Batter Chatter

'90 Reds Took it Down to the 'Wire'

2012-01-11T12:59:00.000-05:00

The 1990 Reds became the last World Series winner from before the wild card era to get a guy into the Hall of Fame, but they got their guy yesterday when Barry Larkin earned a golden ticket to Cooperstown.

The team had some great, fiery personalities, from skipper Lou Piniella to the knucklehead bullpen trinity known as the Nasty Boys, in Rob Dibble, Randy Meyers and Norm Charlton.

Piniella gave the team its identity, says Larkin.

Reports the NY Times:
Larkin said that Piniella, a former Yankee, made some people nervous because he had not talked with many players before spring training in Plant City, Fla. In his first meeting with the team, Piniella surveyed the clubhouse and said, in salty language, that he hated to lose and would not accept it. Then he left the room.

“[Coach] Jackie Moore says, ‘O.K., boys, let’s go to work,’ ” Larkin said. “We went wire to wire that year.”

Wire to Wire means, of course, jumping out to first place from the get-go, and staying there for the remainder of the season. Not easy to do. It's also used in less dramatic fashion to describe a single game: taking the lead early on, and holding on for the win.

Wire to wire presumably takes its name from running races, and the metaphor is used in other sports too. Just last month, duffer Lee Greenwood went wire to wire in Thailand.

Reports the AP:
Lee Westwood completed a wire-to-wire victory in the Thailand Golf Championship, shooting a 3-under 69 in windy conditions Sunday to beat Masters champion Charl Schwartzel by seven strokes.
The third-ranked English star finished at 22-under 266 at Amata Spring Country Club.

The phrase is familiar enough, at least in baseball, to grace the cover of the book about, yes, the 1990 Reds.

It sounds as though baseball's newest Hall of Famer might even own a copy of it.

'Rally Beers' Come Up Flat

2011-10-25T12:52:00.000-04:00

We've all heard of rally caps, and even Aubrey Huff's fearsome rally thong. But thanks to the boozing and losing 2011 Red Sox, now we have rally beers.

Jon Lester told the Boston Globe that he and other pitchers who were not scheduled to pitch would sometimes drink a "ninth-inning rally beer" in the clubhouse during games, reports CBS News.

Funny how slugging Jack Daniel's was considered key to the Sox' unlikely comeback against the Yankees in 2004, but chugging beers doomed the 2011 lot.

The Sox are not the only team to partake in a rally beer.

Reports Sporting News:
Chicago White Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski admits a "rally beer" sometimes is necessary.

"Yes, absolutely I have before," Pierzynski said on 'The Dan Patrick Show' when asked if he ever had a drink in the clubhouse. "Sometimes you're just really struggling and you just say, 'Hey, you know what, I need something to calm me down and let's have a beer.' A couple of us will do it together, and sometimes it works out.

"It's just, sometimes you just need a rally beer. If you're in extra innings and you're in about the 15th inning and you really need to get going again, that sometimes works for you."

Pierzynski says he and some teammates also did shots before a 2008 ALDS game against the Rays.

The Rays won that series, 3-1.

The Sox of course imploded amidst the rally beering in September.

Maybe we're better off leaving the potent potables to the fans in the stands.

Swift Pitcher Throws 'Asprin'-Fast

2011-10-24T10:55:00.001-04:00

When a player is hitting well, the ball looks as large as watermelon, or perhaps a cantaloupe (pamplemousse, en francais).

When he's not, it's a seed or a pill.

Or an aspirin tablet, as noted in a recent Sports Illustrated.

There's a very entertaining feature in the October 17 issue on a career minor league pitcher with a golden arm. "The Invisible Fastball" is about Jack Swift, who turned heads at backwater baseball stops such as Savannah and Buffalo and Elkin, NC in the '40s and '50s, all the while befuddling hitters with a blazing fastball, and racking up astounding numbers of innings.

Write Chris Ballard and Owen Good of the fastball:
"Teammates say it hissed, as if searing the air. In the parlance of the day Jack threw an aspirin tablet--that's how small the ball appeared to the hitter."

The writers take a close look at Swift's performance in 1953, pitching in Marion, NC. Swift threw a stunning 287 innings in a 108 game season, striking out 321 and winning 30.

Swift pitched before the radar gun offered a precise number to show just how hard a pitcher threw, and so his legend grew.

It's a really fun read.

Red Sox Lester 'Wears' Scarlet Letter Proudly

2011-10-18T14:26:00.002-04:00

"Did we drink an occasional beer? Yes," Jon Lester told the Boston Globe Monday. While his Popeye's eating cohorts Josh Beckett and John "Oh-my-god-please-pay-this-mans-entire-salary-and-gift-him-to-a-low-market-team-imediately" Lackey still haven't uttered a word about the Sox epic September fail, Lester tried his best to take some responsibility for his actions.

"We ordered fried chicken maybe three times in six months. Other guys who were not playing that day would come in and have a bite to eat," Lester said. "But what people are trying to do is a witch hunt. They're looking for any reason to basically tear somebody's head off because we lost, and people right now are saying it's because we did this. I'm not shying away from saying I did it."

This, in baseball clubhouses, is what is known as "wearing it." Wearing it is what ballplayers do when they are forced to take responsibility for something they may or may not feel responsible for. It also implies falling on one's sword for the greater good of the team.

I spent this summer in the sweltering heat (like 47 straight days over 100 degrees, my head is melting off sweltering) of Shreveport, Louisiana calling games for Your 2010 American Association of Independent Baseball Champion Shreveport-Bossier Captains. The 2011 Captains, much like the 2011 Red Sox, were underachievers. Shreveport returned 17 players from their championship run, but they never really got it going.

The Captains worked through a lot of injuries (our 35-year-old pitching coach who hadn't pitched professionally in three years and weighed close to 250 pounds started a game) and a lot of questionable roster decisions (the first position player the Captains cut ended up being the only one to return to the Major Leagues this year...pinch runner extraordinaire Joey Gathright, who ended up watching the September debacle in Boston in a Red Sox uniform in the Fenway Park dugout) and ended up 10 games under .500 and out of the playoffs.

It was in the Captains clubhouse that I learned about wearing it. Our catcher was charged with an error on an attempted steal when his throw bounced off the glove of our shortstop, bounded into centerfield and allowed the baserunner to take third. After the game he was upset about the official scorer's decision. "I've been wearing calls like that all year," he said.

Our second baseman got his legs taken out from under him covering second on a double play grounder. "Shortstop should have gotten me the ball sooner," he said. "I just gotta wear it."

Our pitching coach (who walked six guys in two innings...it was a less-than-Ali-like comeback, was griping about his pitchers blaming pitch selection for their woes. "Pitch your game. If you don't like the call, shake him off. If not, make your pitch and wear it."

As you can tell, it was a season of wearing it over and over. We wore it all summer.

And I learned that ballplayers do not like wearing it. In fact, they hate wearing it. Baseball is such an insular environment where players are allowed, and sometimes encouraged, to act out teenage whims and desires (like drinking beers and playing video games when you know you're not supposed to) that when players are called out by the public, they are put in the uncomfortable and unfamiliar position of taking responsibility.

Instead of "owning it," which connotes taking full responsibility without passing the buck even passively (as Lester did when he said his former manager Terry Francona "didn't rule the clubhouse with an iron fist,") ballplayers often "wear it," which implies carrying around the burden of responsibility. Which is what most adults do when they make a mistake.

But hey, if Carl Crawford doesn't give that Robert Andamo base hit "the Union Pacific", the Sox might be in the playoffs and no one would be discussing who is going to be owning it and wearing it all the way through a very long winter.

--Guest post by David Tanklefsky

[image: CBS News]

Word of the Day: SCHADENROID

2011-10-07T10:06:00.001-04:00

SCHADENROID /noun/ shadd en ROYD: Taking great pleasure from the failure of ballplayers linked to performance-enhancing substances.

performance enhanced...not!

Usage: My schadenroid shot through the roof when I saw A-Rod whiff with the bases loaded in the 7th last night, and then strike out to end the game--and the Yankees' season.

[image: NY Times]

Later, Tater: AP Says No to Baseball Lingo

2011-09-28T13:29:00.003-04:00

With the playoffs just about upon us, the Associated Press (AP) sent out a memo to the nation's newspapers, requesting they cut down on the "hackneyed words or phrases" that appear in newspapers' baseball coverage--and that keep Batter Chatter humming along like a Aroldis Chapman heater.

The AP has focused on home runs as the biggest cliche offenders.

Home runs are also homers, but avoid calling them “dingers,” “‘jacks,” “bombs,” “taters” and “four-baggers, reads the memo.

Then on to pitching.

Pitchers can pitch two-hitters, but avoid “twirling” or “chucking” or “fireballing.”

RBIs, meanwhile, are just that--RBIs, and not RBI.

And definitely not Rib-Eye Steaks.

Thanks to reader Gorgeous Francis for the tip.

[image: Rogertgastman.com]

Carl Crawford and Casey Stengel in Unholy 'Union'

2011-09-26T16:06:00.000-04:00

As if things weren't going poorly enough for the Red Sox (or "Red Sux," as my neighbors in the heart of Yankee Country never tire of posting on Facebook), $142 million bust-thus-far Carl Crawford made like Joan Crawford on a Jeter shot to the outfield yesterday against the Yanks, earning the dubious "Union Pacific" honors from NY Times scribe George Vecsey.

Wakefield’s butterfly jumped so much that one of Derek Jeter’s three hits (putting him at .300 overnight) took a goofy carom away from Carl Crawford, who was nonchalantly sticking out his glove. (Casey Stengel used to call such a timid sidearm effort “the Union Pacific” after a long-ago brakeman waving his lantern.) Crawford was given an error.

The Union Pacific, which was a hit restaurant for Rocco DiSpirito before he turned into the John Lackey of the restaurant world, is aking to the Turnstile award in football, given to defensive players for feeble attempts to stop the opposition with their arms.

(Sticking with the train theme, check out my article on a certain Metro-North rider in yesterday's NY Times!!)
The Union Pacific is an apt metaphor amidst this train wreck of a closing stanza for Boston.

[photo: AP]

Sox Curb Their Enthusiasm For Post-Season Baseball

2011-09-16T16:32:00.000-04:00

Larry David earns a post in the hallowed pixel-pages of Batter Chatter for the second time this season, as he introduced the verb "Buckner" to the lexicon, as in, "You Buckner'd me" by letting that weak ground ball go through your legs and making us lose the World Series.

Earlier this season, David debuted "Koufaxin' me," as in, refusing to play sports--golf, baseball--on the Sabbath, for which Batter Chatter got considerable traffic.

Buckner had a memorable turn on Curb Your Enthusiasm's penultimate episode, after Larry missed an easy ground ball in Central Park softball, and his Yari's Auto Body team lost the championship.

"You Bucknered me!" screamed Yari. "You fucking Bucknered it! Why is Buckner on my team?"

Buckner was a good sport to go on the show, and sure enough, redeems himself in spades.

Buckner's old Sox team, meanwhile, is Bucknering their very season in its final stanza.

Mets Sucked in by Wizardry of Teheran

2011-09-09T09:44:00.000-04:00

SUCK ME? Suck you!

The Mets were done in by a SUCK ME last night, in the colorful parlance of the Kiner's Korner blog.

That's right, a Shaky Unknown Chucker Kills Mets Everytime--a SUCK ME.

Last night's Chucker/SUCKer was Braves youth Julio Teheran--tough name to have when you're pitching in a city that suddenly went on hyper-alert for terrorist attacks--who limited the punchless Mets to a lone run in 5.1 innings in his first major league win.

Speaking of Kiner's Korner, we had the professional pleasure of profiling Ralph Kiner for our day job this week--one of the game's greats, and true gents. (Here's the link, but it's unfortunately behind a pay wall.)

Ralph is taking yet another losing Mets season in stride.

“I’d lost 112 games one year with the Pirates,” he told me. “I'm used to it.”

It's Called Steve Blass Disease, But You Can Call it Steve Sax Disease Too

2011-09-06T10:15:00.000-04:00

Chuck Knoblauch.

Mackey Sasser.

Steve Sax.

Mark Wohlers.

Rick Ankiel.

To a lesser degree, Ryan Zimmerman.

What do these guys have in common? All have been struck by a strange condition known as the yips, which makes the most elementary baseball act, the first baseball activity you do as a kid, the first thing every athlete does to begin the day's warmup--throwing the ball to a teammate--a bewitching, beguiling, and, often, crippling, task. (Low moments in yips history: Knoblauch overthrowing first so badly that the ball went into the Yankee Stadium crowd and hit Keith Olbermann's mother in the face. Vast right wing conspiracy, anybody?)

The condition is called Steve Blass Disease, according to a new baseball novel, The Art of Fielding, from Chad Harbach.

In the novel, which was excerpted by Sports Illustrated in the August 29 issue, Henry Skrimshander, star shortstop at Westish College, is seeing his once glittering prospects as a major leaguer plummet due to his painstakingly detailed yips issues.

A few notables in the crowd for Westish's game, college president Guert Affenlight, Cardinals scout Dwight Rogner, and former MLB star shortstop Aparicio Rodriguez, are discussing Skrimshander's throwing woes.

"They call it Steve Blass disease," Dwight explained to Affenlight. "After the first player it happened to. A pitcher for the Pirates. That was a little before my time."

"Those were the Pittsburgh teams of Clemente," said Aparicio. "They won the Series in '71. Clemente was named Most Valuable Player, but the honor could easily have gone to Mr. Blass. He had an exceptional ability to control the baseball.

"A year later, on New Year's Eve, Clemente was killed in a plane crash while delivering aid to Nicaragua. When the next season began, Mr. Blass could no longer do what he'd always done. It happened very suddenly. Walks, wild pitches. Two years later, only a few years removed from the height of his career, he decided to retire."

"You think it was related to Clemente's death?" Affenlight asked.

Aparicio sat silent for a long while before answering. "I suggested as much by the way I told the story, didn't I?"

The three embark on a long discussion on the psyche of an athlete who is consumed by the yips.

It's expertly written, Harbach showing a keen appreciation for human nature, and for the nature of baseball.

For the record, Harbach is not the first to use the term "Steve Blass Disease." In fact, it turns up in Chuck Knoblauch's Wikipedia entry:

In 1999 he began to have difficulty making accurate throws to first base, a condition sometimes referred to in baseball as "the yips", "Steve Blass Disease", or "Steve Sax Syndrome" in more recent years. By 2000, the problem had grown serious enough that he began seeing more playing time as a designated hitter.

The blog Mental Floss offers a brief history of Steve Blass Disease, reaching beyond sports to Hollywood to detail the victims of this dreaded malady.

After his promising debut, let us hope the author Harbach never gets the writing yips.

'Frozen Ropes' Origin Something of a Cold Case

2011-08-31T11:37:00.001-04:00

Who came up with the term "frozen rope," as in, Adrian Gonzalez smacked a frozen rope off the Monster, but only ended up with a single?

It doesn't appear to have been former Yankees broadcaster Dom Valentino.

Crippled and wracked by disease, Valentino was profiled in a sad NY Times article last week. He's cared for by his son, David, who tries to keep Valentino's spirits up with details from his dad's broadcasting past.

Writes Barry Bearak:

"You had your own signature phrases, didn’t you, Dad?” David asked his father. “Frozen rope, wasn’t that yours, dad?” But the announcer shook his head no. “What about, Going, going, gone,?” But that wasn’t original to Valentino, either.

Wikipedia's Glossary of Baseball defines frozen rope as: A hard-hit line drive. Also a strong throw from the outfield.

UrbanDictionary says: an absolute monster of a linedrive completely cutting through the air

Frozen Ropes is also a chain of baseball and softball camps; there's even a "Frozen Ropes Tigers" rep-level teen baseball franchise.

So if it wasn't Valentino, who came up with frozen ropes?

The authoritative Dickson Baseball Dictionary credits Baseball Digest with defining the term as far back as 1963, with Leonard Schecter writing, "You can almost see the icicles dripping of it."

Dickson also notes an interesting use of the term in espionage circles. A frozen rope in that world is shorthand for "a very important signal intercept," and was used in Clear and Present Danger in 1989.

New Term 'Walks On' to Baseball Tonight Set

2011-08-23T16:45:00.000-04:00

Even the casual baseball fan knows what a walk off home run is.

But howzabout this for a new baseball phrase--the walk on home run.

I caught the phrase on Baseball Tonight Saturday night. I think it was Doug Glanville who said it, riffing with Aaron Boone. My memory is a bit hazy, as I'd just walked in from our annual summer block party, and I'd been foolish enough to try the guy across the street's key lime pie extract cocktail mix.

Do I look authorly enough?

"You always hear about the walk off home run," said I-think-it-was-Glanville. "What about the road team starting off the game, BAM!, walking on with a home run."

Certainly Rickey Henderson comes to mind when one thinks of walk on home run kings.

"That may have some legs," said Boone, who owns one of the Top 10 walk off home runs in Major League history. (2003...Boston-Yanks...Wakefield...but you knew that.)

Glanville is a word guy. He went to Penn. He wrote a book. He writes about baseball, and life, for the NY Times as well.

It was a weird edit...a commercial for the movie Contagion, then that little outtake-y banter between I-think-it's-Glanville and Boone, then another ad for Claritin, then another ESPN program.

Contagion is about a lethal airborne virus. We shall see if I-think-it's-Glanville's phrase goes similarly widespread.

Mets 'Slot' Studs of Future

2011-08-19T16:59:00.000-04:00

It's a little hard to imagine, but the Metsies were the recipients of some positive publicity this week, the NY Times commending the kings of Queens for spending big on their future.

On August 15, the Mets signed top pick Brandon Nimmo for $1.656 million, and 15th rounder Phillip Evans for $650,000--the latter in particular a larcenous sum for a lower round guy.

The Mets "went over slot" by doing so.

Huh? you may say.

Clarifies Andrew Keh of the Times:

The practice of bypassing Major League Baseball’s guidelines — commonly known as “going over slot” — is neither new nor uncommon for other clubs.

In layman's terms, the Mets spent more than the league recommends, which teams who prefer winning to losing tend to do.

"The slot" is of course a hockey term for a key offensive position within shooting distance of the goal.

It's also the name given to a body of water running through the Solomon Islands, a little south of Papua New Guinea.

It was also the name of a column I wrote for the defunct New York Sports Express several years ago, in which I found offbeat sports stories (women's fastpitch baseball, bowling leagues, gay hockey tournaments) around New York City.
"Slot" appears to be a somewhat familiar term to those who cover baseball for a living; Jon Heyman of SI.com saw fit to use it in verb form without any sort of explanation for readers:

"[Selig] is more determined than ever to get slotting," one person who knows Selig well said.

And...

Selig's hope that the union would accept binding slots rests partly on a belief that current players aren't concerned about incoming amateur players.

If Batter Chatter condoned branded integration in any way, or thought we could make a nickel of it, we'd probably throw in a plug for Foxwoods having the "loosest slots," as their billboard boasts, right around here.

Terry Francona Has Not Come to Eat Sabathia, Or to Beat Him

2011-08-16T12:37:00.004-04:00

This was kind of interesting. Terry Francona was addressing the media recently, and trying to explain the Red Sox' uncanny success against C.C. Sabathia, who of course beats up every other team he faces.
Francona, who does the whole befuddled thing pretty well, was fairly befuddled to explain.

Reported the NY Times:

“Believe me, it’s not like we see him and say, ‘We’re going to punch up on this guy.’ But we did have good at-bats.”

Punching up on Sabathia, or, as Francona put it, not punching up on him. It's a good little sound bite.

Yet the Associated Press scribe, surely sitting in the same Dunkin Donuts-signage adorned Fenway press conference, heard it a little differently.

"Believe me, it's not like we go, 'We're going to lunch up on him.'"

Lunch up. I daresay it's an even better sound bite than punch up. You probably never heard lunch as a verb before, for starters, and it brings up the mental image of the likes of Youk, Ellsbury, Pedroia and Papi, napkins around necks, rubbing their hands as Sabathia is brought to the table. (J.D. Drew sadly had to miss the meal due to a strained pharynx.)

So was Francona saying his ballclub does not throw haymakers at the husky lefty, or it does not see him as a steak for 25?

The Providence Journal beat guy heard lunch.

Four years ago, RedSox.com had Francona saying about minor leaguer Jeff Bailey:

"He's the type of hitter that, in my view, can hit Major League pitching. He's lunching up on some average Triple-A pitching."

I will revisit this topic after, well, lunch.

Morgan Makeover is Mostly 'Mental

2011-08-15T12:49:00.001-04:00

Nyjer Morgan, suspended last year for starting fights with everyone but the ball girl and the guy in the Abe Lincoln costume at Nationals Park, is successfully rehabbing his image in Milwaukee thanks in part to an alter-ego called Tony Plush, reports the NY Times.

