regard decommissioning as the all-important condition for progress risk being accused of insincerity if they refuse to consider a plan which is clearly capable of delivering decommissioning.
As responsible people, they would be duty-bound to reflect that playing hardball with republicans on the guns issue has failed to secure a single bullet, or an ounce of Semtex. That being true, what have they to lose by taking a different approach if a better outcome is possible?
And what happens, you might well ask, if Sinn Fein defaults on its side of the bargain? Well, we all know what befalls people when they don't keep up their mortgage.
Eviction is a messy business, but if it has to happen, at least no one will be able to say that the new social climbers weren't given the chance to pay their way.
Geoff Martin is editor of the News Letter