One of the things that stays behind in childhood is baseball infield chatter. "Hey batter, hey batter, batter . . . swing!" For instance, as an adult, I've never seen courtroom proceedings start with "Hey lawyer, hey lawyer, lawyer . . . sue!"

Maxwell’s joke hinges on the persistence of childhood rituals—especially the sing-song taunting and encouragement heard on baseball diamonds—and how oddly out of place they would feel in adult institutions. By imagining a courtroom adopting the same rhythmic heckling (“Hey lawyer… sue!”), he highlights the sharp boundary between play and professional seriousness. The humor comes from incongruity: the childish, communal noise of a game versus the formal, rule-bound decorum of law. Beneath the punchline is a mild nostalgia for the immediacy and shared language of childhood games, paired with an observation that adult life tends to suppress that kind of spontaneous, collective expression.