Nicknamed T-Plush, Morgan's seemingly better half is "a fun-loving personality who creates words and nicknames," according to the Times. When he was a kid, little Nyjer and some pals invented swaggering pseudonyms for themselves. Since Bono Vox, The Edge and Johnny Rotten were taken, they settled upon Frankie Sleaze, James Dot Dean and Tony Plush.

Morgan...er, T-Plush...has created a baseball term as well. Writes Pat Borzi:

Morgan calls the fundamentals of his game, like bunting and moving up runners, Plushdamentals. Morgan’s teammates often salute T-Plush by forming a timeout signal with their hands.

“It’s a legend, man,” Brewers left fielder Ryan Braun said. “The guy’s brilliant.”

It's the second variation of "fundamentals" covered in these cyber-pages; Mets announcer Keith Hernandez often talks about "fundies"--or, as is increasingly the case out in Flushing, the lack thereof.
Full disclosure: Morgan had a short and unmemorable run on my Loisaida Luckless Pedestrians fantasy team last year.

This year, he's hitting .320.

T-Plush's surreal post-game appearances have become something of a YouTube sensation, and he's a Twitter star as well.

As Plush tweeted yesterday, "Throw up yo T, Nation!!! Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh".

It being Milwaukee and all, the Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh may or may not be an homage to Fonzie's Aaaaaaayyyyyyyyy!

These days are all happy and free for the schizophrenic centerfielder.

Is it a Coincidence That Officer Hightower Died the Other Day?

2011-08-06T21:51:00.002-04:00

With a tip of the Stetson to Bryce Harper, Batter Chatter is sticking with the tower theme in its Special Saturday Edition, after the YES men calling the Yankee game last night identified light tower power as a key to the Yankees-Red Sox series opener.

"Both these teams can hit some home runs," said Ken Singleton, making his second appearance in Batter Chatter in the past week. "The Yankees are first and the Red Sox are second. There are some power offenses here."
In case light tower power wasn't self-explanatory, Singleton broke down LTP for viewers. "Sometimes the veteran scouts say a player has light tower power," he said. "Capable of hitting a home run over a light tower."
(Editor's Note: Should you be in, around, or traveling toward Telluride this weekend, venerable horn outfit Tower of Power is playing the Telluride Jazz Celebration.)
Surprisingly, the game was a little light in the light tower power department. The Yanks prevailed 3-2, with Big Papi clouting the encounter's lone home run--a moonshot to right that traveled 408 feet but, sadly, did not clear a light tower.
One of the benefits of having light tower power? The right to do a little home run pimping, as Jonathan Mahler puts it.

'Buzz'-Worthy Bryce Harper 'Lightyears' Ahead of Competition

2011-08-04T13:51:00.000-04:00

Teen slugger Bryce Harper has a bright future in the Major Leagues--and in the hallowed annals of Batter Chatter. Tom Verducci profiles Harper in the Aug. 1 Sports Illustrated, and Harper shows a welcome willingness to sling the baseball lingo around.

Verducci examines an incident where Harper was caught on video, blowing a kiss to the pitcher in the midst of his home run trot, which only fueled the fire for the haters who say Harper is an arrogant ass. He also looks at another well publicized play where Harper went from first to third on an infield out--with his team up by 8.

The opposing pitcher threw at Harper's head next time up, as the unwritten rules of baseball dictate, and Harper took it in stride.

"If I was pitching, I probably would have done the same thing," says Harper. "A kid going first to third with the score eight-nothing? If I was up on the bump, I would buzz the tower too."

The Bump...Buzz the tower...listen to this kid!

The phrase appears to pre-date Harper's birth by about six years, and reinforces the notion that all male culture comes from Top Gun.

Says IMDB.com:

Goose: No. No, Mav, this is not a good idea.

Maverick: Sorry, Goose, but it's time to buzz a tower.

Urban Dictionary offers up the term too, which is apparently widely enough used that it's got its own text-message shorthand:

Informing someone to call your cell phone at a later time; (ie. Call me later..); if texting, use "btt".

Wikipedia's Glossary of Baseball acknowledges BTT as a baseball term:

To throw a high fastball up-and-in to a hitter, typically with intent to back the hitter off the plate or make a statement. Also see brushback and purpose pitch.

Verducci shows Harper to be cocky, but probably no more of an a-hole that any other 18 year old who's been the best baseball player in his age class his entire life.

Harper has been splitting his time between Hagerstown (MD) and Harrisburg (PA) this year, but may be getting his tower buzzed with the Nationals as soon as next season.

[image: martysworldofsports.blogspot.com]

Pus-sy Galore Surrounds Irabu Death

2011-08-01T12:38:00.003-04:00

I'm not here to make fun of Hideki Irabu. Suicide is awful in every way, and worse still when you leave children behind.

But an interesting linguistic angle popped up out of the former Yankee hurler's death. Ask any baseball fan which two words come to mind when they hear "Hideki Irabu" and the answer is, inevitably and
unfortunately, "fat toad."

Nearly every Irabu obit mentioned "fat toad," as George Steinbrenner infamously--and inaccurately--was said to have called his pricey eastern import after Irabu failed to cover first on a ground ball during spring training in 1999. Here's MLB.com--baseball's mother ship--using the quote, and here's CNN borrowing the wrong quote from MLB.

Kudos to the NY Times for being perhaps the only major outlet to check its facts and get them right: Steinbrenner, in fact, called Irabu a fat pussy toad, and any publication saying the quote is "fat toad" has quoted Steinbrenner inaccurately. Wikipedia too has "fat pussy toad," to their credit.

Yet even "fat pussy toad" may not be entirely correct. The Times actually had the quote as "fat pus-sy toad," as in, a fat toad that's full of pus. (Sorry, not the most pleasant of images here.)

But here's a theory: the NY Times initially reported The Boss saying "fat pussy toad," and the Yankees did some damage control, because you can't have your owner, this conservative champion of clean cut living, say the word "pussy" in family-read newspapers nationwide. So the Yankees' PR wing went at it, saying that George actually said "pus-sy"--again, filled with pus, instead of the racier "pussy." Could the reporters really argue?

I reiterate that it's just a theory. But it sounds believable, doesn't it?

Back when Steinbrenner used to be his own beat--have a few dozen reporters hanging on to him, hoping he'd say something that would fill the back page of a tabloid paper--one can imagine that 30-40 scribes heard "fat pus-sy toad" firsthand. Could they say for sure whether he said "pus-sy" or "pussy"? Say both of them to yourself, preferably without female coworkers around. The difference is subtle.

Either way, somehow both "pussy" and "pus-sy" got edited out of the phamous phrase, and countless media outlets--perhaps censoring it for the perceived good of their readers (and advertisers)--incorrectly reported the quote. If they published the quote as "fat...toad," that's journalistically sound. If they ran it as "fat toad," like AOL and countless other publications, it's wrong. (Alas, even the NY Times at times got it wrong.)

The New York Daily News even added another wrinkle by moving the hyphen one space to the right to turn Irabu into a "fat puss-y toad." Not sure how they came up with that one.

In a statement, the Yankees said "Every player that wears the Pinstripes is forever a part of the Yankees family."

And sometimes family members call each other mean names.

[image: NY Times]

BoSox Catchers Best Platoon Since Ollie Stone's Vietnam Movie

2011-07-29T16:18:00.002-04:00

What's been one of the keys to the Red Sox' stellar first place performance this year?

Jarson Varitamacchia, of course.

Jarson Varitamacchia is a mashup of Jason Varitek and Jarrod Saltalamacchia, according to Grantland e-in-c Bill Simmons, the thus far surprisingly thriving catching platoon up in Boston.

Writes Simmons in his very sharp and funny look at the Bostonians' first 100 games:

[Salty's] thrown out 21 of 56 baserunners this season; since May 18, he's rocking .280/.385/.505 splits. Remember when catcher was considered THE question mark of the 2011 Red Sox? Well, Jarson Varitamacchia owns the 7th-best OPS in the majors (.748) and has thrown out 31 of 122 baserunners (much better than the past two years: a 65-for-385 catastrophe). Throw in Salty's age (26) and Tek's history (two titles) and the Yawkey Way store should be printing "Varitamacchia" T-shirt jerseys with a "3933" number right now.

Saltalamacchia may just have the biggest slope to the name on the back of his jersey as any current ballplayer, to accommodate all 14 letters. He easily surpasses Sox greats Garciaparra and Yastrzemski in that department too.

Saltalamacchia (geez, I can't wait until this post is done and I can stop typing Saltalamacchia) is also the subject of a lively web discussion about what, exactly Saltalamacchia means in Italian.

The front-runners? Jump the Stain, and Salt Wing Stain.

Singleton Lets Singular Love of the Game Spill Over

2011-07-28T11:11:00.001-04:00

Johnny Damon was facing his former teammates in the Yankees, with Bartolo Colon once again defying all logic, his ginormous frame hanging tough late in the game. (Best description of Colon you'll read all day comes from Michael Sokolove in the NY Times Mag: ...the build and bearing of a boxer who let himself go after leaving the ring and put on about 80 pounds.")

Two strikes against him, Damon looks to protect.

The pitch shoots out of Colon's giant hand. It looks inside. At the last minute, it bends to the right, catching the inside corner.

"Johnny Damon is gone on a spillover fastball!" enthuses YES man Ken Singleton.

The spillover fastball is not to be confused with the parachute changeup, the front-door slider, the garden hose sinker or the bowling ball sinker.

UPDATE: July 30, Bartolo Colon pitching to Felix Pie. "It starts at the hip of a left handed hitter, and just spills right over the plate," explains Singleton.

It is, by all indications, a Ken Singleton original term.

The term simply does not Google, outside of a 2008 chat room cameo that features, yes, Ken Singleton, back when Mike Mussina did crosswords in the Yankee clubhouse, and took the hill every fifth turn.

Offers "LennyD23" on sternfannetwork.com:

Just saw the encore of my favorite batter Moose faced. It was Lorretta, who didn't swing once. Started him off with the hook for a strike, finished him off with the "spillover" fastball as Kenny put it, and that's when I says, "nice two seamer" and Kenny of course repeats what I say on the replay of it.

The "spillover effect," according to Wikipedia, is defined thusly:

Externalities of economic activity or processes those who are not directly involved in it. Odours from a rendering plant are negative spillover effects upon its neighbours; the beauty of a homeowner's flower garden is a positive spillover effect upon neighbours.

And then:

...when one's emotions affect the way they perceive other events. For example "arousal from a soccer match can fuel anger, which can descend into rioting or other violent confrontations."

In other words, the departure of Carlos Beltran could, say, make me lash out at a co-worker for her annoying laugh.

Walk, Don't Run, to Your Nearest Baseball Stadium

2011-07-25T13:55:00.002-04:00

The walk is playing an increasingly large role in baseball.

Of course, any fool knows four balls means a free pass to first base--a,k,a, a base on balls, or a walk.

But here's a pair of more modern baseball terms involving the walk.

The snippet of music that accompanies a player to the batters box, music you deem to be droning "rap is short for 'crap'" drivel that only serves to remind you of the great yawning disconnect between you and the modern player, has become known as "walk-up music."

Not all is droning hiphop. A recent visit to Citi Field learned me that young Lucas Duda prefers Hendrix, while Daniel Murphy likes that Celtic reel that may or may not have come from Riverdance.
The Albuquerque Journal looks at some of the more popular choices, including Chipper Jones' "Crazy Train."

And speaking of the Metsies, Angel Pagan clocked a walk off home run last week, while Carlos Beltran is in his walk year (even his walk week)--that singular season when a guy plays out of his spikes because he needs a new contract, and is set to walk to a new team. Two weeks ago, the NY Times analyzed some standout walk year performances.

There is no shortage of cautionary tales of players who posted their finest seasons in their “walk years.” Javier Lopez set the single-season home run record for catchers in 2003 with 43, his last year with Atlanta. Chone Figgins compiled a career-best .395 on-base percentage in 2009 before signing with Seattle and suffering an offensive collapse. Gary Matthews Jr. bested his previous best batting average by 38 points in 2006, his final year with Texas. Adrian Beltre has managed to compile two stellar walk years: he received a $64 million contract after a 2004 campaign that was perhaps the best season by a third baseman in history, then was rewarded with a $96 million deal last winter after a terrific year with Boston.

Speaking of walks, Bob Walk went 105-81 during a long and impressively mediocre career with the Phillies, Braves and Pirates. Walk walked 606 batters during his 14 year career. Not a terrible hitter, Walk hit .145 for his career, with a home run, 48 rib-eye steaks--and 16 walks.

He's the only "Walk" in major league history, though there have been dozens of Walkers, and even a pair of guys named Jim Walkup.

James Elton Walkup and James Huey Walkup played in the Depression era, when walk-up music choices consisted of "The Good Ship Lollipop" and "I'm Wearin' My Green Fedora", and having a strong walk year kept you from working in the stockyards for another year.

Rushin to Conclusions On Baseball Injuries

2011-07-25T10:28:00.000-04:00

Ya know who does a really good job of finding the oddity and the humor in the language of baseball?

Sadly, no--not Batter Chatter.

Steve Rushin of Sports Illustrated, that's who.

Rushin of course penned a weekly SI column for years, before departing to marry Rebecca Lobo and write a few books ("It's the wordplay—not the alcohol consumption—that drives the novel," Publishers Weekly said of his latest, The Pint Man.)

Rushin now writes an online column called Rushin Lit, and is at it in the new SI with an essay called Name That Pain, which pokes fun at the bizarre contortions pro sports teams go through to cover up personnel injuries. (Hey Time Warner--thanks for making me jump through hoops to dig up my password and "confirmation code" to access the story online, only to give up and find it through Google.)

Rushin writes:
Sports injuries used to come in six basic flavors: charley horse, raspberry, bruise, sprain, break and pull. (The pull had two subsidiary options: groin and hammy.) But somewhere along the line, breaks became fractures, cuts became lacerations and bruises became contusions. These contusions bred confusion, as they were designed to do.

All the major sports are guilty of purposely obfuscating injury reports (Bill Belichick of course treats Patriots injury reports like classified Cold War documents), but Rushin suggests baseball
takes it to a new level.

He writes:

In 2006, Red Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon was diagnosed with a "transient subluxation event in the setting of a fatigued shoulder." At the time manager Terry Francona said of the transient subluxation, "It sounds like the guy who lives under the bridge." This summer, though, when Sox shortstop Jed Lowrie left a game after aggravating his injured left shoulder, Francona said, "He felt that there was a mild subluxation." The phrase has entered the baseball lexicon.

Service Dogs Plan Citi Field Protest Today

2011-07-20T11:41:00.002-04:00

Without Keith Hernandez, I don't know that there would be a Batter Chatter. There would be no rib-eye steak. There'd be no cheddar. There'd be no fundies.

Let's face it, there'd be no fun.

Last night, Mets versus Cards. Metsies are chipping away at Kyle Lohse. Ronnie Paulino is at the dish when he sends a slow, but perfectly placed, grounder between the 2nd baseman and Pujols.

Base hit, a run scores.

"Paulino could not have hit it any slower," remarks Gary Cohen.

You can almost hear the wheels turning in booth partner Keith Hernandez's brain, as he weighs the P-and-L on what he's about to say and, as he always does, shoots down the little voice telling him that perhaps he should not say it.

"In baseball parlance, back in my day, we called that a seeing-eye dog," says Keith.

Then he adds, perhaps unnecessarily, "I don't mean to offend anybody."

You can see what Keith is thinking: a metaphor that tangentially involves handicapped people. You can tell he'd been chastened, at least in theory, by network brass for past off-color statements. (How can we forget "I won't say that women belong in the kitchen, but they don't belong in the dugout"?)

But really--would anyone be offended by comparing a baseball hit to a service dog?

And even if they were, would that ever stop Keith Hernandez from saying what he wants to say?

As always, Cohen is there with his metaphorical dustpan and broom to clean up after Keith.
"It's a 17-hopper," he said.

I've heard such cheapo hits referred to as variations of both Hernandez's and Cohen's terms: seeing-eye singles and 38-hoppers.

A more common baseball usage for "seeing-eye dog," on the other hand, is typically directed at a struggling umpire. BaseballTips.com offers a big ol' batch of umpire hecklings, including:
"I forgot the Milk-Bone for your seeing-eye dog!"

Snap!

[image: cafepress]

Larry David Produces Reasonable 'Fax Simile

2011-07-14T12:34:00.006-04:00

If the season premiere of Curb Your Enthusiasm is any indication, Larry David still has, as the saying goes, his fastball: Larry helping a young girl in the neighborhood figure out how tampons work, Larry dropping the n-word in an office building lobby, Larry pushing Super Dave Osborne, a.k.a., Marty Funkhouser, to get a divorce. (Successfully, we should add.)

The new season of Curb on HBO has a lot of baseball in it, notes Richard Sandomir of the NY Times. The premiere riffed on the nasty divorce involving Frank McCourt, owner of the Dodgers, and an episode toward the end of the season involves a guest appearance from Bill Buckner, counseling David after the saturnine funnyman's horrific softball error. (Best known as a bow-legged Bostonian, Buckner broke in with the Dodgers in '69 and spent more time with L.A. than any other team.)

The Dodgers also get name-checked in an upcoming episode when David plans to golf with a pal, and coins a unique expression when the date falls through.

Writes Sandomir:

When a newly spiritual Jewish friend tells him he will not play golf with him at a tournament on the Sabbath, David complains, “You’re Koufaxing me!”

(This is not to be confused with "Faxing me," an archaic method of telecommunications that had its heyday in the early '90s.)

In 1965, Sandy Koufax famously did not take the mound for Game One of the World Series, as it was Yom Kippur--making him a hero in the Jewish community (though surely some Jewish Dodger fans were dismayed). Koufax spent the day at a temple in Minneapolis, while Don Drysdale instead faced the Twins and got shelled.

"I bet right now you wish I was Jewish, too," Drysdale reportedly said to skipper Walter Alston when
Alston came to take him out in the second inning.

More recently, Shawn Green opted to sit out a key game amidst a pennant race during his breakout 2001 season with the Dodgers. (Apparently, some Mormons won't play sundown Friday to sundown Saturday either.)

There is, in fact, a long history of players "Koufaxing", as Larry David puts it, well before Sanford Braun Koufax made that fateful decision in Minneapolis.

Since we can't seem to escape the Dodgers today, ESPN.com's Jeff Merron notes that Jake Pitler refused to coach for the L.A. squad on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur in the '40s and '50s.

So perhaps "you're Pitlering me!" would be a more accurate description for Larry David, and a Jewish guy named Pitler certainly seems like something LD could mine for cringe-worthy comedy.

Cano SEO is Bliss Family Robinson

2011-07-12T13:25:00.002-04:00

With a lifetime .307 average and .838 OPS, very few pitchers, if any, "own" Robinson Cano, in modern baseball parlance.
But we'll tell you who owns "Robinson Cano"--Batter Chatter, for some strange reason.
Assuming you don't work the phrase "search engine optimization" into your daily conversations, and think "Boolean search" involves looking around for some tasty soup, we'll explain the concepts of what the new media guy here at work calls "SEO." Batter Chatter gets extraordinary web traffic from people searching for facts, figures and fotos of Robinson Cano--way more than one might reasonably expect for a dinky little narrow-cast site, especially since we of course don't pay a dime to move ourselves up in the Google pecking order.
It all stems from a little item we did last year on Cano and the term about getting into a player's "kitchen."
And as you surely heard, Robbie Cano won the Home Run Derby last night, walloping 12 homers in the final round to top Adrian Gonzalez. (A quick thought on the Home Run Derby--should anyone over the age of 13 truly care about this ludicrous spectacle? Cano's dad grooving meatballs and Chris Berman yelling his head off at each monster shot? Exactly what kind of skills are we measuring here?)
We're seeing around 10 times our normal web traffic today, thanks to people (many surely over the age of 12!) searching for info on Robinson Cano after his derby crown.
Here are the terms people searched to arrive at our site.

robbie cano
robinson cano
robinson cano pictures
robinson cano pics
robinson cano images
pictures of robinson cano
pics of robinson cano
robinson cano image
robby cano

Cano is only 28, so hopefully Batter Chatter can hang on to his Google doppelganger for the next decade or so.

[image: NY Times]

Jeter Makes 'Whoopee' Status Official

2011-07-11T12:26:00.003-04:00

Since New York is ensconced in all things Derek Jeter this week, in the wake of DJ's historic 3,000th hit (not to mention # 3,001, 3,002 and, most important on the day, 3,003), we figured we'd offer up a Jeter-themed entry. (By the way, Mayor Bloomberg is in discussions with the Yankee principals to officially rechristen this Saturday, July 16, as "Jeterday," and anyone heard calling the day "Saturday" would be made to purchase one of the uber-expensive empty seats behind home plate at Yankee Stadium.)

