The ball park analogy may have come form Art Katz. I'm not sure but I heard it somewhere I think but it seems apt in this case. Millennial views of the kingdom of God are easily dismissed by large portions of the church today but that may very well indeed come from a non Hebraic reinterpretation of Old Testament prophecy and the words of Christ.
1 - The first account I composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach,
2 - until the day when He was taken up, after He had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles whom He had chosen.
3 - To these He also presented Himself alive, after His suffering, by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.
4 - And gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, ‘Which,” He said, “you heard of from Me;
5 - for John baptized with water. But you shall be baptized wit the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”
6 - And so when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, “Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?”
7 - He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority;
8 - but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both n Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.”
Christ’s last remaining time before His ascension must have seemed almost infinitely valuable and therefore any last instructions and perspectives would have been of more than a little relevance and importance. The last forty days of His appearances with the apostles had been when He had been speaking to them of the kingdom of God (vs. 8) and the coming of the Spirit (vs. 5,8) The pouring out of the Spirit was a eschatological theme of the Old Testament and had long been associated with the coming Messianic kingdom - see Isaiah 59:20-21, Ezekiel 39:29, Joel 2:28-29, John 3:3. Seeing that the coming kingdom and the outpouring of the Spirit were common prophetic themes it was not unusual for them to ask if He would restore the kingdom to Israel at that time. The two had always been associated with each other. No rebuke came from Christ. No admonishment was given to them. If they had it wrong after so long of Him being with them then here was the grand chance to correct them and set them straight one last time. If their aspirations were completely carnal He could have shown them their national aspirations were out of line and dismissed them. Yet He didn’t do a thing to set the record straight. He rather confirmed their hopes and replied that only the Father knew the fixed time for this to happen He had set by His own authority. Their question had not been out of bounds and carnal and the angel’s proclamation, “This same Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same as you watched Him go into heaven,” helps pinpoint when the restoration will happen. Meanwhile, in the interim between His going and coming agin, they were to remain focused on witnessing for Him by the power of the Spirit beginning in Jerusalem. Christ had a chance to set them straight and knock this easily hittable ball out of the park in response to their question of “is it at this time when you are restoring the kingdom to Israel?”. Instead He helped confirm their aspirations.
The kingdom thought of and taught in such a manner was Hebraic in origin and fulfillment in spite of later Gentile adaptations and reinterpretation. Gentiles and their “it’s all a non earthly spiritual kingdom” and any "earthly perspectives are flights of fancy" and to “think of land inheritances as part of the kingdom is carnal” need to remember that whenever a Gentile comes to the Lord that he is entering into a covenant originally made with Israel.