Touch base

To touch base is make contact with someone and is one of many ‘base’ idioms that all derive from baseball in America where touching base is very much part of the game. Getting to first base means to make a positive start, whereas to be off base is to be mistaken or to be wide of the mark. To touch all the bases is to have everything covered and implies success as when a player hits a ‘home run’ and touches all the bases in a victory circuit of the field. All these figurative uses date from the 1930s.