In attendance over the weekend at the Stadium was the scout Dick Groch, who'd pushed the Bombers to draft Jeter back in 1992. Talking to the NY Times, Groch shared a little scout-speak that we found colorful.

Groch said that scouts often categorize players they sign as either a “whoops” (a mistake) or a “whoopee” (a star), and with Jeter, “I can’t give him a bigger whoopee.”

Whoopee has a pleasantly archaic ring to it, tinged with a dash of musk. The word of course was an oft-used euphemism for sex on The Newlywed Game, but goes back even further: "Makin' Whoopee" was a hit song in the 1928 musical called "Whoopee."

Writes Wikipedia:

The title is a euphemism for sexual intimacy, and the song itself is a "dire warning", largely to men, about the "trap" of marriage.

(A Whoops, meanwhile, might be the result of some careless Whoopee-making.)

Jeter paramour Minka Kelly was whooping it up with Dr. and Mrs. Jeter--her future in-laws, perhaps--in a private Yankee Stadium box Saturday.

Over a year and a half ago, the NY Post had a Jeter-Kelly wedding slated for Nov. 5 at Oheka Castle in Huntington, NY (coincidentally, the wedding locale of Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin, but that report proved spurious.

Perhaps the Yankee Captain, similar to the "Whoopee" protagonist some eight decades before, is carefully avoiding the trap of marriage while presumably enjoying the fruits of whoopeedom.

[image: NY Times]

Two Things You Do With a Guitar: Hold, Play

2011-07-05T10:35:00.000-04:00

The runner takes his lead off first. It's a good lead.

The pitcher looks over.

The pitcher turns to the plate and looks in for the sign.

The runner is itching to steal and waits impatiently for the pitcher to throw to the plate.

He waits. He waits. He wiggles his fingers in anticipation.

The pitcher stares in at the plate. The batter says, one more second, and I'm calling time out.

Finally, the pitcher deals...

It happens dozens of times each day in the Majors, yet you probably never knew the name for it: the Hold Play.

Yes, this little lingo diamond came from none other than guitar virtuouso (or at least famous former baseball player who happens to play a little guitar, it can be hard to tell sometimes) Bernie Williams, in a New York Times Arts & Leisure profile about ballplayer-musicians.

Bernie says rhythm is essential both to baseball and music.

The Times writes:

Stealing a base — which Mr. Williams acknowledged was not his strong point, despite his great speed — also depends on the pitcher’s rhythm. Would-be base stealers can be thrown off their rhythm by the “hold play,” when a pitcher holds the ball interminably. He likened the tension of the delay to the space between notes in a jazz solo.

Williams nicked 147 bases in his career, with a season-high of 17 in 1996.

Ever the Renaissance man, Williams has co-authored a book, Rhythms of the Game: The Link Between Musical and Athletic Performance, that's soon to hit stores.

Mr. Mojo Rosin

2011-06-28T15:43:00.000-04:00

The Mets may not have Ike Davis to smack that little rosin bag into the right-center cheap seats these days, but Jason Giambi took a hack at the little burlap sack while visiting Yankee Stadium over the weekend.

Writes the AP:
“I wasn’t touching the ground,” Giambi said. “There’s an incredible energy playing in this stadium with the fans that they have here, just being excited like old times to have that opportunity to play in front of them again. I think he could’ve thrown the rosin bag 2-0 and I would’ve swung no matter what.”

Swingin' at the rosin bag is the phrase given to overanxious hitters who will swing at just about anything near the plate.

But other reporters clustered around the Giambino heard things slightly differently.

"I think he could have thrown the resin bag at 2-0," wrote the Star Ledger.

"If (A.J. Burnett) would've thrown the resin bag up there at 2-and-0, I would've swung at it," wrote the Daily News.

I'm not sure what the "resin" bag is, but I'm pretty sure that, as with crying, there's no place for one in baseball. This Webster's definition truly does not help:

Any of a class of nonvolatile, solid or semisolid organic substances, as copal or mastic, that consist of amorphous mixtures of carboxylic acids and are obtained directly from certain plants as exudations or prepared by polymerization of simple molecules...
Yet there at the very end of the second definition for "resin" is the word "rosin," implying that the terms can at times be interchangeable.

Nonetheless, the proper baseball term is "rosin bag", which--for what it's worth--outnumbers its resin counterpart on Google by 3 to 1. Here's how Ron Darling defined it on SNY last year:

"It's an old baseball term. It doesn't matter what the pitcher is throwing up there--he's swinging."

Of course, Jason Giambi being a likeable lunkhead and all, and one who "clapped several reporters on the back," reports the NY Times, when he returned to Yankee Stadium, he very well may have said "resin bag," only to have some reporters quote him verbatim, and some scribes do JG a favor and correct his malapropism.

[image: NY Daily News]

Javy Vazquez Prefers Living in a Tree to Living in New York

2011-06-23T14:07:00.000-04:00

If I heard correctly--and I find myself saying that a lot when listening to Keith Hernandez during Mets games--I heard Keith say Marlins starter Javier Vazquez was "living in a tree" after giving up 10 hits--and, critically, zero runs--in 5 plus innings against the Anaheim Angels Tuesday night.

"I hope he doesn't fall out!" piped in partner Gary Cohen.

I hadn't heard that term in a baseball sense before, and googling "living in a tree" coughs up a YouTube music video from Priscilla Ahn and a clutch of companies that custom-build tree houses.

The thinking behind the idiom is, Vazquez is living dangerously, scattering those 10 hits without being touched for a run. Living in a tree is difficult. You can fall.

Hernandez and Cohen then discussed exactly how many hits you can "scatter" before there are too many to be considered scattered.

Elias Sports Bureau opted for another metaphor to describe Vazquez's historic performance:

Vazquez Bends But Doesn't Break

How historic was Vazquez's treehouse performance? Pretty historic, notes Elias:

Only two other pitchers since 1900 have allowed at least 10 hits in less than six innings pitched without allowing a run: Boston's Bill Lee on June 15, 1974 (10 hits and no runs in five innings against the Angels) and the Cubs' Chuck Rainey on August 3, 1983 (10 hits and no runs in five innings against the Cardinals).

Javy Vazquez tried living in a tree while playing for the Yankees--twice--but kept falling out.

[image: ESPN]

Gordon 'Clocks' First Win in Pinstripes

2011-06-17T14:46:00.000-04:00

Time stood still for 32-year-old pitcher Brian Gordon as he made his Yankees debut on the mound yesterday. Gordon was good, not great--5 1/3 innings, two earned runs--and that's all the Yankees might've hoped for the guy who was previously pitching for the Lehigh Valley Ironpigs three days ago.

Gordon was an outfielder until five years ago, but didn't have Major League talent. So he tried his hand at pitching.

Bob Klapisch writes in the Bergen Record:

He asked the Astros to let him try pitching, reminding them he’d always had a strong arm, and used to feature an unorthodox curveball as a kid. Only, Gordon never tried to emulate the great, overhand 12-6 hooks of the game’s previous generation. Think of Doc Gooden’s vicious, late-breaking curveball, and you have an idea of what Gordon’s was absolutely, unconditionally not.

Yes, Gordon gets by without the classic, Barry Zito, "12-6" hook. That of course is a curveball that breaks top to bottom, as if from the 12 on the clock down to the six. (A curve that "drops off a table," as every announcer from 1975-1987 used to say.) It is similar to the "parachute changeup" wielded by the likes of Pedro Martinez and Johan Santana.

Gordon is probably more of a 12-8 guy, with a curve that breaks less dramatically toward the outside edge of the plate to righty hitters.
Yesterday, he took the place of Bartolo Colon on the hill. Colon, for his part, is more of a 7-11 pitcher--a body built on Big Bite hot dogs, corn dogs, and those delicious cream-filled Suzie-Qs.
[image: Bergen Record]

Some Extra-Special Diamond 'Cutters'

2011-06-15T11:09:00.001-04:00

Sports Illustrated has a big story on the short but impactful history of the cut fastball or, in ultra-modern parlance, the cutter.

The term "cut fastball" came to be around 15 years ago, notes Albert Chen in SI.

No one knows who threw the first cutter. But though the term cut fastball only became part of the baseball vernacular within the last 15 years, a handful of players have been throwing the pitch for generations. (As referred to in the 2004 book The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers, longtime major league outfielder and Yale coach Ethan Allen, in a 1953 instructional book, wrote, "[A pitcher] threw a fastball that was unique because it slid or broke like a curve. It was somewhat like a fastball, but he threw over the side of the index finger to a greater extent. This off-center pressure caused the break.")

More recently, the cut fastball became known as the cutter, just as the sinker has become the sink, and the splitter has become the split. (So it stands to reason that the cutter will further see its name truncated, and become the "cut." Give it a year.)

The cutter has become the money pitch not only for its most famous practicioner, Mariano Rivera, but starters who've redefined themselves, such as Dan Haren, Roy Halladay and Josh Beckett. (It's fitting that the cutter is a "money" pitch; in the bizarro Russo-Cockney language spoken in A Clockwork Orange, "cutter" was the word for money, as in "Could you spare some cutter, me brother?")

Speaking of nouveau baseball shorthand, Chen's SI story introduced another interesting term: velo, short for velocity, as in, the speed with which a pitcher hurls a ball toward the plate.

Chen writes:

"Guys like Haren that used to throw 94 but are now throwing 90, 91, they throw a cutter because it makes the 91-mph fastball seem like 94," says A's shortstop Cliff Pennington. "Haren's is just so hard to pick up and distinguish from his slider-it's got less break but the velo is harder, so you see fastball and you swing and it breaks enough to miss. If you see the spin on it and you think breaking ball, then you're late."

Velo is much better known as a cycling term; a velodrome is an indoor cycling course, Velo News covers competitive cycling, NYC is a place to buy expensive bikes, and Velo Gear is where you buy those funky bike shoes and the rubber shorts.

[Haren pic: SI]

Brett Gardner Fills 'Hole' For Bombers

2011-05-27T16:33:00.000-04:00

If we're on the cusp of Memorial Day, it must mean the NHL is close to awarding that gloriously dinged up chalice known as the Stanley Cup.

So it is with hockey on the brain that we mention the five-hole.

The five-hole refers to the space between the goalkeeper's legs. In other words, he is responsible for blocking the puck from entering five holes: above and below his stick, above and below his glove, and between his legs. That's the five-hole.

The term occasionally creeps into the baseball world too.

Writes the New York Post about last weekend's Subway Series:

You let a ground ball from Brett Gardner somehow go five-hole on you, without getting a glove, calf or shoe on it. "The moment I threw it, hard sinker, I'm thinking, 'Be ready, he may hit it right back at you,' and I still can't get a hand on it. Frustrating," Pelfrey said.

Protect that five-hole, Billy B!

A more common--and totally different--use of five-hole in baseball refers to the spot in the batting order, as in, the Mets need some power in the five-hole, since Jason Bay drives the ball with all the power of Erkel. You can pretty much affix "hole" to any spot in the batting order, outside of leadoff. There's no hole in hitting first.

And what's just a wee bit better--or .5 better, if you're scoring at home--than the five-hole?

The 5.5 hole, of course, as the space between the third baseman (#5, in scoring numerology) and the shortstop (#6) is known.

Tony Gwynn was known as a master of hitting it through the 5.5 hole.

Had he played against Mike Pelfrey, Gwynn probably would've racked up a few hits through Pelf's long legs too.

SI Spits Out New Baseball Phrase With LOOGY

2011-05-19T11:39:00.002-04:00

Sports Illustrated shows it can, on occasion, be clever and edgy by dishing the oddball acronym LOOGY in the current issue.

SI's Ben Reiter (Reiter...There's a good name for a writer...) credits Hardball Times with the phlegmatic phrase: A LOOGY is a Lefty One-Out Guy--a left-handed specialist whose sole job is to get mighty left-handed sluggers--Ryan Howard, David Ortiz, Jim Thome--out.

The article is about a pair of tribal elders in the bullpen--Arthur "Is He Still Playing?" Rhodes and Darren "Didn't He Retire Five Years Ago?" Oliver. The patron saint of LOOGYs, notes Reiter, may just be Jesse Orosco, who retired seven years ago at 46.

Hardball Times published A History of the LOOGY--and, presumably, gave birth to the phrase--way back in 2005. A "hard-core LOOGY" appears in at least 20 games, averages less than an inning per appearance, and fewer than .2 saves a game.
SI's Joe Sheehan lists some other LOOGYs around the league, including Aroldis Chapman and Tim Collins, and makes the point that some of them should not be just LOOGYs much longer.

"[They] can all do more than face lefthanded sluggers in big spots," believes Sheehan. "Let them."

[image from 3-Putt Territory]

Jeter Eager to Turn 'Page' on Posada Flap

2011-05-17T11:27:00.001-04:00

Derek Jeter has long proven himself to be a master at a number of things: Stroking that line drive to right center with the game on the line, going deep in the hole toward third to make that jump-throw and get the guy at first by thismuch, and offering banal cliches in lieu of true insight and perspective in interviews.

Jeter has drawn the ire of Yankee brass for defending Jorge Posada's snit over the weekend, and there's ample evidence that the face of the Yankees and its front office are growing a bit tired of each other.

Jeter was happy to put the incident behind him yesterday, and tapped one of his favorite cliches--nine times, in fact--to help him close the book on it.

Writes the NY Times:
“It’s all good,” said Jeter, who in less than four minutes used a variation of the phrase “we’re on the same page” nine times.

It's funny to picture the beat reporter, Ben "Buy a Vowel" Shpigel," putting down check marks in his notebook next to "We're on the same page" with his timer, er, his Jeter-Meter, counting off the minutes.

The Yankees have lost six straight and don't seem to be doing anything right, on and off the field. And one is starting to wonder if mega-signing Rafael Soriano has played his last Yankee game, due to troubles with his elbow and his mouth.

Jeter actually did offer a hint of insight into his dealings with the media later in the Times story.

“I learned a long time ago,” Jeter said, “the more you talk about things, the longer they last.”

So if his nine "page" utterings are any indication, this "thing" might stick around for awhile.

R.A. Dickey is Not as Bookish As You Think

2011-05-10T16:42:00.000-04:00

Terrific correction in a NY Times this week, explaining that Mets hurler R. A. Dickey's bat, dubbed Orcrist the Goblin Cleaver by the Dickster himself, is not named for Bilbo Baggins' sword, but for Hobbit dwarf Thorin Oakenshield's hardware.

We saluted Dickey's bibliophilin' ways last season, and this correction does not change the fact that we dig Dickey because Dickey digs books.

This represents the second greatest NY Times correction to run in Batter Chatter--well behind, so to speak, Aubrey Huff's infamous rally ~~thong~~ men's underwear.

[image from Mets Blog via Buzz Feed]

Mets Skipper Hasn't Got Time For 'Bull'

2011-05-10T16:03:00.001-04:00

It's like dreaded 2009 all over again for fans of Flushing's Finest, as a woeful list of injuries hits the Mets.
The latest wounded warrior is Chris Young, whom the Mets signed for $1.1 million, and got four starts out of.
Looks like Young is done for the year with a torn shoulder.
Said Mets manager Terry Collins in today's NY Times:
"You go into spring training and you're aware of it and you watch him throw his pens, and when he started building up his pitch count and you never saw any discomfort and you never saw any holding back from trying to pitch, you thought, 'OK, he's over this.' "
Ignore the wondrous run-on sentence (hey, Times editors, how about some, ya know, punctuation?) and check out the use of pens. We noted in the early days of this blog the use of "bullpen" in MLB parlance, not as the place where a pitcher warms up, but as the name of the session in which he warms up. To wit:
"It's easier to throw a bullpen than to see a ball come off the bat again," said Tribe skipper Manny Acta about a pitcher taking the mound after being hit in the head with a batted ball.
Apparently "bullpen" is too long to say for a busy manager who suddenly has to keen one eye trained on the waiver wire at all times, and has been shortened to "pen."

[image: NY Daily News]

Derek Jeter Has Had Enough of His 'Swinging' Singles Days

2011-05-04T10:23:00.001-04:00

You have to feel for Derek Jeter.
I mean, not that much--the guy is still the toast of New York, he's engaged to Minka Kelly, and he's got that mega-manse down in St. Jetersburg.
But there he is, a man who values privacy the way Bartolo Colon values cheezeburgers, on the front page of the New York Times, addressing his season long--make that, year-long--slump. Not the front page of the Sports, he's been there before. We're talking page A-1--sharing space with President Obama and Bin Laden and other global luminaries present and past.
Jeter's stats may be down, way down, this season. But the Times suggests he's leading in one crucial category: the swinging bunt.
Writes Ben "Buy a Vowel" Shpigel:
The only offensive category in which he leads the major leagues is infield hits — and, well, it isn’t his speed that accounts for that.

The swinging bunt. The most flaccid of batter outcomes in baseball, perhaps even more ignominious than the strikeout. At least you don't have to sprint to first--running twice as far as your ball did--after a strikeout.
The swinging bunt. When it happened back in childhood sandlot ball, we called "cheap!" and made it a do-over.
Yet Jeter--the Prince of the City, The Captain--is riding those "cheap" balls all the way to first with frightening regularity.
Writes Shpigel:
[Detroit third base coach Gene] Lamont said the Tigers had not been positioning their infielders any differently to guard against what has become Jeter’s perhaps most noticeable offensive trait this year — the swinging bunt, 60-foot dribblers up the third-base line. He had 10 infield singles, and many have been nubbers or bouncers that do not reach the dirt of the basepaths, as opposed to sharply hit balls that ricochet off an infielder or shoot deep in the hole.
Jeter is 48 hits--swinging bunts and searing liners alike--away from 3,000. It's safe to say he won't enjoy the media's buildup to the historic event--especially if he remains homerless dating back to last summer.

Bautista's 'Load' Helps Slugger Load Up on Dingers

2011-05-02T15:53:00.001-04:00

Here's a baseball term I know you never heard before: a batter's load.

No, we're not talking about Prince Fielder's expansive derriere.

A load, as defined by Tyler Kepner in the NY Times this past weekend, is the path of a batter's hands to the ball.

Kepner, who spends a ton of time inside baseball clubhouses, suggests the load is an established term inside MLB's corridors of power.

Speaking of power, he refers to Jose Bautista when discussing load.

[Hitting coach Dwayne] Murphy and Cito Gaston, the former Blue Jays manager, eventually got through to Bautista, who maintains that his swing is the same as it has always been. The difference, he said, is his load — that is, the path of his hands to the ball. Hitting is timing, the saying goes, and now Bautista is on time.

Jose Bautista takes a load off before facing the Bronx Bombers. [photo NYT]

Homerin' Jose went hitless yesterday, but did drive in a run at the Stadium. That gives him 16 rib-eye steaks thus far in 2011--a load by anyone's count.

A Bad Piece of Announcing

2011-04-28T10:26:00.002-04:00

I was watching a little Red Sox with one of the brothers-in-law up in Cape Cod recently. The Sawx were just starting to bust out of their slump against the Jays.
Carl Crawford got one of his infrequent hits, stroking a fastball the other way, a line drive off the Monster.
"That's a good piece of hitting!" the brother-in-law exclaimed, like all of Massachusetts, hoping the $20 Million Man would finally get untracked.
A little while later, the Sox $22 Million Man, Adrian Gonzalez, followed suit. Gonzo too grabbed an outside pitch and went with it, slotting it to left for a single.
"Good piece of hitting!" said the brother-in-law.
Good piece of hitting. This would be hard to confirm (so sadly, I will not try), but I will bet my stash of baseball cards that good piece of hitting, like frozen rope and that ball was a seed!, came from Tim McCarver.

T-Mac is looking for a 'piece.'
I remember T-Mac saying "good piece of hitting" back when he was the Metsies' announcer in the '80s. (Man, we had it good!). Typically, it came when a guy went the other way with a pitch--a pitcher's pitch. And it had to be a line drive. It helped if there were two strikes on the batter. And I think it may have helped if the batter was lefty.
It took a few years, perhaps a decade--and surely McCarver's move to a national stage helped. But "good piece of hitting" turned into a cliche.
Here's a minor league Elvis Andrus slapping a pitch the opposite way on YouTube.
Good piece of hitting by 20 year old Ranger top prospect Elvis Andrus off San Antonio's Jon Ellis to plate two and win game, writes the poster.
It's at the schoolboy level too. Here's one account of a Region 1-AAAA (no idea what that means) contest between Thomas County Central and Northside-Columbus down in Georgia.

“A lot of it, they just did a good piece of hitting,” Coach Chad Parkerson said. “They hit some balls hard the other way. We probably got too much of the strike zone.”
In fact, "good piece of hitting" calls up 25,000-plus links on Google. Unlike many baseball cliches, I don't see a punk rock band named Good Piece of Hitting.
But I do see a clever essay on the phrase from Tim Marchman, then of the New York Sun. Marchman writes in "Baseball's Worst Cliche":
A good piece of hitting cannot be a home run or a solidly hit double down the line. It cannot be a bouncer, bleeder, trickler, or any other sort of hit that has eyes or relies on the misadventures of the defense. It must be hit well, but not too well, and preferably it should go the opposite field.

It isn’t just the character of the hit itself that defines a good piece of hitting, though, as the game situation plays its role as well. No hitting done by someone whose team is up by 10 runs will ever be said to be a good piece; the game should ideally be tight in order for the piece of hitting to be good. On the other hand, it’s possible to imagine a piece hit by someone whose team is down by 10 runs being hit well, although probably only if there are no outs and he’s at the front end of a rally. “That was a good piece of hitting,” the announcer will say, while we watch the player taking off his gloves at first, clapping his hands, and exhorting his teammates to keep on with the charge.

Frankly, I'm a little sad to see Tim Marchman has beat me to "good piece of hitting" by, oh, four years.
I'm an editor by trade, so I'm constantly on the lookout for easier, shorter ways to say something in print. And if you put "good piece of hitting" under the editor's microscope (for the record, we don't actually employ such contraptions), you see that "piece of" is completely superfluous. I mean, a "good piece of hitting" is one and the same as "good hitting," yes? What makes it a "piece"? A good display of hitting, or a good exhibition of hitting, perhaps. But not a piece.
Then again, no one ever accused McCarver of being succinct.

Chasin' Jason All the Way Home

2011-04-25T10:25:00.002-04:00

After Jason Bay's perplexing power outtage at CitiField last year, he'll take any home runs he can--even the Little League variety.
Bay's return to the Metsies' lineup has been key to the club's resurgence, and an oddball four-bagger he was responsible for late last week sparked the Mets' four game winning streak.

Jay Bay and his missus

Writes the NY Times:
Bay, meanwhile, went 1 for 4 with a bloop double and scored a run on a four-base error that looked like a Little League-style inside-the-park stand-up home run.

The Little League home run. There's nothing more American: Your kid hits a dribbler to third, the third baseman throws it past first, the first baseman throws it past second as your kid scoots into the base. Finally, the left fielder throws it past third, enabling your kid to step on the plate and burst into tears of joy.
Then everyone hits Mickey D's for a celebratory Happy Meal.
The BoSox blog FenwayWest.com used the term as a proper noun to describe Bay's round-tripper:
Former Red Sox Jason Bay hit a 'Little League Home Run' last night against the Houston Astros in New York yesterday.
ESPN.com takes it a few bases further, with a brief written history of the Little League Home Run and the Mets. In fact, the Queens Quarrelers (Bronx Bombers-esque nickname for the Mets that isn't quite there yet) have had four times in their history where a batter has touched 'em all on his own hit without the aid of a basehit.
The most recent example was two years ago -- Aug. 24, 2009 against the Phillies -- when Angel Pagan’s leadoff popup against Cliff Lee was dropped by second baseman Chase Utley. Utley then tried to throw Pagan out at second base and threw the ball away, allowing Pagan to scamper all the way around and score a run. In the end, such a break against Lee wasn’t enough, as the Phillies won anyway, 6-2.
As one might expect, you don't see a lot of Little League home runs at the Major League level.

JayBay obviously felt compelled to show the world he could hit a proper home run; on Saturday, he took D-backs hurler Barry Enright 400-plus feet to right, and could circle the bases at his leisure.

[image: NYPost]

The Batter Chatter Book Review: CARDBOARD GODS

2011-04-21T11:28:00.004-04:00

I got a review copy of Cardboard Gods sent to me recently, and my first thought was, what a perfect Father's Day gift. Cardboard Gods is about a boy's obsession with baseball cards growing up, and how those cards helped the boy cope with some considerably difficult situations growing up.

My father collected baseball cards obsessively, and still laments trading the lot of them for some crappy jalopy over a half century ago.

But the more I read, the more I realized it wasn't the right book for my father. Yet it's very much the right book for someone my age, who collected cards throughout the '70s, and for whom non-stars with mellifluous monikers like Johnny Wockenfuss and Rowland Office and Kurt Bevacqua will always be burned into my memory cells.

Author Josh Wilker's mother hopped a bus to Washington for a freedom march when he was a kid, then fell in love with a guy on the bus, and moved Josh and his brother from Jersey to Vermont so she and her new beau could live off the land with their kids. While most everyone around him had the traditional Mom and Dad, young Wilker had Mom and Tom. Neither the live-off-the-land gameplan nor the relationship ended up working out, though the latter lasted longer.

After moving to Vermont, Wilker was friends with a "farm boy named Buster who would go on to become the primary baseball news oracle for a nationwide sports information monopoly," and who also had "contagious enthusiasm" for baseball history and baseball cards.

Of course, this is ESPN's Buster Olney. While there's something strangely noble about reverse name-dropping, why Wilker chooses not to cite him by full name, or mention Olney's ubiquitous employer, is perplexing, especially since the rest of the book is so damned honest and open.

[Reached via email, Wilker says Olney wasn't fully identified because the book is more about who Buster was as a kid, as opposed to who he is now, and adds that he wasn't sure if Olney would care to be identified by full name in the book. For the record, Olney loved the book.]

Regardless, it's a terrific book. It spawned from a blog, and it shows: Each mini chapter starts off with an image of a '70s baseball card, and Wilker uses the card as a metaphor for what he was experiencing at that stage of his life. At times these metaphors are a reach, but Wilker is a clever enough writer to make up the difference.

Like any kid, Wilker adores the game's stars, no more so than Carl Yastrzemski. But the author, a clumsy, lonely kid, a perpetual outsider, identifies with the have-nots of MLB too. Cardboard Gods is at its best, and funniest, when Wilker describes the sheer WTF? cheesiness of the cards showing these lesser players.
He writes of 1975 slap hitter Eddie Leon--and himself:

I needed Eddie Leon. I needed a guy posing in a Chicago White Sox uniform while the crooked, cut-off, erroneous card he is posing on identifies him as a member of the St. Louis Cardinals and the back of the card declares he is neither a White Sox nor a Cardinal but a New York Yankee. The back-of-the-card scripture also points out that he "has been among Chisox' leaders in Sacrifices in '73 & '74."

Among the leaders. On a single team. In bunts. I don't know how you could say any less about someone without saying nothing at all.

A 1976 card showing forgotten Astros pitcher Mike Cosgrove contrasts Cosgrove's grim photo with his upbeat, full of potential image on the year before's card.

He's no longer young. The bill of his cap is misshapen, as if it has been mangled by bullies or forgotten in the rain. He wears badges of desperation indigenous to his awkward, searching decade: a perm, a dust-thin mustache. Behind him, simultaneously claustrophobic and vast, loom the unmistakable high stands of a major league stadium. He has made it; there is no joy. On the back of his card, all traces of his minor league success have been expunged, leaving only the thin gruel of a big league mop-up man destined to vanish from the game altogether before next season's set of baseball cards hits the stores.

I could give 10 examples of dead-on and hysterical card descriptions from the book, but it's too much typing, and I'd probably run afoul of fair uses rules.

Cardboard Gods is a terrifically entertaining little memoir, with flashes of Nick Hornby's delicious rendering of male obsessions and Bill Simmons' brilliant sports-meets-pop-culture riffery, and ability to amplify seemingly gossamer things to find great meaning and humor.

And as much as Wilker finds refuge in his cards, he finds it in his brother, Ian, who often wants nothing to do with his little brother, as big brothers are wont to do. Ultimately the brotherly bond prevails, and the two reconnect over the most joyous occasion either could imagine: The Red Sox World Series parade in 2004.

I previously reviewed the '70s book Big Hair and Plastic Grass in these cyber-pages. It may be comparing apples and oranges, or Dewey Evans and Bruce Boisclair, but Cardboard Gods is an infinitely more entertaining look at the game during that era (the ChiSox' short pants, Oscar Gamble's afro)--and the men whose images are printed on the little cardboard sheets.

Giants Fans are Hella On Wheels

2011-04-15T09:53:00.000-04:00

I had a fun opportunity to pen a piece last week for the San Francisco Chronicle about a hopping little SF Giants bar smack in the middle of...wait for it...New York City.

Yes, more than a half century after the Giants bolted Gotham for the Bay Area, San Francisco Giants baseball fever is shared by all at the East Village dive Finnerty's.

Make no mistake--this post is a flat-out self-promotion, showing that I at times actually get paid to write, and am, in fact, Big in the Bay Area. But I was struck by an intriguing bit of regional patois that popped up in the piece: the use of "hella" as something of a pre-adjective.

Boston, as we well know, as its own pre-adjective in "wicked": The Sawx are wicked awful these days, Carl Crawford is a wicked good player, even if he's wicked sucked so far this season.

California, meanwhile, and really primarily Northern California, has "hella." The Giants winning the World Series was hella cool. Brian Wilson's beard is hella whack.

I grabbed a comment about Finnerty's off Yelp for the story. (Yes, I did my own reporting too.)

"I can travel all the way to the other side of the country and be surrounded by S.F. Giants logos, 49er jerseys and even a huge painted Golden Gate Bridge," wrote Cupertino's "Steph C." "I hella love NorCal."

I heard it in the bar that night too, as the Giants came up short against the hella hated Dodgers: Hella.

And when my sister lived in the Bay Area a few years back, I heard the version of hella preferred by pre-teens with conservative parents: hecka, as in, Star Wars is hecka cool. I wonder at what age you graduate from hecka to hella.
The hella cool online resource Urban Dictionary also takes a poke at Los Angeles when defining hella.

Originated from the streets of San Francisco in the Hunters Point neighborhood. It is commonly used in place of "really" or "very" when describing something.

The Fillmore is hella better than the Mission.

Thank God LA is hella far away.

The World Champ Giants (Do the headline writers call them the "Jints", like they do here in New York with the football Giants? And, on the topic of the Jints, I sat across the aisle from Jim Fassel, current coach of the Las Vegas Locomotives, from Vegas to Newark two days ago. Coach Fassel's reading material: NY Post, People. Wow, longest parentheses aside ever!) face the woeful Metsies in Queens starting May 3.

Finnerty's is hosting a "party bus" trip to the Debits Field contest May 4. But if coach buses aren't your style, I know the bar will be hella packed.

Crawford Busts Out With 12 Hits in 4 AB's

2011-04-07T13:47:00.000-04:00

We're not talking about any Curse of the Craw-bino or anything--I mean, that's got no ring to it--but the Red Sox, and their star left fielder, Carl Crawford, are clearly struggling mightily. (Real-Time Update: Sawx and Tribe are zero-zero midway through today's day game, amidst a forecast of "Light Snow" in Cleve-town.)
Red Sox manager Terry Francona seemed to single out Crawford, and perhaps Adrian Gonzalez, in his comments to reporters yesterday.
"When a hitter's struggling, you see him try to go 3 for 1," said Francona.
As any fan of the game knows, you simply cannot go 3 for 1 in baseball, just as you cannot hit the rosin bag with any true authority, and you cannot hit a five-run homer--other quirky euphemisms for trying to do too much in one at bat.
Miguel Cabrera, for one, tried his best to hit a five-run home run after letting his team down with an ugly drinking incident late in the 2009 season, with the Tigers in a playoff push.
His first game back, he went 0 for 4 and stranded six runners. "That night, I was trying to hit a five-run homer every time I came up, because I knew I had made a horrible mistake and I wanted to fix it," Cabrera said. "I was just putting too much pressure on myself."
Speaking of the beloved five-run homer, here's a nifty bit of sports satire related to Derek Jeter stroking a five-sacker to show up his movie-star-dating infield neighbor.
Writes SportsPickl.com:
Alex Rodriguez crushed a grand slam home run into the upper deck last night before a capacity crowd at Yankee Stadium, but later that inning his feat was quickly upstaged when teammate Derek Jeter hit baseball’s first-ever five-run homer.

Jeter’s blast flew clean out of the stadium and hit the facing of a highrise several block away. On impact the ball hit a downspout, breaking it open and freeing an adorable puppy that had been trapped inside.
Carl Crawford--and his new Sox mates--will hope for a similar smash today in Cleveland.

Aces Wild in MLB Openers

2011-04-01T15:58:00.001-04:00

As the aces of MLB make their debuts these days, there's a fun story in the NY Times worth checking out on the importance of the "ace" in baseball.

Ace has a lot of meanings. It's an unreturned serve in tennis. It's a founding member of KISS. It's a pet detective. It's a fighter pilot with nerves of steel. It's also the product of the union between statuesque softballer Jennie Finch and former Major League journeyman pitcher Casey Daigle.

Er, is 'nice ace' too sexist? If so, then disregard.

Writes the Times:
Daigle always wanted a son named Ace, he said, and it helped that he married a pitcher, Jennie Finch, the Olympic softball gold medalist. Finch has retired from her sport to raise a family. Daigle, whose career earned run average is 7.16, will start the season in the minor leagues for the San Francisco Giants, insurance for the rotation that won the World Series last fall.

Casey Daigle is most certainly not an ace. His four year old son Ace, however, is.

(And don't get us started on "Acer", which was the nickname given to the cocky hockey goalie with the David Foster Wallace hair we went to college with...what did the girls see in him?, and is the make of the computer monitor sitting 24 inches from my face.)

An ace, in baseball, is, of course, the go-to pitcher. In college, it's the Friday Night Guy, who sets the tone for the three game weekend series.

Here's a 2011 prediction from reliable NY Post baseball reporter Joel Sherman on Mets hurler Mike Pelfrey: "...takes a step back, his ERA climbing toward 4.50 as the ace burden without Johan Santana around is too much for him." (Sherman is definitely the ace of the NYP baseball crew.)

Here's how Giants GM Brian Sabean defines an ace in the Times:

An ace, Giants General Manager Brian Sabean said, carries an aura with him before he pitches, and backs it up consistently.

“There’s a difference in your clubhouse,” Sabean said. “People are thinking, ‘This is win day.’ ”

(NY Times...definitely the ace of the New York newspaper crowd. Sorry, Sherman.)

A crew of baseball folk came up with a list of just 13 currently active Major League hurlers deserving of the title for NY Times baseball ace Tyler Kepner: Chris Carpenter, Zack Greinke, Roy Halladay, Felix Hernandez, Ubaldo Jimenez, Josh Johnson, Cliff Lee, Jon Lester, Lincecum, Price, Roy Oswalt, C. C. Sabathia and Justin Verlander.

Sabathia of course took down Verlander up in the Bronx yesterday, out-acing the Tigers' top hurler despite not getting the win.

Here's one to chew on for the weekend: If it's the National League, and a team's ace is not on deck, but one behind the guy who's on deck in the lineup, what does that make him?

An ace in the hole, of course.

When is a Baseball Player Not a Baseball Player?

2011-03-28T13:29:00.000-04:00

What's one of the highest compliments you can pay a baseball player?
You can call him a baseball player.
This may be evident already; the guy wears a baseball uniform and works at a baseball stadium and gets a giant check from a baseball team every two weeks.
Yet it bears repeating that a player who plays the game right, not to mention plays it well, is considered a baseball player.
Last week, Mets skipper Terry Collins endorsed second-sacker Luis Hernandez to MLB.com.
"I like his enthusiasm," Collins said. "I love his defense. I like the fact that he switch-hits and he's a baseball player, as he's shown the last couple games that he's played."
One eagle-eyed fan of our national pastime noted that Terry Collins isn't the only one who likes to stock his baseball team with baseball players. "Chico" posted thusly on NYFuturestars.com:
Just thought I'd note that Buck Showalter was on with Francesa today and used exactly the same line about Nick Markakis.

Now, I'm not saying Hernandez and Markakis are even in the same universe.
But I'm getting the idea that it's manager talk for a guy who does the little things like sliding hard into second to break up double plays and having an understanding of situations when at bat and in the field. Stuff like that.
For his part, Showalter also wants "pile-jumpers" and "nuggets" among his baseball players.

Luis Hernandez is a baseball player.
Last summer, Mets hopeful Daniel Murphy earned that unique distinction from his manager at the time, Jerry Manuel.
“He’s a baseball player,” Manuel told the NY Times. “I wouldn’t put anything past him as far as adjusting.”
[EDITOR'S NOTE: We here at Batter Chatter will miss the quote-worthy Jerry Manuel very much, and hope for his speedy, if unlikely, return to Major League Baseball management.)

Alas, not everyone shares Manuel's characterization of Mr. Murphy, nicknamed "D-Rex" for his short arms and angled running style.
Writes commenter RAVELO on the NY Times site earlier this month:
"Does anyone remember how horrible this guy [D-Rex] played LF? he is not a baseball player, hes a batter."
Murphy and Hernandez are both alive in the Mets' ignominious second base sweepstakes, though neither looks like a starter right now. What we do know is that Luis Castillo, cast off by the Metsies and resurfacing in Philly, won't be starting at second in Queens.
No range. No speed. Iffy attitude...
Luis Castillo is definitely not a baseball player.

I'll See Your 'Parachute Changeup' and Raise You One 'Garden Hose' Sinker

2011-03-23T16:13:00.000-04:00

Fun piece about the most hated man in Mets history in the Wall Street Journal earlier this week. (No, it's not about Mel Rojas, or either of the megamillions slackers Sandy Alderson cut loose this week.)
Doug Sisk went from hotshot young reliever--the guy bagged 11 saves in '83, his rookie year, and for a brief spell was known by one of the NY tabloids as "The Man With No ERA"--to a player that Mets fans quite literally wanted to either beat up or put a bullet in, according to Jeff Pearlman's story. (Pearlman, it is worth noting, wrote the delicious The Bad Guys Won, about the fussin' and fightin' '86 Mets.)
While some pitchers rely on parachute changeups, backdoor sliders, front-door sinkers, or other pitches named for sundry household objects, Sisk's out pitch had pretty much devolved into a "garden hose" by '85.

Orosco and Sisk (right) comprised two-thirds of the '86 Mets' famed "Scum Bunch."

Pearlman writes:
Sisk spent much of the 1985 season pitching with loose bone chips in his right elbow, but he followed the code of the tough-as-nails ballplayer and said nothing.

What ensued was an ode to the Bump Hadley School of Mound Ineffectiveness. Sisk's once-reliable sinker turned into an unmanned garden hose, twisting left, spinning right, spiraling into the ground and high up in the air.
At least to me, that unmanned garden hose seems to it'd be a real bitch to hit. Alas, batters must've laid off, as Sisk simply stopped getting people out--and Met fans never let him forget it.

What to Do When Godzilla's at the Front Door

2011-03-10T13:57:00.000-05:00

In baseball and in music, it's all about the back door.
There's the back-door slider, a pitch that breaks late and sneaks across the ass-end of the plate.
In rock and roll, it may have started with "Back Door Man"--written by Willie Dixon, performed by Howlin' Wolf, and perhaps best known for its cover by the Doors. That's followed by Creedence's "Lookin Out My Back Door," then on to Deep Purple's "Knocking at Your Back Door."
The front door? Nothing cool about that. Nobody sneaks in or out of the front door. That's where the flag flutters, the seasonal holiday accoutrement (the heart, the shamrock, the fuzzy bunny) hangs, the mail arrives, the Girl Scout hawks her cookies.
It's where Dallas Braden's sinker turns up too.

Indeed, we are getting into the spring swing of things (trying saying that three times fast!) over at Batter Chatter, as today's NY Times reports of Hideki "Godzilla" Matsui's arrival in Oakland.
Dallas "Don't FREAKIN' Step on My Mound!" Braden greeted Matsui with an inflatable Godzilla he bought on eBay for $150.
Matsui, the ultimate team guy, surely appreciated the gesture, though he probably wouldn't mind retiring the Godzilla moniker once and for all, seeing as it was given to him for his monstrous acne as a teen, not for his prodigious home runs.
Braden is happy to see Matsui for a number of reasons: the A's have almost no offense, for one, and Braden never really could get Matsui out--especially during a gem he'd been throwing just after his perfect game last season, until Matsui took him deep.
Tyler Kepner writes:
“Breaking ball,” Braden said ruefully, recalling the moment the other day in the A’s clubhouse. “It was middle — but it was down — and he got it. I’ve thrown him changeups, sinkers in, I’ve thrown him front-door sinkers; if I had a knuckleball I’d throw that. I’m just glad I don’t have to face the guy anymore.”

As he showed on Real Sports last year, Braden is a zag-when-everyone-else-zigs kind of guy, so it's no surprise that he's throwing front-door sinkers when everyone else opts for back-door sliders.

Met Igarashi Stuck in JICS-ville

2011-03-07T12:15:00.002-05:00

The sun is shining!
The sky is blue!
The sports pages are filled with baseball!
And it's time for Batter Chatter to get off its lazy ass and turn up to spring training.
Sunday's New York Times Sports section kicked off a new season of collecting arcane baseball-speak in a story about Mets hurler Ryota Igarashi.
During spring training, teams frequently take minor league pitchers along for road trips in case the game goes into extra innings, so the front-line pitchers don't blow out their arms with the extra workload.
These players, notes the Times, are called "JICs"--for "Just In Case.
Reports Dave Waldstein:
Teams usually take minor league pitchers on the road during camp to provide an inning or two in relief should the game go extra innings, and some managers call them J.I.C.’s, for just in case. When Igarashi signed his contract last year, he never expected to be included in that category.

That's Igarashi's ignominious role now, though he's being a good citizen amidst his JICs duty.
Other notable JICs around the world include the Jicks--the name given to Stephen Malkmus's post-Pavement band.
On StephenMalkmus.com, Malkmus--addressing the "Jicks people" of the world--said last year was a return to Pavement for him, with a giant world tour. The two best shows on the tour? Tokyo and Osaka, he said.
Not sure if Mets JIC Igarashi was in attendance.

The Batter Chatter Book Review: BIG HAIR AND PLASTIC GRASS

2010-11-16T11:13:00.001-05:00

I recently finished reading Big Hair and Plastic Grass, Dan Epstein's fun account of our national pastime (uh, baseball, that is) during the 1970s. Hair, in fact, plays a large role in the book, from Oscar Gamble's prodigious afro to Mark "The Bird" Fidrych's flowing blond mane; both are featured on the cover.

Joe Pepitone's hairpiece, meanwhile, qualifies both as big hair and plastic grass.

Epstein is an accomplished music writer--his author bio mentions his work appearing in Rolling Stone and Revolver, among other music publications--and he frequently works the music of the times into his writing of a certain period. He notes the clash between disco and classic rock (then known simply as "rock") in the mid '70s, and has an interesting bit on Bill Veeck's ill-conceived Disco Demolition Night at Comiskey Park, which attracted a reported 92,000 to the ballpark for a bonfire fueled by disco records to be held in between games of a double header.

A riot occurred on the field, resulting in 39 arrests and the cancellation of the second game of the 'header, which was declared a 9-0 forfeit win for visiting Detroit.

The book, published by Thomas Dunne books, is full of moments where you realize something that occurred in the '70s would simply never happen now, such as Ted Turner's wet t-shirt promotions at Braves games, the 10-cent beer night at Cleveland's old Municipal Stadium (65,000 cups of Stroh's were sold), a pair of Yankee pitchers trading wives, and Billy Martin's bottomless bad behavior.

But fans of the game will probably have heard of most of the old stories that Epstein trots out. He offers an endless list of baseball books that informed his reporting in Big Hair, but one might wish that Epstein had spent more time talking with the great characters from the '70s, such as Dock Ellis and Bill "Spaceman" Lee, to dig up great stories, instead of retelling the old ones.

Each year in the '70s gets its own chapter, and each chapter ends with a workmanlike account of how the National and American League playoffs played out, a play by play of the World Series, and an accounting of whose individual performance stood out that year. You may find yourself breezing through those parts, in search of more fun stories.

And there are lots of fun stories, such as the genesis of the '73 Mets' "Ya Gotta Believe" rallying cry (it came from Tug McGraw making fun of Mets chairman Donald Grant's cliche-filled team pep talk, and a teen named Stanley Burrell who used to dance in the A's parking lot for change, but ended up being the team's bat boy and later, "executive vice president" and unofficial clubhouse spy for owner Charley Finley. The players called the boy "Hammer", as he looked like Henry Aaron. Years later, the world would know Stanley Burrell as "MC Hammer."

Epstein, whose author photo shows some big hair too, also has some fun with '70s uniforms, such as the garish all-red get-ups in Cleveland, the "pupil-gouging horror" of the Astros' "tequila sunrise" jerseys, and of course the White Sox' short lived short-pants uni's.

Fun anecdotes, well told. Big Hair and Plastic Grass will help shorten the time between now and when pitchers and catchers first turn up for spring training.

Reynolds, Pena Claim Super 'Mario' Award

2010-11-15T10:31:00.000-05:00

Forget about all this talk about whether or not Derek Jeter deserves his Gold Glove and if so and so deserves MVP or Cy Young or Rookie of the Year.

Let's get down to the truly unique honors stemming from the 2010 season: Who finished below the storied Mendoza Line?

The Mendoza Line, as most fans know, is the .200 batting average, named for Mario Mendoza. Mendoza was a slick-fielding shortstop who hit for a lifetime .215 average with the Pirates, Mariners and Rangers. If you're hitting below .200, you are below the ignominious Mendoza Line, and your teammates--and history--will mock you for the rest of your life.

The term was reportedly hatched out of Kansas City, pertaining to George Brett (George was certainly no slouch in the batter's box). As is the case with most newish sports catchphrases, it was the mighty trumpet of ESPN's SportsCenter that send the phrase national.

From Wikipedia:

"My teammates Tom Paciorek and Bruce Bochte used it to make fun of me," Mendoza said in 2010. "Then they were giving George Brett a hard time because he had a slow start that year, so they told him, 'Hey, man, you're going to sink down below the Mendoza Line if you're not careful.' And then Brett mentioned it to Chris Berman from ESPN, and eventually it spread and became a part of the game."

Berman deflects credit back to Brett in popularizing the term. "Mario Mendoza — it's all George Brett," Berman said. "We used it all the time in those 1980s 'SportsCenters.' It was just a humorous way to describe how someone was hitting."

So who finished below the Mendoza Line this year? Among players with 350-plus at-bats, Arizona third-sacker Mark Reynolds finished at .198 after 596 plate appearances--lowest in the National League.
Other bottom feeders from the Senior League: Reynolds' D-Backs teammate Chris Snynder at .207, and Cardinal Pedro Feliz at .218.

Over in the American League, Tampa Bay Rays first baseman Carlos Pena hit .196. If we expand the paltry pool to include those with 300-plus at-bats, then Cleveland second baseman Luis Valbuena wins the Withered Wiffle (opposite of the Silver Slugger) with a .193 clip.

So how the heck to Reynolds and Pena continue to compel their managers to send them to the batter's box? Surprise, surprise, they hit for prodigious power. Reynolds clocked 32 homers and delivered 85 rib-eye steaks in 2010.

For his part, Pena was good for 28 taters and 84 RBIs.

Of all the significant accomplishments reached in 2010--Bautista's 54 homers, Halladay/Sabathia's 21 wins--hitting below the Mendoza Line continues to be one of the most difficult things to do in baseball.

Aubrey in a Huff, Gets Panties into a Twist, Covers His A** With Correction

2010-11-12T11:02:00.000-05:00

The goofy--and ultimately very successful--San Francisco Giants thrived on a loose clubhouse culture that included Brian Wilson's peculiar performance art and Aubrey Huff's famed "rally thong."

Huff famously donned the thong to bust out of a slump in September, and kept it in place as the Giants rolled through the autumn en route to the ~~World~~ North American Championship. Huff waved his proverbial freak flag, a bright red number, during the Giants' victory parade two weeks ago.

But just to be clear, it's technically men's lingerie.

In fact, here's the greatest New York Times correction you'll read all week:

An article on Nov. 4 about the San Francisco Giants’ victory parade referred incorrectly to the type of underwear shown to the crowd by first baseman Aubrey Huff. His “rally thong,” which he said he wore for luck during the Giants’ run to the World Series title, was designed for men, not for women.

So, if I'm reading this correctly, Huff and his Giants are freaky, but they're not that freaky.

Recalling the 'Designated Runner'

2010-11-11T11:09:00.001-05:00

I tend to read a baseball book each November, in an effort to stretch the season out just a little more. Currently I'm reading the ode to 1970s baseball and all its odd cultural trappings, Big Hair and Plastic Grass. It's fun. I'll provide a full-on review when I finished it in the next week or so.

One thing of note: the "designated runner" was a real thing in the '70s. Teams would keep a speedster on the roster--one who often could not hit and would never be put in a position to hit--for the sole purpose of pinch-running and stealing a key base now and then.

So established was the practice that the A's (and I swear, half of Big Hair and Plastic Grass is about the A's, between their excellence on the field and their crazy owner, Charley Finley) had a skinny sprinter named Herb Washington whose Topps baseball card listed his position on the front as "Pinch Run.".

It's like a hockey goon having his position listed as "Fighter."

Washington was a college sprinter who appeared in 92 games in 1974--yet did not hit or play the field once. A designated runner, indeed. A's management figured Washington's speed would help the team win an extra 10 games per season.

Alas, Washington wasn't much of a baserunner, caught stealing 16 times in 45 attempts and picked off in a crucial spot in the World Series. "Hurricane Herb's" ineptitude on the paths proved what every baseball fan knows--running the bases well isn't simply a matter of being fast.

The A's may have given up on Washington, but they stuck with the philosophy. In 1976, Larry Lintz was the designated runner. Lintz had just three plate appearances all season.

These days, a player has to do more than run to earn a roster spot. But the basic philosophy hasn't disappeared--who can forget Dave Roberts coming into the game for the Red Sox in the 9th inning to steal second in Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS against the Yanks? (Roberts of course came around to score the tying run, keeping the Sox alive. The rest is, of course, history. The swipe was named #2 all time stolen base by SI.com.)

Roberts was listed as an outfielder in the 2004 post-season, but his role was clearly designated runner.

Three True Outcomes a 'Dunn' Deal

2010-11-05T15:34:00.001-04:00

I'm not much of a fan of the so-called sabremetric movement--the new school of baseball thinking that involves weird metrics like VORP (Value Over Replacement Player) and PECOTA (Player Empirical Comparison and Optimization Test Algorithm). It's interesting to look at the timeless game of baseball in a fresh way, but outside of Moneyball, saber-speak doesn't usually make for fun baseball reading.

But here's a fun little taste of baseball research analysis lingo: Three True Outcomes. Today's NY Times, talking about who's dancing around on the hot stove along with Cliff Lee, Jayson Werth and Carl Crawford, mentions big Will Ferrell lookalike Adam Dunn as being the ultimate practicioner of the Three True Outcomes (TTO).

A groundout? Don't bet on it!

The NY Times describes the TTOs as the three batter events that do not involve the defense at all: strikeouts (Dunn had 199 last year. 199! That's even more than David Wright and his Golden Sombrero!), walks (he had 77), and home runs (Dunn walloped 38).

Those three potential outcomes accounted for a whopping 48.5% of Dunn's at bats last year.

The coming weeks will reveal which team grabs Dunn--and his knack for true outcomes.

What to Call the 2010 Fall Classic

2010-11-01T13:20:00.000-04:00

The World Series could be over in 12 hours, and I still haven't heard a good nickname depicting the two teams in the 2010 Series.

A decade ago--and 13 times before 2000, in fact--we had the Subway Series. In 1989, we had the Bay Bridge Series between the A's and the Giants (also known as the BART Series and, sadly, the Earthquake Series). In 1985, we had the Show Me Series, which pitted the Royals against the Cardinals. (Missouri is of course the Show Me State, for reasons I don't understand and don't care to dig up on Wikipedia. I vaguely remember, as a teen at the time, Newsday asking readers to suggest a name for the '85 set, and someone suggesting "World Beeries." I liked that better than Show Me Series.)

Even last year's affair, between the Yankees and the Phillies, was dubbed the Liberty Series (Philly's got the bell, New York's got the belle) and the Turnpike Series (the Jersey Turnpike of course links New York and Philly, though the Snooki State did not technically have a team in the Series).

But what about Rangers-Giants? I'm sure Archie Bunker is yelling "Steers vs. Queers!" from the grave out in Queens, but we're not going to dignify that slur.

But it being Election Day and all tomorrow (surely you've noticed a few political ads on the telly?), you truly couldn't have a better case of Red State vs. Blue State in Rangers-Giants--a point only reinforced by a pair of ex-president George Bush's rolling onto the Arlington field in a golf cart, before Bush the Younger fired a pretty nifty strike to Nolan Ryan.

I hate to throw a stereotyping blanket over an entire region--after all, some Germans are funny, and some New Yorkers move slowly--but surely lots of people out there see the 2010 Series as the right-leaning cowpokes versus the tree-hugging, pot smoking (and pot voting!) libs from Berkeley. An otherwise intelligent friend with a habit of turning everything into a culture war battle posted this on Facebook after the Yankees were offed in Arlington:

...would rather be in nyc than be a redneck guntotin' ranger fan scarfing down nachos in a bright red gabe kapler jersey.

Of course, Gabe Kapler is Jewish, which just reminds us of the folly in broad geographical stereotypes.

As coincidence would have it, I played company softball a few times against that same Facebook friend who disapproves of guntotin' ranger fans and Gabe Kapler. He worked/played for a book publisher, and I for the Bad News Bunnies of Playboy (Yes, I'm serious).

The nickname of our annual softball showdown? Bookies vs. Nookies, of course.

Proof That George Vecsey--And His Editor--Don't Read Batter Chatter

2010-11-01T11:46:00.000-04:00

Two weeks ago, we noted that NY Times flagship sports columnist George Vecsey has something of a love affair with the phrase "cable swag"--he's used the odd phrase dozens and dozens of times over the years, typically to explain why the Yankees are still playing baseball around Halloween most years.

Vecsey's World Series column from Friday dipped into the swag bag yet again.

If Brian Sabean can beef up the Giants on the fly during the 2010 season and Nolan Ryan and Jon Daniels can reconstitute the Rangers on the premise of pitching and flexibility, then why can’t the Mets — with all their cable swag and potential for selling tickets — do the same?

I call for a George Vecsey Cable Swag Moratorium in 2011.

Cain's Pitching Weighs 'Heavy' on Giants

2010-10-29T12:20:00.002-04:00

The expertly-coiffed Eric Karros was effusive in his praise of Giants starter Matt Cain before last night's World Series contest.

"He throws a very heavy fastball," said Karros. "I mean heavy. If you're a hitter and you don't hit it on the barrel, it legitimately hurts your hands."

No, Cain was not throwing the shot put last night, though his line--four hits over 7 2/3rds innings--makes it sound like the Rangers were trying to hit one.

He ain't heavy...wait, yes he is.

The official Major League baseball weighs around 5 ounces, and pitchers don't get to choose more gravitationally enhanced spheres.

Throwing a heavy ball is one of the ultimate compliments for a pitcher. It often is used to describe a sinkerballer, who gets batters to hit the ball on the not-so-sweet part of the bat.

Says Rotosynthesis.com:
"We had Jimmy Rollins on our XM show, and I asked him if there were any young pitchers he thought were particularly tough that people should know about. He mentioned Jimenez, saying, that he throws a 'heavy sinker and you really have work to get the ball in the air with him.'"

Baseball Digest has what has to be the definitive essay, which dates back to 2004, on the "heavy ball" phenomenon. An excerpt reads:

It's the sinker that's usually the culprit. According to one-time Giants catcher and former Arizona manager Bob Brenly, "A sinker is the heaviest ball, especially if it breaks late. You don't catch it cleanly in the pocket, but lower, and it wobbles and vibrates all the way up your arm. It does the same to a batter who makes contact with it.

It is with heavy hearts that the Rangers return to the Lone Star State down 2-0.

Hooman Giant Steps Up For St. Loo

2010-10-29T10:11:00.000-04:00

We visit the world of football, because we know that baseball players are not allowed to "make plays", for two terrific cliches in one sentence:

From my Yahoo Sports fantasy football guide:

Hoomanawanui was one of rookie QB Sam Bradford's favorite targets during the preseason and so his return from a high ankle sprain has been a positive for a Rams' club looking for a receiver or two to step up and make plays.

I mean, a lot of guys out there can step up.

And a good number of them can make plays.

But few, regrettably few, can actually step up and make plays.

It takes a big man to do both, and Michael Hoomanawanui, at 6 5" and 270 pounds, with broad shoulders and a long name, is just that man.

'Crooked' Rangers Have Yanks' 'Number'

2010-10-25T12:02:00.001-04:00

Late in the fateful Rangers-Yankees game (Did the Rangers really beat the Yanks? I'm still processing this.), announcer Ron Darling spoke about the Texans' ability to put a "crooked number" on the board in a hurry--turning a hint of a rally into a full-blown smack attack that involved posting a 2, 3, 4 or more up on the scoreboard.

A crooked number.

An hour later, a somber Joe Girardi used the same phrase in his post-game post-mortem, saying how the Rangers' many innovative ways to advance on the basepaths led to some critical "crooked numbers" on the board for the boys from the Lone Star State.

(Another interesting description from a pinstriper in the post-mortem: Reggie Jackson telling the NY Times' George Vecsey the Yankees were "woodshedded", as in, taken back behind the woodshed and, you know, something violent, in the series.)

Wikipedia's Glossary of Baseball offers this for crooked number:
A number other than a zero or a one, referring to the appearance of the actual number. A team which is able to score two or more runs in an inning is said to "hang a crooked number" on the scoreboard or on the pitcher.

Crooked Number is also a Missouri band with a taste for Wilco's rootsy rhythms.

I'm not sure how the phrase was originated; a true lexicon reporter like Ben Zimmer would probably do the legwork to find out, but I'm just too lazy.

One online pundit notes that it dates at least back to the Buzz Bissinger book on Tony LaRussa, "Three Nights in August. "

Crooked number might have spawned from "crooked letter," which is street slang for the letter S. Surely you remember an old episode of Alice, when her son Tommy had a spelling test and someone (Alice? Mel? Dingbat Vera?) got him to remember the proper spelling of Mississippi by saying, "M, I, crooked letter, crooked letter I, crooked letter, crooked letter, I, humpback, humpback, I."

More recently, that old ditty was tweaked into something off-color by the Florida rapper Case.

Next up for the Yankees--seeing how much Derek Jeter wants for a crooked number contract.

Yanks Have 'Snowball's' Chance in Hell

2010-10-22T09:55:00.002-04:00

Every so often a geniune inside-baseball phrase pops up in the newspaper, straight from the mouths of the ballplayers. Such as "swinging at the rosin bag"--a term for a batter swinging at every last pitch, location be damned--which I'd never heard in, oh, almost four decades of following baseball, until Jerry Manuel said it over the summer.

And the way Lance Berkman described the Rangers' Little League-esque comedy of throwing errors in the 2nd inning of their game in the Bronx Wednesday. It went Francoeur to Young to Wilson to Treanor, if you're scoring at home, with assists from the grass, the dirt, and the backstop. (Speaking of swinging at the rosin bag--can a team that sends Jeff Francoeur to the dish four-plus times a game truly expect to make the World Series?)

“That’s what we call a snowball fight in the industry,” Berkman told our pal George "Cable Swag" Vecsey of the Rangers' spasmodic defense on the play. “It can deteriorate on you in a hurry. I’ve been on the other end of that. You’re trying to get an out desperately, and the ball’s flying around, and you end up making a throw that’s ill-advised.”

Little white balls flying around the yard...A snowball fight. Brilliant.

Berkman has emerged as a mensch in the Yankees clubhouse, despite a mostly middling performance on the field. The reporters gravitate to Fat Elvis (If you haven't read about how Berkman got his "Fat Elvis" nickname, it's funny) for his veteran perspective and humor.

A hunk o' burning glove

Fat Elvis's quote is interesting for a few reasons. I like the juxtaposition of the kids-at-play with the corporate jargon of "the industry." We've written a lot about the intrusion of corporate-speak into Major League Baseball--no great surprise, I guess, when guys are making $15 mil a year and "diversifying their portfolios" with stakes in bottled water, financial services, race horses, or whatever widget draws their attention.

The Yanks will of course be all business when they face the Rangers tonight.

Having a Think on 'Having a Catch'

2010-10-20T11:43:00.001-04:00

When we were kids, we played catch.

We played catch, we traded baseball cards, we rode our bikes to Cumberland Farms for Suzie Q's and soda, and we played more catch.

I caught up on the season finale of Mad Men last night after being victimized by a number of Facebook spoilers (is that any way to treat a Friend?), and saw Don Draper and his bespoke boys pitch the anti-smoking folks an ad campaign that featured timeless father-and-son stuff like "playing catch."
(Speaking of great Mad Men moments involved fathers and sons playing catch, remember that hospital scene with Don and some strange guy who was waiting on the birth of his son? The man quizzed Don about fatherhood and asked, "You and your boy throw the ball around?" Don, perpetual short-lister for Worst Father Ever, replied, "Not enough.")

So the notion of "playing catch" is timeless, right? Not so much.

No, I'm not talking about videgaming's methodical takeover of all things outdoorsy.

Some time, ago, "playing catch" turned into "having a catch." It's almost as if the activity was so mundane, so bereft of drama or passion, that people simply stripped the "play" out of it and rebranded it with the passive verb.

I've noticed a trend with people turning a verb into a noun and adding a "have a" before the former verb in an effort to sound trendy or smart or European, or all of the above. Let me illustrate, because that previous sentence is a bit confusing. You and I think. But a boss I used to have would say "Let me have a think" about something. (Mind you, he's not my boss anymore. I guess he didn't have a think enough.)

Or, you and I look at something. A pretentious person might have a look at that same thing.

Maybe that was a factor in playing catch turning into having a catch.

"Play catch" kicks up 128 million links on Google, including a WikiHow video link for the really-not-too bright called "How to Play Catch: 4 Steps" (As I noted in a Metro NY column a few years ago, "Catch" is one of the few games out there where the instructions are right there in the name. Are there really four steps to it? I count two--catch it and throw it. Maybe they're counting the bike ride to Cumberland Farms and Suzie Qs too.)

There's also a quote from Field of Dreams: "Could you believe that? An American boy refusing to play catch with his father."

"Have a catch," meanwhile, nearly doubles "play catch" on Google--306 million links (Granted, not all refer to throwing a ball back and forth, such as "The New Taliban Tactics Have a Catch"). There was a Wrigley Field event last year, promoted on Facebook, called "Hey Dad, Wanna Have a Catch?"--a 50 minute, open to the public, ball-throwing session for charity.

Whether you play catch or have a catch, the game is the same, and will be as long as there are fathers and sons, or fathers and daughters, or mothers and sons, or friends, or those Pitchbacks for people with no friends.

Cooling temps and fading summer sun be damned--I know what I--and my kids--will be doing when Daddy gets home from work today.

George Vecsey Left Holding the 'Swag'

2010-10-18T12:02:00.006-04:00

Papa's got a brand new swag.

I was reading the NY Times Sports over the weekend when something caught my eye: Beloved columnist George Vecsey was breaking down the Phillies' considerable attributes when he noted, "Having enough cable television swag to finance the fourth-highest payroll in the majors does not hurt the Phillies, either."

And what about that, you ask, caught my eye? I recalled Vecsey using that "cable television swag" term a few times before, so I searched it on the Times website. In fact, more than 70 links pop up on the Times when one searches "George Vecsey swag"--most of them explaining why the Yankees are in the post-season hunt most every season.

Every writer has his or her pet terms--a word or phrase they subconsciously beat to death. NY Press noted a few years ago just how often NYT columnist David Carr refers to lumpy white guys, including himself and Tim Russert, as having a faced "carved from potatoes" or somesuch. (Coincidentally, I actually broke the Carr-potatoes thing a few weeks before NY Press, but the Press guy went deeper on it and did a better job.)

Me, I used to do weekly match reports for my NYC rugby club, and always seemed to work the word "stellar" in there--even when we were routinely beaten up in lowly Division III. I blame the sloppiness on all the Sierra Nevadas I had after the matches at Fiddlesticks.

Anyway, reading through Vecsey's old stories, it's not hard to see that the guy clearly is not happy that the Yankees have unbalanced the playing field with their fat cable swag.

After they won the world American-plus-Toronto championship last November:

Ever since the Yankees won the World Series, I have been receiving messages from fans around the world deploring the domination by New York and its cable television swag.

June 2008:

George Steinbrenner was known for his impatience — vilifying some hapless young pitcher who had a bad inning — and George had the cable swag to back up his whims.

From October 2002, and, well, October 2002 again:

Of course, you could argue that everybody in the American League is an underdog compared to the Yankees, whose cable swag will allow them to rebuild once again this winter.

Then...

Baseball blows its horn about being the national sport, but then there are the Yankees, making judicious use of cable television swag, winning the pennant so often that the fans in the Bronx have their cheers and game rituals down pat.

April 2002:

The Yankees can't win them all, but they won't lose them all, either, not with the superb new players like Giambi, purchased with Steinbrenner's cable swag.

March 2002:

The Yankees are loaded, thanks to their cable swag.

December 2001:

Sensitive to his fellow owners, George Steinbrenner did not want to come off as the symbol for all that's wrong with baseball, what with his having $56.75 million in annual cable-television swag to throw at new talent.

Geez, even back to the '90s, on El Duque:

George Steinbrenner spent a chunk of his cable television swag for the Cuban pitcher who won 12 games and lost 4 with an earned run average of 3.13.

Man, that's a lot of swag! Don't get me wrong--Vecsey is a terrific columnist who has a knack for finding the heartbeat within the games we love. I blame his editors more than I blame him.

Dictionary.com defines "swag" as a suspended garland, wreath or drapery. The second definition is offered as the slang usage:

a. plunder; booty; [Ha ha, Dictionary.com said booty.] b. money; valuables.

To be fair, Vecsey does not limit the swag references to the Yankees. In May 2008, he lumps the Mets in with the Bombers as recipients of filthy cable TV lucre.

Both New York teams have been underachieving, particularly the Mets, a hopeful sign around the country that all that New York cable money and ticket swag does not guarantee success or even snappy play.

And:
Why is our cable swag then funneled to the Mets (which Dolan might even buy one of these days), if there is no instant payoff?

Or:
All that cable swag has raised expectations, gone to their heads. They think like Yankees fans, for goodness’ sakes.

And in an interview with Ralph Kiner last year:

“And they did it before free agency,” Kiner noted, meaning the Mets could not woo prime players with cable swag, the way rich teams do these days.

Lest there be no Boston bellyaching over swag--that Fisher-Price "My First City" town even got cable swag way back in 2001:

The gold rush for the Red Sox only proves that baseball must find a better way to share the cable swag.

The whole of baseball, in fact, gets swag.

Baseball should definitely investigate the generation when a bunch of instant Blutos broke the records while the owners deposited the swag.

So does college football, says Geo V:

Notre Dame probably cannot afford to ask the big question because it will need the swag from its singular television deal just to pay Weis the $15 million to $18 million it owes him.

Even swimmer Michael Phelps!

Other sponsors may follow suit, which will cut into his endorsement swag, estimated at perhaps $100 million over the course of his life.

UPDATE: Today's NY Times...as if magically sensing the Batter Chatter blindside awaiting him, Vecsey writes, "As long as cable money talks, teams like the Phillies will be bale to bring in a reliable old hand like Roy Oswalt..." He does NOT say "cable swag."

Anyway, you get the picture.

So if the Yankees are able to grab another World Series this year, it won't be because Sabathia anchored the rotation, or Mo Rivera was his usual grim reaper in the 9th, or A-Rod continued to hit in the post-season clutch.

No, it will be because of the YES Network, and the extravagant swag it kicked the Yankees' way.

Wagner-ian Opera Comes to End; No 'Cupcakes' For Braves

2010-10-13T12:04:00.000-04:00

We're sad to see the Braves' season end, because it brings Billy Wagner's career to a close. Wagner was a frequent, if unwitting, contributor to Batter Chatter, his outspokeness and ~~dopey~~ homespun manner always good for a memorable phrase or two.

It was Wagner, of course, who accused then-Mets teammate Lastings Milledge of "big-leaguin' it"--a serious charge in the big leagues.

And after the NY Times Magazine ran something on Francisco Rodriguez losing it after his common-law wife's father told him to "man up," we had a little email convo with the author of the column, Ben Zimmer. Zimmer told Batter Chatter he enjoyed the bit we did on Wagner and "big-leaguin' it", and said Wagner was also responsible for one of his favorite baseball expressions: "cupcakin' it" (Formula for a Wagner-ism: take a noun, turn it into a verb by pasting an -ing suffix on it, drop the g, and add "it.")

Cupcakin' it means taking it easy, handling with kid gloves, that sort of thing. There's no cupcakin' it in baseball, Wagner told then-Mets manager Willie Randolph back in 2006, after Randolph threw Wagner into a tight game to start the season.

"Might as well get thrown right into the fire," said Wagner. "No use cupcakin' it."

Wrote Zimmer:

I had never come across this use of the verb cupcake before, but its meaning was immediately obvious from the context. Wagner meant there was no point in trying to breeze through his assignment or get by with little exertion. There's a long tradition of similar dessert-related metaphors in American slang: piece of cake, cakewalk, pudding (meaning 'something easy'), easy as pie, etc. A little searching on Usenet newsgroups and other forums for sports talk turned up various uses of the verb cupcake, very often in reference to a team building up a deceptively good win-loss record thanks to an easy competitive schedule.

Thinking Outside the 'Bandbox'

2010-10-06T11:21:00.006-04:00

The Twins' new ballpark, on national TV for all to see tonight when the Minnesotans host the fearsome Yankees, is no bandbox.

Yet those homer-happy Blue Jays made Target Field feel like one earlier this summer.

“They made the place look like a little bandbox,” Twins outfielder Denard Span told the NY Times yesterday. “It’s hard to believe. We complain all year about the place, and they come here and hit like 10 home runs."

UPDATE: Today's NY Times!: "The Twins’ new Target Field is not the bandbox the Metrodome was, and the Twins, accordingly, scored 36 fewer runs in 2010..."

A bandbox.

Any time someone needs a metaphor for a small baseball stadium, they opt for bandbox. The Phillies newish stadium? Definitely a bandbox. "The Phillies raised the left-field fence at Citizens Bank Park 2 1/2 feet and moved it back five feet following the 2005 season, less than two years after it opened," wrote MLB.com earlier this year. "Pitchers at Citizens Bank Park had complained that the ballpark played like a bandbox."

Yankee Stadium? Was a bandbox last year, short porch and all. "New Yankee Stadium is a bandbox," wrote Ohio's Times-Reporter.

Not so much this year...maybe it's the wind.

Of course, Denard Span's usage--"a little bandbox"--is redundant. A bandbox is, by definition, little.

But what the heck is a bandbox when it's not a baseball metaphor? I'd guess it's like an orchestra pit--a small box that sees several musicians jammed into it to provide music for theater. Or maybe something like a bandshell--another tight performance space for musicians.

I'd be wrong.

Merriam Webster's calls it a "cylindrical box of paperboard or thin wood for holding light articles of attire."

MW's second definition references the diamond. "A structure (as a baseball park) having relatively small interior dimentions.)

Wikipedia offers a few different uses for bandbox, including a novel by Thomas Mallon about a '20s men's magazine called, yup, "Bandbox," and the 1712 attempt on the Earl of Oxford's life that's known as "the Bandbox Plot."

WikiAnswers.com says the first usage of bandbox in the baseball context came from John Updike in The New Yorker in 1960.

"Fenway Park is a little lyrical bandbox of a ballpark," wrote J.U.

It's very strange that such an archaic word is still called upon as the metaphor of choice for small ballparks. Think about how many types of boxes are more current than the bandbox. The cigar box. The tackle box. The jewelry box, the music box. The glove box.

And it doesn't necessarily have to be a word ending in "box", does it? I mean, a small ballpark could be likened to a "cookie jar" or a "bread basket." (Wait, "breadbasket" is already in use in baseball slanguage.)

OK, enough on the topic. I have to hit the cleaners before they close and grab my new bandbox.

Batter Chatter's 2010 Name Hall of Fame

2010-10-05T10:57:00.003-04:00

We hereby give out the inaugural 2010 season-end Batter Chatter Great Names in Baseball awards.

Player Whose Last Name Sounds Most Like a Corporation:
(tie) Jason Varitek (Red Sox) and Paul Konerko (White Sox)
Honorable Mention: Kelly Shoppach (Rays)

The Pirates '80s Third Baseman Jim Morrison Award for Best Rock Star Name:
(tie) Carlos Santana (Indians), Brian Wilson (Giants), Corey Hart (Brewers)

Names You Can't Make Fun of Anymore Because They've Been Too Funny For Too Long:
(tie) Milton Bradley (Mariners), Coco Crisp (Athletics)
Honorable Mention: Albert Pujols (Cardinals)

Player Who Sounds Like a Flavor of Cheese:
Tom Gorzelanny (Pirates)

Most Animals Mentioned in a Name:
Marlon Byrd, Cubs (2)

Most Body Parts Mentioned in a Name:
Tony Armas, Ret. (4)

The 'Dad Was Probably a Dentist' Award:
(tie) Chad Moeller (Yankees), John Buck (Blue Jays)

The 'Mom and Dad Don't Spell So Hot' Award:
Jhonny Peralta (Indians)

The 'Guy Who I Don't Like Even Though I Haven't Met Him Because of His Name' Award:
Madison Bumgarner (Giants)

Most Poetic Name:
(tie) Buster Posey (Giants) and Daniel Bard (Red Sox)

The Vanna White 'I'd Like to Buy a Vowel' Award:
Marc Rzepczynski (Blue Jays)

Player Most Likely to Be Related to Busta Rhymes:
Will Rhymes (Tigers)

The World Leader Name Award:
(tie) Chris Carter (Mets), Adam Kennedy (Nats), Ramon Castro (White Sox), Joe Thatcher (Padres)

And The Only Player in Major League Baseball to Have His Team Name on the Front and Back of His Jersey...
Jason Castro (Astros)

'Bonus Baseball' in October

2010-10-04T10:24:00.004-04:00

The 2010 regular season didn't go down without a fight.

The Red Sox and Yanks engaged in two--two--extra inning games on Saturday, logging some eight-hours plus of baseball at Fenway.

The Rays and Royals went 12 innings yesterday, even though the Yankees had lost, thus giving the division title to the Tampa-ites.

And the Metsies, oh those Metsies, went 14 before losing in the most ignominious of ways. It's the stuff late-night comic monologues thrive on--what could make the Mets' dismal season worse than five innings of extra baseball that ends in a loss?

"Bonus Baseball," went the headline from our friends over at Baseball Musings. (Well, we're sort of friends...we're on each other's blogrolls and they ran a nice item on Batter Chatter not long after we launched.)

There aren't many synonyms for extra innings. Some wiseguys call it "overtime", the phrase every clock-based sport uses. Some say "extras."

Earlier this season, the surprisingly good MLB.com writeups referred to "bonus baseball in the desert" after the Yankees and D-Backs went very long in an inter-league game.

Coincidentally, "bonus baseball" also refers to the one-game playoff to see who gets into the post-season when there's a tie--a game that would've been played today, if we'd been in such a situation.

"Playoff Watch: Another year of bonus baseball?" mused Sporting News yesterday, before all the races played out before the finish line.

Oddly, and against all logic, I had considerable interest in yesterday's 14-inning Met game. I'd gone to my first game at CitiField all season Saturday. Mets against Nats, October, there could not have been less on the line.
Let's call it the Fall Spastic.

The view from the right-field terrace.

The place had about 13,000 people and me and Tommy T took in the game from a number of vantage points, including the glass-walled restaurant and the standing terrace beyond right field. (Lower-level ushers were oddly protective of the good seats, all things considered.) And boy, what a gorgeous day it was.

David Wright had a little Dave Matthews playing when he stepped up to the plate in the 7th, but the peace-and-love vibes were gone in seconds. Tyler Clippard through one under Wright's chin, and DW responded with a long three-run, tie-breaking home run, and a very slow and purposeful trip around the bases.

CitiField went wild. All 13,000 of us.

I truly wanted the Mets to end on a posititve note, just as I eagerly went to Sandbox.com this morning to see how my last place Luckless Pedestrians did in their fantasy league final. (Sandbox down and I don't know if I held on for the win against Weaver's Beavers. Nice one, Sandbox.)

[UPDATE: Luckless Pedestrians took down the Beavers, 183-76. AJ Burnett even contrib'd some points this week, for once.]

Silly, I know. But I'd rather watch last-place baseball than football. That's just me.

I also had to mow the lawn, and set the DVR to record the last few innings. I tape the last game every year in case I suffer some sort of Mets withdrawal sickness in the dead of winter. I don't ever actually watch it -- it's more like the aspirins you through in your toiletry kit before going on vacation. It's good to have them, just in case.

I had the Blackberry in my back pocket and checked the game update every time the mower bag was full. The game went on, the 12th, the 13th. I ran inside when the lawn was finished, ignoring a neighbor and his angry dog who wanted to make small talk about taxes and the president.

Ollie Perez was in for the first time in weeks. Ollie Perez, who became pitcher non grata--at $12 mil a year--after refusing to go to the minors to figure out his woeful control issues. A ghost in the clubhouse, say the beat reporters.

Bad Ollie walked three and hit a batter in a third of an inning. Yeah, you're right, Ollie -- you don't need a tuneup in the minors. You're fine.

Game over. Season over.

On one hand, I appreciated the Metsies bringing me one hour closer to pitchers and catchers reporting in February. On the other hand, I'd just dedicated my weekend time and my emotional investment to a meaningless game that ended badly. (Badly doesn't quite describe it. Grotesquely?)

Had the Mets pulled out yet another walk-off win yesterday (they'd had two in the past week), a tiny hint of optimism would've buried itself in my brain for those cold winter months.

Instead, I just felt cold.

Enjoying a Little 'Yard' Work

2010-09-30T12:22:00.002-04:00

A decade ago, Mike Piazza divulged that his true wish in life was to create a baseball cliche that would live on well after his hitting records did. Hitting 427 homers in the major leagues is tough, but creating a baseball expression that lasts in perpetuity may be even tougher.

You need a clever phrase, for starters, and a gigantic media platform from which to send your new phrase into millions of pairs of eyes and ears.

Batter Chatter, unfortunately, is not that media platform. (Yet?)

ESPN, on the other hand, is.

Take "going yard," for instance, which everyone who knows a walk from a balk knows means hitting a home run.

That came from SportsCenter...I mean, it had to, right? I can't seem to find proof online, but I think it's got to have come from SportsCenter, same as "cooler than the other side of the pillow" and "Boo-Ya!" and other trademark catchphrases.

Wikipedia's Glossary of Baseball says the phrase has roots in Baltimore, where the park is of course called Camden Yards, and plenty of balls have "gone yard" since the park opened in 1993.

Writes the Glossary:
To "go yard" is to hit a home run, i.e., to hit the ball the length of the baseball field or "ball yard".
A discussion on LonelyPlanet.com on, of all things, the movie Inglourious Basterds, centers around a character exclaiming "Teddy Ballgame goes yard!" while beating a Nazi with a baseball bat.

One excerpt reads:

In 2005, William Safire [former writer of the "On Language" column in the NYT] said he couldn't find the origin. The speculation is Camden or the fact that playing fields were often called "ball yards." Someone found a reference to Comiskey being called "The Yard."

The post also notes that Dickson Baseball Dictionary author Paul Dickson says a home run was occasionally called a "yardbird"--which may have helped spark "going yard."

All I know is, "going yard" is a widely used--and perhaps overused--baseball expression. Not only does every local TV sports guy in America use, it, but "Going Yard" is the name of a baseball blog, a baseball camp, and even a real estate firm in Kissimmee, Florida ("We hit it out of the park everytime!"), among many, many other outfits.

So much a part of the modern baseball vernacular is going yard that SI ESPN writer extraordinaire Rick Reilly introduced a variation of it in June, noting that Jamie Moyer had tied former Phillie Robin Roberts for allowing the most home runs in MLB history.

Wrote RR:

The Phillies now have the two greatest yard salesmen in MLB history -- Moyer and Hall of Famer Robin Roberts.

Alas, I don't think that one really caught on.

I'll check in with Dickson and with ESPN and see if anyone can confirm the origin of "going yard." If anyone out there has any insights, it would be cooler than the other side of the pillow if you could share them.

Ahhhhh, Wipeout Slider! (Cue the Surf Music!)

2010-09-28T12:27:00.003-04:00

The slider has become the most multi-faceted pitch in recent years. There's the back-door slider, sneaking into the far end of the strike zone like the neighborhood tomcat stealing into the house to visit a cuckolding missus.

Earlier this season, the Cleveland Plain-Dealer spoke of Justin Masterson's "lefty slider," as the righty hurler calls his devastating pitch.

Wrote the PD over the summer:

Masterson also mixes in a four-seam fastball and changeup -- and, for good measure, a pitch he calls "the lefty slider." It is a pitch Red Sox slugger David Ortiz thought he could hit until the ball ran so far down and away that he ended up coming nowhere close.

And don't even get us started on the "slurve." (Speaking of the slurve, is there a less euphonious mash-up known to man, barring, perhaps "jeggings"?)

Anyway, we digress. The slider has lots of offshoots. And add to it the "wipeout slider," as baseball wiz Kevin Towers describes Padres late bloomer Luke Gregerson. Actually, the term comes from former Padres outfielder John Vander Wal:

“[Vander Wal] said he had a wipeout slider for righties and lefties and was ready now,” Towers told the NY Times. “When I hear that from a guy who made his living as a pinch-hitter against the top relievers in baseball, that’s music to my ears. I’m going to take a chance on that guy.”

UPDATE: The NY Times had it again in Tuesday's paper, talking about CC Sabathia. Obviously scribe Tyler Kepner liked the phrase so much after hearing it from Towers that he used it again.

Twice [Sabathia] humbled the major league home run leader, Jose Bautista, with his signature wipeout slider.

Ihave no idea what a "wipeout slider" is--if it cuts, darts, dives or tumbles. I can only assume a wipeout slider is a very good one.

Keep in mind everyone involved in the above excerpt has San Diego roots, so I'll assume it's some surfer thing.

Yet Google shows that the term pops up a handful of times around the country, dating back at least a few years. Over three years ago, a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette story on Pirates draftee Daniel Moskos reported:

He has a "wipeout" slider, according to one evaluator, that he throws at 85-87 mph.

And Baseball America described ballyhooed Cardinal farmhand Mitch Boggs thusly:

He has ditched his curveball and developed a wipeout slider that ranks as one of the best in the system

Sounds like scout-speak--or a true inside-baseball--term to me.

I Spy, With My Little Eye, a Hit for Kyle Kendrick

2010-09-27T13:58:00.000-04:00

Phils pitcher Kyle Kendrick was up against the Mets Saturday, and squirted a ground ball past a diving David Wright, then, a split second later, past Jose Reyes and into left.

"A seeing-eye single!" hollered Mets announcer Gary Cohen.

We watched the replay and saw just how perfectly the ball was placed.

"That one really did have eyes," added Ron Darling.

The seeing-eye single. The heretofore unknown MLB.com "Lingo" page offers this for the SES:
A soft ground ball that finds its way between infielders for a base hit.

Wikipedia's "Baseball Glossary" prefers "seeing-eye ball" and defines it thusly:

A batted ground ball that just eludes capture by an infielder, just out of infielder's range, as if it could "see" where it needed to go. Less commonly used for a ball that takes an unusual lateral bounce to elude an infielder.

Many years ago, when Tim McCarver was announcing for the Metsies, he used to refer to such Manny Trillo-ian swats as "38-hoppers."

The seeing-eye single of course lends the term's creation to seeing-eye dogs, as if one of those wondrous labradors was out there on the field, guiding the ball through a narrow channel of defenders and into safe ground.

Ironically, seeing-eye single may have outlived its creator; I believe seeing-eye dogs are now called "guide dogs", perhaps a victim of political correctness centered around the ~~handicapped~~ handicapable in recent years.

"Seeing Eye Single" kicks up 6.8 million links on Google, but surprisingly, just a handful relating to baseball.

Wrote the Denver Post way back in April:

Headley's seeing-eye single only smudge on De La Rosa

The Seeing-Eye Ball, meanwhile, was the name given to a baseball-themed art exhibit in Pasadena earlier this decade.

The proper way to act after reaching safely on a seeing-eye single? A sheepish smile and half-hearted fist-bump with the first-base coach, of course. After all, as the old baseball saying goes, it looks like a line drive in the box score.

There is No Clever Play on Words for 'Eephus'

2010-09-24T13:44:00.001-04:00

With Dodgers pitcher Vicente Padilla currently on the shelf with back trouble, I don't know that we'll have the pleasure of seeing any more eephus pitches this season.

The eephus pitch is, of course, the cartoon-slow lob that pitchers sometimes try to sneak by hitters.

According to the book Big Hair and Plastic Grass, the eephus dates back to 1930s pitcher Rip Sewell.

Padilla would rely on the pitch now and then, prompting broadcaster extraordinaire Vin Scully to call the pitch the "soap bubble."

So where does "eephus" come from? From Hebrew--and the 1940s Pirates, apparently. Writes Wikipedia:

According to [Pirates] manager Frankie Frisch, the pitch was named by outfielder Maurice Van Robays. When asked what it meant, Van Robays replied, "'Eephus ain't nothing, and that's a nothing pitch." Although the origin is not known for certain, Eephus may come from the Hebrew word "efes" (pronounced "EFF-ess"), meaning "nothing."

The cool thing about the eephus, at least for those who are obsessed with the language of baseball, is that each practicioner of the funky slowball gets his own nickname for it, courtesy of, presumably, the local beat writers.

Bill "Spaceman" Lee threw one in the 1975 World Series, the pitch dubbed the "Leephus." (Big Hair and Plastic Grass calls the Leephus "a psychedelic variation" on Sewell's original Eephus.)

Says Wikipedia, Casey Fossum owns the "Fossum Flip," Dave LaRoche famously threw the "LaLob," and Dave Stieb had the "Dead Fish."

Wikipedia says Mark Buehrle is among the increasingly short list of current guys with an eephus. Whether Mark throws a Buehrle Bleeder at the Red Sox Monday will be determined.

The Fighting Phils Play 'Dirty'

2010-09-22T15:42:00.002-04:00

As we know, pitchers with truly devastating stuff--Halladay, Lincecum, A.J. Burnett when he's not in a horrible funk--are filthy.

What do you call a pitcher who's not quite in the filthy category?

He's dirty, of course.

Like Brad Lidge.

“Watching from center field, he looks like he’s back to the stuff he had in ’08 — same slider action,” Phillies outfielder Shane Victorino told the NY Times over the weekend. “And we need that out of him. I get the best view of all the pitchers, and when he’s got his stuff, the guy’s dirty.”

You don't hear dirty much in baseball. Football players are dirty, and basketball players can be dirty too.

But not so much baseball guys, even if Nyjer Morgan has been pushing the envelope a bit of late.

Of course, Shane the Pain is not like other guys. He's Hawaiian, he looks a bit like Kazoo from Flintstones in that giant batting helmet, and he gave fellow Hawaiian President Obama a container of macadamias--and a big ol' soul hug--when El Hefe visited the National League locker room at the 2009 Mid-Summer Classic, even though the players were under strict orders not to give the president gifts. (Disobeying the Secret Service? Now that's dirty! Video here.)

Lidge is getting better as the season goes on, and is certainly way better than his dismal (and injured) 2009. But he blew five saves in 28 chances as of Sunday--and still isn't near his fireballing form from his perfect 2008.

But if he continues the momentum through the end of the regular season, Lidge might just elevate his game from dirty to filthy.

Texeira Brings Unique 'Rep' to Baseball

2010-09-21T11:42:00.003-04:00

It's hard to feel bad for guys making several million a year, but this time of year, when most teams are simply playing out the string and sports fans' passions turn to football, one feels a slight pang of sorrow for the guys plodding around the ballfield. Baseball can suddenly seem slow and boring.

And it seems fans aren't the only ones thinking of football. Reading into a Mark Texeira quote in the NY Post yesterday, Big Tex--who's built more like a tight end than a first baseman--has pigskin on the brain too.

With several of the aging/aching Yankees getting some pine time in these dog days of summer, Texeira said it allowed the scrubs to get vital in-game action.

"What the injuries have done is create depth for us," he told the Post, "it has allowed guys to get reps."

Reps. A football term! A quarterback gets reps--short for repetitions, of course--in practice. He grabs the snap from the center and, well, does something with the ball. A lineman gets reps to get his timing down at the line of scrimmage.

Reps.

Tubby tackle Albert Haynesworth looked forward to getting reps as the pre-season drew to a close.

Haynesworth expected to get reps in final exhibition, wrote the Sporting News.

Some Cowboys still got reps even as a few key starters came back from injury.

As Starters Return, Backup Line Get Reps Too, said DallasCowboys.com.

We've noted in this cyber-space how baseball players, unlike their football counterparts, are not permitted to make plays. But now they can at least get reps.

UPDATE: Perhaps it's a trend, as an MLB.com writeup of last night's Rays-Yanks game said the struggling A.J. Burnett "could have used the reps as he continues to claw back from an awful August." (By the way, MLB.com's game reports, which offer separate summaries for both teams in the game, are excellent.)

Texeira of course has a rep as a stand-up guy: Plays the game, stays out of trouble, good teammate.

Yet he's not the player rep on the Bombers--that honor goes to Curtis Granderson, whose reps in the cage with hitting coach Kevin Long led to two dingers against the Rays last night.

Screwball 'Fades' Away

2010-09-20T12:13:00.000-04:00

I enjoyed the Babe Ruth bio The Big Bam, and some of the baseball anachronisms that it offered up. One is a pitch called the "fadeaway."

A young pitcher called Hub "Shucks" Pruett--apparently, "Hub" wasn't enough of a nickname, so the boys called Hub "Shucks"--could throw a pretty mean fadeaway, which did the opposite of a curveball, breaking in toward a righty batter's hands from a righty pitcher, and vice versa.

Writes Big Bam author Leigh Montville:

As a kid, Shucks had idolized Christy Mathewson, the master of the fadeaway. The pitch, later known as the screwball, was basically a curve in reverse, thrown with an unnatural twist of the wrist and elbow.

So the fadeway, at least in name, disappeared in favor of the screwball. These days, the fadeaway pops up in basketball--a jumpshot where you fade away from your defender. (Not to get all Pop-Up Video on you or anything, but "Not Fade Away" is a 1957 single from Buddy Holly employing Bo Didley's trademark riff. It was later covered by everyone from the Grateful Dead to the Rolling Stones to Bruce Springsteen.)

But what the heck ever happened to the screwball or, as it was known on the street, the "scroogie"?

Who do you think of when you think of the scroogie? I think of Fernando Valenzuela, eyes to the skies as he twisted, turned and then dealt his nasty scroogie toward the plate. That was, of course, the early '80s.

I honestly don't know that I've heard of anyone throwing a screwball since then, the pitch losing favor to new-fangled offerings such as the sinker and the splitter and the circle change.

Wikipedia spells scroogie "screwgie." I don't know that either of us are right or wrong, seeing as it's a made up word, but I think Batter Chatter is more correct, as "scroogie" coughs up 45,000 links on Google, and "screwgie" just 2,000.

Wikipedia too offers up Christy Mathewson as the master of the screwball--and its fading predecessor.

One of the first great screwball pitchers was Christy Mathewson (1900–1916), whose pitch was then labeled as the 'fadeaway'.

The online resource offers up more modern names regarding the screwball, including John Franco, Pedro Martinez, Jamie Moyer and Dallas "Stay the F*** Off My Mound" Braden.

But clearly the art of the screwball has been lost; perhaps the peculiar throwing motion--remember, author Montville called it "unnatural"--meant it was a grave arm injury waiting to happen.

Indeed, closer inspection of Dallas Braden's repetoire indicates that he's largely abandoned the screwball for health reasons--though he did throw one during his perfect game, when he'd tried just about everything else to get Gabe Kapler out.

Quotes HardballTimes.com:
"I was thinking maybe the knuckleball, the gyroball, the behind-the-back pitch, because I'd tried everything else," Braden said. "I threw him a 64 mph screwball and he fouled it off. I threw him one more pitch and it was the correct location."

Web tutorial outfit E-How, not to be confused with former Mets skipper Art Howe, shows how to throw one. E-How also warns of its dangers to young, impressionable arms:

You don't have to be a screwball to throw this pitch, but not knowing how to do it properly may screw up an otherwise perfect arm.

These days, "screwball" is used more to describe a crazy person or the latest Farrelly brothers movie (a "screwball" comedy!) than a pitch. Here are a few synonyms from Answers.com: blockhead, bonehead, bozo, character, crackpot, dingbat, dumbbell, eccentric, fanatic, goof, kook, lunkhead, numbskull, nut, saphead.

Those put-downs are just a taste of what screwballing screwball Pedro Martinez would hear when venturing into Yankee Stadium a few short years ago.

Batter Chatter Word of the Day

2010-09-16T16:27:00.001-04:00

I'm going to CitiField tonight, thanks to birthday tix from The Missus. I will not bring an umbrella, because I didn't check the forecast of thunderstorms. Neither will I bring my mitt, because I am a grown man.

With that, your inaugural "Batter Chatter" Word of the Day:

OPTIMITTS: Grown-ups who still bring baseball gloves to the ballgame, despite the infinitesimal chance of actually being in a position to catch a game ball.

If Laurel and Hardy Were Around in the Era of the Relief Pitcher

2010-09-16T14:36:00.001-04:00

My mother was talking to my father the other night, as they are prone to do.

They were talking about baseball, as they are prone to do. In light of K-Rod's recent legal/physical issues, Mom asked Dad who the Mets' new closer is.

"Committee," Dad answered.

"What's his first name?" Mom asked.

Badum-bumm.

First of all, full props to M and D for still following our beloved Metsies as the Mets play out the string and fail to play "meaningful games" in late summer once again. Further indicating their fan-tastic fanaticism, they follow the games on the internet since retiring out of the Gotham market.

Back to closer-by-committee.

What we've learned from doing Batter Chatter blog for the past four months: if a baseball term doesn't come from the food world, it probably comes from the business world, and "committee" very definitely has its roots in the corporate culture.

Closer-by-committee of course refers to a gaggle of relief pitchers aiming to get those crucial last 3...or 4, 5 or even 6...outs, managers going with specific matchups based on which side of the body you arm is on in relation to which side of the plate the batter stands on, and a pitcher's statistical record against a given batter.

Closer-by-committee usually results after the closer has been injured. The hope is that one of the three or four guys in the closer rotation will rise above, show he can get righties and lefties alike out, and claim the job outright.

The Twins tried it at the beginning of the season, with Joe Nathan on the shelf.

"We are a committee," manager Ron Gardenhire told MLB.com. "Our closer role is a committee."

The Orioles did it for a bit, then gave the job to Koji Uehara recently

The strategy worked pretty well for much of last year for the Rays and the Braves, writes SI.com:

Two contending teams are closing games by committee, and no one has cried heresy

Alas, the strategy never seems to work for long. The Twins opted for Jon Rauch just after the season started, then acquired Matt Capps when Rauch proved to be less than Nathanesque. The Braves have Billy "Know Your Place Rook" Wagner at the tail end, and the Rays have Rafael Soriano, who shut the Yanks down last night to preserve a tight win.

Over in Camp Flushing, Hisanori Takahashi seems to have chosen committee chairman. Despite lacking the mid-90s fastball and peculiar facial hair/haircut of typical closers, Takahashi shut down those pesky Pirates last night (OK, they're not really all that pesky) to tally his seventh save.

A few more lights-out closes, and my mother might even remember his name.

Food For Thought--Where Baseball and Noshing Intersect

2010-09-14T11:15:00.004-04:00

Just how much does baseball terminology borrow from the world of food? Consider this fictitious account of a Yankees-Twins game we dreamed up today. (My dreams don't usually feature home runs from A-Rod...not sure what happened here.)

Bases loaded, Swisher steps to the dish for the Yankees. Swisher already has three rib-eye steaks on the day against the Twinkies, he’d love to make it four.

Mauer sets up inside, and Pavano unleashes some cheese.

Swisher ducks out of the way.

“He got in Swisher’s bread basket,” says Michael Kay. "That was some serious cheddar."

“Pavano’s fastball has some mustard on it today,” says Ken Singleton. “Bet the Yanks would’ve liked to see that when they were paying Pavano’s salary.”

Swisher steps back into the box and sets.

Pavano looks in for a sign.

Kay munched peanuts. Singleton had Cracker Jacks.

“He’s been attacking the hitters,” says Kay, “not his usual nibbling approach. Which is fine with Swish; fastballs are his bread and butter.”

The pitch comes. Swish swings. He hits a pea to right. Jason Kubel is in pursuit, and makes a nifty snow-cone catch in the gap.

“That was a seed,” says Kay.

“Indeed,” says Singleton. “It was hit too hard for Granderson to score.”

Up steps Texeira. Pavano starts him off with a fastball, high and tight. Texeira steps out of the way.

“Pavano got in Tex’s kitchen that time,” says Kay.

Pavano sets, deals. It’s an off-speed pitch. Texeira swings feebly and pops it up to second. Hudson grabs it easily.

“Can of corn,” says Kay.

Two down, bases still loaded. Up steps Alex Rodriguez.

Pavano looks in and deals.

The pitch comes in, straight and catching too much of the plate. A-Rod swings mightily.

"SEEE YAAAA!." says Kay as the ball flies over the right-centerfield fence.

“Oppo taco!” says Singleton.

“He threw A-Rod a cookie," says Kay. "Catchers don't catch too many of those."

A-Rod rounds the bases. The Twins fans boo.

“A-Rod’s first tater since August 28th,” says Kay. “A grand salami, no less.”

The boos get louder as A-Rod flips his helmet away and jumps onto the plate.

“Twins fans have no love lost for A-Rod,” says Singleton. “They think he’s a hot dog.”

I'm 'Locked-In'--And I've Never Been Happier!

2010-09-13T12:21:00.002-04:00

Generally speaking, "locked-in" is not really a situation one wants to be in.

Locked in a subway car.

Locked in a closet.

If you were in a '70s sitcom, surely you were "locked in" a meat locker at some point, and it was probably the end of a workday on a Friday, with the shop closed for the weekend. Thank God Sam the Butcher left his bowling ball at the shop, and came back to find you -- cold and cranky, but otherwise fine.

Locked-In Syndrome is an actual medical condition that sounds like how you'd feel if no one found you in the meat locker for a whole weekend. Wikipedia describe LIS as "a condition in which a patient is aware and awake but cannot move or communicate due to complete paralysis of nearly all voluntary muscles in the body except for the eyes. Total locked-in syndrome is a version of locked-in syndrome where the eyes are paralyzed as well."

Yet being locked-in in baseball is a very, very good thing, as evidenced by a New Jersey baseball camp called, yes, Locked In.

A few months ago, Rockies hurler Ubaldo Jimenez looked like a sure thing for the Cy Young. "Ubaldo Jimenez Completely Locked In," wrote Fanhouse.com.

Prior to the trade deadline, the White Sox front office was just short of obsessed with Nats tater-hitter Adam Dunn. "Chicago White Sox Locked In On Adam Dunn," wrote baseballnewsshare.com. (The Sox, of course, ended up with another one-dimensional slugger in Manny Ramirez after being locked out by Dunn.)

Yankees outfielder Curtis Granderson told the NY Times last week that, despite his improved hitting and new approach, the key to locking himself in continued to elude him.

The Times wrote:
The topic shifted to Granderson’s offensive surge and whether he felt “locked in” at the plate after adjusting his swing in the second half. “Not at all,” said Granderson, who raised his average to .252.

So who's locked in these days? Well, if it's mid-September, the Rockies, of course. Slugging outfielder Carlos Gonzalez, with 32 home runs and an even 100 rib-eye steaks. Eric Young Jr., hitting at a .462 clip over his last seven games.

Know what else is locked in in Mile-High Denver? Why, the baseballs for the big series against the Padres this week, of course, as they stay moist in a humidor.

Sure beats being locked in a meat cooler.

'Jimmy Jack' Cheese On Your 'Oppo Taco'?

2010-09-10T11:59:00.000-04:00

Quick, "Oppo Taco" is:

1. A new limited time offering from Taco Bell.

2. A follow-up to George Harrison's 1982 album "Gone Troppo" from his son, Dhani.

3. An opposite field home run.

You probably guessed #3, seeing as this is a baseball blog and all. If so, you'd be correct.

"Oppo Taco" just crossed the Batter Chatter transom yesterday, thanks to the eagle ears of reader Jon2Rock. It's California slang for an opposite field home run (tacos are presumably to California what the bagel is to New York). He heard it on MLB Network Tuesday night, from the effusive mouth of quintessential California boy Eric Byrnes.

But the phrase goes back a little further, and seems to stem from Los Angeles Angels broadcaster Victor Rojas. How popular is the Oppo Taco? It's got its own Facebook page, in fact.

Oppo Taco is not Rojas's only contribution to baseball slanguage. According to Wikipedia:

Rojas is most known for his invention of the phrase "oppo taco," which is used to a describe an opposite field home run, as well as "Three-Run Jimmy Jack," used whenever the Angels hit a three-run home run.

Various baseball chat rooms feature discussions on Oppo Taco, most commenters appearing as though they don't like the term. But I give Rojas credit--is there another phrase for opposite field home run, other than "opposite field home run"?

Let's not all hate on the Oppo Taco. The phrase just might help some special needs kids get onto the ballfield.

Writes AngelsWin.com:

AngelsWin.com is selling t-shirts featuring the play-by-play man's popular "Oppo Taco" home run call and donating the proceeds to Miracle League of Orange County, a baseball league that pairs special needs children with able-bodied helpers so that every child can experience the joy of playing America's pastime.

Not to be a cynic or anything, but how long before Taco Bell jumps on the Oppo Taco bandwagon and works the phrase into its local SoCal marketing? An angry chihuaha warning a frightened Bobby Abreu to "drop the Oppo Taco"?

I'm just sayin'.

What Color is Your 'Parachute Changeup'?

2010-09-09T10:48:00.000-04:00

"Tanner Scheppers" might sound more like the kid whose books you used to dump in the junior high school hallway than the potential 2010 MVP and 2011 Cy Young Award winner, but Sports Illustrated says Scheppers might be the missing link the Texas Rangers are looking for as summer turns to fall.

Scheppers features a devastating batch of arrows in his quiver, says SI, including a "parachute changeup."

"With a high-90s fastball, a looping curve and a parachute changeup, the 23-year-old Scheppers has the repertoire to be a dominant starter."

Pitchers are known to "pull the string" on a good changeup, but it appears the "string" is sometimes a ripcord.

Scheppers isn't the only one with a parachute changeup.

Twins pitcher Francisco Liriano used to have one, and may have one again, wrote AaronGleeman.com at the start of the season.

"Even with some of his velocity returning Liriano isn't the unhittable phenom who overpowered the league with a mid-90s fastball, parachute changeup, and high-80s slider of death in 2006."

When you think devastating changeup, you of course think of Liriano's old teammate, Johan Santana.

"He's a power pitcher, just like Randy Johnson...he's got a parachute changeup...he's definitely the best lefty in the league," Mike Sweeney said on baseball-almanac.com.

Then there's Cole Hamels, whom Denver Post described in 2009 as "World Series MVP a year ago with outstanding fastball and a parachute changeup he'll throw on any count."

While "parachute changeup" kicks up a modest 700-plus links in Google, the phrase actually goes back at least a decade. David Cone used the expression to describe the change-of-pace possessed by Pedro Martinez, then of the Red Sox, after a 17 K performance against the Yankees back in 1999.

Coming full circle to its Tanner Scheppers descrip, the Coney quote also comes from Sports Illustrated:

"He had three dominating pitches—an overpowering fastball, a knee-buckling curve and a parachute changeup. I don't think I've ever seen anyone with all three."

Scheppers and his sky-diving sinker may play a key relief role for the Rangers in the playoffs. And with Pedro having more lives than Jason from Friday the 13th, who knows if Martinez--and his paratropping pitch--will end up on the hill for a playoff team in October.

[image: sonsofsamhorn.net]

It's Hip to be 'Square'

2010-09-08T10:03:00.001-04:00

First off, sorry for getting Huey Lewis stuck in your head for the rest of the day.

Ted Williams famously described the difficulties of hitting by noting how you're attempting to strike a round ball with a round bat.

But what do you get when you add round to round?

A square, of course.

Increasingly, players talk of "squaring up" on the ball--MLB shorthand for hitting a ball solidly, the bat flat across the plate, its sweet spot hitting the fat part of the ball.

Last week's New York Times had Mets catcher Josh Thole talking about his fascination with Mark McGwire as a kid. McGwire's connection to performance enhancing drugs has not tamped down Thole's respect for Big Mac.

"You’ve still got to square the ball up and hit it,” he said in appreciation of McGwire’s 583 home runs. “So maybe he wouldn’t have hit the ball 550 feet. Maybe it only would have gone 490. He crushed balls, and they still would have been home runs.”

Over the weekend, the Times' baseball guy, Tyler Kepner, wondered if the most elusive of baseball achievements, the Triple Crown, would be won this year.

Reds pitcher Bronson Arroyo, who plays with Triple Crown candidate Joey Votto and sees and awful lot of Cardinals slugger Albert Pujols, says both guys "square up" enough on the ball to hit for average and power.

Arroyo says:
"Joey and Albert can hit the ball out, almost accidentally, to the opposite field. So that’s the first thing. Now, you take that kind of power and add it to a guy who’s disciplined enough at the plate and can square it up enough to hit .300 — that’s where you get this package, that’s where you get the Barry Bondses of the world."

Since a lone "squaring it up" is not enough to describe the awesome power of Votto and Pujols, Arroyo takes another crack.

“If you take that same hitter without the power, you have Tony Gwynn. You add the power, it just doesn’t happen very often. There aren’t that many guys walking the earth who have that much strength, that much discipline at the plate and also square a ball up as much as they do.”

"Square up" appears neither in the Webster's dictionary nor Wikipedia's Glossary of Baseball Terms. Google doesn't reveal much either, at least in terms of baseball. Outside of our beloved pastime, "square up" looks like a knitting term ("squaring up your quilt"), as well as a printed message about social ills (drinking, sex) that would appear at the beginning of an exploitation film back in the '40s or '50s (From Wikipedia: She Shoulda Said No! contained a square-up concerning youth drug abuse, and Child Bride the issue of child marriage.")

The phrase appears to have a place in cricket too--or at least in the nations where cricket is popular. Last Sunday's Bangkok Post proclaims, "Pakistan cricketers square up amid fresh betting claims", while a NY Times last year said "Australians Rout England to Square Up Ashes Series."

We're unsure if it's kosher in cricket to square up on a wicked googly.

How 'Man Up' Led to 'Man Down!'

2010-09-07T10:06:00.000-04:00

Just when we thought we were done with K-Rod for the season--done with him suiting up for the Metsies, done writing about him--Frankie Rodriguez is the star of a smart essay on, of all things, the intersection of language and baseball!

Ben Zimmer, "On Language" successor to the late, great William Safire, tackles the expression "man up" in the NY Times Magazine this week.

In fact, it was that same fateful phrase that Rodriguez's father said to the former Mets closer which precipitated the elder's beat down, according to the Daily News. I did not know that.

Zimmer writes:

The New York Mets lost their closer Francisco Rodriguez, a k a K-Rod, to season-ending surgery on a torn thumb ligament last month. But really the Mets lost him to two simple words: “man up.” According to The New York Daily News, that’s what Carlos Peña, the father of Rodriguez’s girlfriend, told him outside the Mets clubhouse, inciting an altercation that led to K-Rod busting his thumb and getting arrested on third-degree-assault charges for good measure.

The phrase is not a new one, notes Zimmer, but it--unlike K-Rod--seems to be growing in popularity. Guy products such as light beer and energy drinks are peppering their marketing with the phrase.

In fact, just a few weeks ago, a commenter told my four-year-old son to "man up" in an essay I did on parenting for the NY Times!

As we stumble out of Labor Day weekend, it's worth noting that "man up" has its roots in labor. The phrase was an early predecessor to "staff up."

Not too long ago, man up was simply an alternative to the verb man, in the sense of “to supply with adequate manpower.” The Oxford English Dictionary cites a 1947 letter to the editor of The Times of London from Henry Strauss, a Conservative member of Parliament, complaining about man up as an insidious Americanism. “Must industries be fully ‘manned up’ rather than ‘manned’?” Strauss asked.

The phrase is more common in football than baseball, where a defense is often commanded to man up, as in, guard your man, and do not let your opposite beat you.

Ben Zimmer also details the country cousin of man up: Kevin Millar and his famous "cowboy up" phrase from 2003.

One notable forerunner of man up as we know it today is cowboy up, a phrase that has been used in rodeo circles for decades. In Douglas Kent Hall’s 1973 book on rodeo life, “Let ’Er Buck!,” an old hand tells a rookie rider, “It looks like we’re going to have to cowboy up a little.” Another rider, in a 1975 article in The Reno Evening Gazette, talked about what it’s like to get clobbered in a bull wreck, with the rodeo instructor “right behind you saying: ‘Cowboy up. Get tough. Get tough.’ ”

Cowboy up wasn’t much known outside of rodeo country until 2003, when it became the rallying cry for the Boston Red Sox, thanks to the players Kevin Millar and Mike Timlin — both Texans, not coincidentally. Millar and Timlin injected this bit of rodeo slang into Red Sox parlance to fire up a team (and a fan base) that had long been ruled by mopey fatalism. As one T-shirt of the time put it, “Are You Gonna Cowboy Up or Just Lay There and Bleed?”

The 2010 Red Sox, plagued by injuries, look as though they've opted for the latter.

Welcome to the Big Leagues, Rook, Just Don't 'Big League' It

2010-09-02T13:24:00.000-04:00

Here's a bit of advice for the September call-ups making their first appearance in The Big Show this week: don't be big leaguin' it now that you've made the big leagues.

It's a weird irony: You've made the big leagues, but don't by any means act like it.

What exactly is big leaguin' it? In the unpublished book of unwritten baseball rules, it means acting like a hotshot--every bit the no-no for rookies. (Speaking of the unwritten rules of baseball, the Marlins were not pleased that Washington's Nyjer Morgan stole two bases with his team down by 11. Trying to come back for a win? Here's a fastball in the back, pal. If you click on the link, count how many homerisms you hear from the FS Florida announcers.)

"Big leaguin'" does not appear in Wikipedia's Glossary of Baseball; nor do many links pop up in Google. Here's one from UrbanDictionary.com:

Typically done when a person uses slightly relevant knowledge to demonstrate their superiority over someone. Usually intended to belittle a person and make them feel insignificant or "show them up"

Google also reveals the country singer Toby Keith updating the classic "Mockingbird" in his own inimitable way:

Yeah right, quit big leaguin' me, I said now, everybody have you heard...

This seems like one of the terms that one hears in MLB clubhouses, but hasn't made its way into the media or the modern vernacular. It was in the clubhouse that former Mets farm star Lastings Milledge, currently toiling on the Pirates, was charged with big leaguin' it by the Mets vets--or Billy Wagner, at least--after being brought up at 21 in 2006.

David Lennon listed Milledge's transgressions in a 2008 story in Newsday.

Milledge notoriously showed up only an hour before the game's first pitch during a series in Philadelphia, drawing harsh criticism from Wright at the time. Milledge also celebrated a bit too much when he high-fived fans along the rightfield line after a tying home run at Shea Stadium.

Such behavior may have annoyed the Mets, but Billy Wagner said that none of the players held a grudge against him. It was Wagner who hung a sign in Milledge's locker during a series in DC that read, "Know your place, Rook!" And he insists that was nothing more than the type of rookie hazing that everyone endures.

Here's a weird Milledge-related trade schematic for ya: Apparently tired of his big leaguin' ways and lack of big-leaguin' hitting, the Mets shipped Milledge to Washington for Ryan Church, who was later traded for Jeff Francoeur, who was just this week traded for some guy named Arias and a bag of balls from the Rangers.

In 2008, Milledge told SI.com he was happy to be out of Gotham:

"I can't go through anything worse than I went through in New York. It only gets better from here," Milledge said. "A lot of veterans didn't like the way I play the game. They thought I didn't respect it."

Milledge is now hitting a middling .268 with the Pirates. A more mature 25, he is free to haze the new arrivals to the Pirates clubhouse who he thinks are failing to respect the game.

[image: SI]

'Flying Open' and Other 'Prior' Offenses

2010-09-01T09:55:00.000-04:00

I always get a kick out of hearing pitchers--and pitching coaches and managers, for that matter--describing the mechanics of pitching. Typically they are forced to discuss pitching mechanics when a pitcher is doing poorly. The usual culprit is concentration, but when the concentration seems fine, it's mechanical.

Then you hear a lot of talk about shoulders and legs "flying open".

Wrote Cleveland.com about mercurial hurler Fausto Carmona:

By not rushing to the plate, he cuts down the chances of flying open with the lead leg. Flying open was a huge problem the past two years, especially when working from the stretch. The more open he got, the more command suffered. Plenty of hits and walks resulted.

Of course, the solution to flying open is staying closed.

Wrote HardballTimes.com of Josh Beckett, back when Beckett could actually go six innings and get people out:

Beckett is leading with his shoulder toward home plate, and is keeping his shoulder closed in until the last second...

Yet yesterday's NY Times, in a compelling story on Mark Prior's attempted comeback, offered the first true nomenclature of pitching mechanics I've ever seen: Scapular Loading and The Inverted W.

Both appear to have been responsible for Prior's quick demise from fireballing pitcher with what were considered picture-perfect mechanics, to sore-shouldered bust.

Writes the Times:

Scapular loading (pinching the shoulder blades together) and an inverted W (having the elbows higher than the shoulders when striding toward the plate) have been identified as possible culprits.

So that's what pitching coaches talk about when they visit the mound! I always thought it was something simpler, like, "Uh, let's get this guy out."

The Times story also featured the first time I've seen a shorthand version of the infamous Tommy John surgery, which wunderkind Stephen Strasburg--and countless other young pitchers--is to undergo.

Said Prior of Strasburg:

Hopefully, because the Tommy Johns are a better success rate coming back, he’ll be fine...

Nicknames Nixed

2010-08-31T11:29:00.000-04:00

What's missing from modern baseball?

Fun nicknames, for one.

Quick, who in baseball has a cool nickname?

Who has any nickname?

I remember reading that Derek Jeter would call Melky Cabrera "Leche" and Robinson Cano "Canoe." Joe Girardi calls Brett Gardner "Gardy."

Going back a few decades, there was "Stormin'" Gorman Thomas and Jeffrey "Penitentiary Face" Leonard.

Where's Alligator Arms? Where's Beer Truck? Where's Scuzz Bucket?

Not in the MLB, I'm afraid.

I'm nearly done with the Babe Ruth bio The Big Bam, by Leigh Montville, and it's a fun read. (Personal note: The Babe is laid to rest about a mile from my house. It is my town's only claim to fame.)

Boy, did the guys back then have colorful nicknames, whether it was Muddy Ruel or Hub “Shucks” Pruitt or Grover Cleveland Alexander "the Great" or Ping Bodie.

Even the non-nicknames were colorful: the commish was Kenesaw Mountain Landis. A pitcher on the Ruth-era Yankees was Urban Shocker. Urban Shocker! It sounds like a new kind of stun gun, or the best prank you ever played on your roommate.

The Babe himself had a million nicknames, including, of course, The Babe. (The Babe was born George Herman Ruth and picked up The Babe as a baby-faced young player.)

Yet "The Babe" was not used by his inner circle, writes Montville. "That was the outside world’s name for him. This was the inside. This was the core of the fun."

His teammates called Ruth "Jidge," which was slang for George. Or Bam. Or Big Bam. Or The Big Fellow. (Maybe today's players also keep the best nicknames within the clubhouse. But I doubt it.)

The sportswriters had some fun names for The Babe too. (For the record, the writers -- Grantland Rice, Bozeman Bulger -- were no slouches in the name department.) The Caliph of Clout. The Sultan of Swat, the Colossus of Clout. The Bambino, of course, which came from sportswriter Damon Runyon. The Rajah of Rap. The Behemoth of Bangs.

Alliteration was big when cities had a dozen newspapers duking it out.

Even Ruth got into the name game himself. "I have been a Babe and a Boob," he said after a disappointing 1925 season that saw The Babe take his eye off the ball, both literally and metaphorically. "And I am through – through with the pests and the good time guys. Between then a few crooks I have thrown away over a quarter million dollars."

The Babe even had nicknames for his bats. There were Black Betsy, Big Bertha and Beautiful Bella in his record-setting '27 season. Betsy was responsible for home run #59, while Bertha swatted #60.

After that winning season, the Babe embarked on his usual barnstorming baseball tour of the country. (Honestly, he rode trains and played baseball all year-round.) Babe skippered one squad while teammate and fellow slugger Lou Gehrig captained the other. Gehrig was born Ludwig Heinrich Gehrig and the tabloids thought he needed a cool nickname, so one dubbed him "Buster." It didn't stick, but the players had a moniker for Gehrig: "Columbia Lou", due to his Ivy League education.)

The baseball tour featured "the Batterin' Babes" against "the Larrupin' Lous."

There's simply not enough larrupin' going on in today's game.

Metsies 'String' Together a Win

2010-08-30T12:28:00.000-04:00

Well, the Mets pulled of a tidy win against the 'stros yesterday, R. A. Dickey offering his usual quality start and a rib-eye steak or two at the dish. (Mets pitchers know full well they have to do double duty at both the mound and the plate if they want to earn a W.)

Sadly, the win just delays the inevitable for a day. Most any Mets fan would concede that, with a measly 9% confidence rating in the team, the Mets are merely playing out the string.

Playing out the string (POTS) is the phrase used to describe a team that's simply finishing off the rest of its games with no hopes of playing in the post-season--even if the team should somehow run the table and win all of its games. Empty stadiums, scrubs in the lineup, at-bats given away. You'd rather watch football.

Of course, the Mets are not the only team playing out the string. The Pirates, for one, have been dancing along that slice of yarn since early summer. The Cubbies have been a colossal disappointment too as they tiptoe along the twine.

Writes BleedCubbieBlue.com way back on August 2:

The Beginning Of Playing Out The String: Cubs vs. Brewers Preview, Monday 8/2

A few days later, Cleveland.com said the local Indians were not letting playing out the string drag them down.

Tribe not just playing out the string, as Red Sox learn

POTS is not limited to baseball. No lesser light than Tiger Woods was said to be playing out the string last month. Wrote FoxSports.com:

His day was effectively over by the fourth hole, where Tiger Woods needed two tries to get out of a pot bunker. What followed was something rarer still: Woods simply playing out the string in a major.

[Editor's Note: What the heck is a pot bunker? Did I eat one of those in college by mistake?]

Oddly, I saw Yankees skipper Joe Girardi refer to the Bombers playing out the string just about a month ago, with the Yanks, of course, on top in the AL East. He was simply referring to the Yanks' remaining games--not the more common usage of meaningless games with no post-season implications. A rare misspeak for smart and savvy Joe G.

One might think the string, in this usage, is the schedule--the remaining opponents for the team to play.

In fact, according to a post on WordReference.com, the "string" is actually the losing squad itself. The phrase comes from football, reports the WordReference poster, and refers to the team playing players from the second and third string during the garbage time that the rest of the season represents.

Writes MonsterWonster:

The expression comes from American Football. When a team has lost all chances of winning a league, they will do what is referred to as "playing out the string". Strings in American Football are lineups of players in relation to ability, with first string being the best players on the team, second string being the next best players and so on.

So when a team plays out the string, it allows all its players to play, from the first string downward. Normally the third and fourth strings wouldn't get a chance to play, but because the team has no hope of winning the league, it allows players of the third and fourth strings to play.

So when the rosters expand later this week, the Mets--and the other MLB also-rans--will have lots of second and third stringers to help them play out the string.

[image: mrgin.blogspot.com]

What's Funnier Than 'Fundies'?

2010-08-19T11:56:00.000-04:00

Quick, "Fundies" are a new line of kids' underwear branded with their favorite cartoon characters, a new brand of savory-sweet snack (a mix of Funyons and Fun Dip), or the name given to an eighth day of the week proposed by Congress, falling between Sunday and Monday and during which no work can be done, only fun.

None of the above. In fact, "fundies" is the shorthand SNY announcer Keith Hernandez has come up with for baseball's "fundamentals."

(On a personal note, I loved the word "fundamentals" when I was a kid. Ed Asner would do a public service announcement about books under the "Reading is Fundamental" [RIF] rubric, and I'd wonder how "fundamental" ended up with three separate words in it [fun, dumb, mental]--and quality words at that.)

Hernandez has tossed "fundies" around a few times this season, almost always after a player, typically a Met, has failed to execute an elementary baseball play, such as hitting a cutoff man or getting down a bunt.

Last night's utterance came when R. A. Dickey was looking to sacrifice bunt. The replay showed Dickey assuming textbook bunting position: knees bent, shoulders square, bat parallel to the ground.

"Proper fundies here!" said Hernandez.

(That Dickey's bunt had gone foul was but a technicality.)

"Fundies" coughs up a quarter million links on Google. It's primarily a pejorative abbreviation for religious fundamentalists, and also--I am not kidding about this--a brand of underpants built for two people.

One suspects that a fundie would never be caught wearing fundies.

Hernandez is a busy man (spokesmanning for Just For Men moustache dye and Gold Coin of Oyster Bay, the schleps to and from his base in the Hamptons), and has been tossing around abbreviations quite readily of late.

"Trips" is his new shorthand for a "triple," such as the one Jeff Francoeur juiced off the Minute Made Park wall Tuesday, and Jose Reyes' last night.

As your mother used to say, be sure to pack clean "fundies" when you go on "trips"!

Beating the 'Bushes' For Bad Behavior

2010-08-18T11:53:00.001-04:00

Let's not beat around the bush--K-Rod beating up his father in law and leaving the Mets without a closer for the rest of the season was a bush league act.

"What a bush-league thing to do!" wrote one commenter on NYDailyNews.com. "DOCK HIS SALARY!"

To be sure, this is not the typical usage of bush league, which usually connotes on-field actions that transgress baseball's unwritten rules.

Of course, K-Rod has been cited for a few of those too. Earlier this season, he lashed out at Willie Harris after Harris complained about being hit with a pitch.

"I’m not going to paint his uncontrolled, unnecessary behavior on Sunday as something inspirational, or something we need to see more of from the Mets," wrote one commenter on MetsToday.com. "It was bush league, and did nothing for the Mets’ reputation other than to make them look like crybabies."

Perhaps K-Rod's bushiest behavior thus far occured last year, when he and then-Yankees closer Brian Bruney almost came to blows after BB called Rodriguez out for over-exuberant celebrations.

"[K-Rod] is not a very well liked player and in fact their were always rumblings in the Angel clubhouse about his bs antics and bush league celebrations," wrote one reader on the Journal News (NY) baseball blog.

Bush league of course means low-level, trashy behavior--actions not deemed worth of men who've made the Big Show. Maybe it's a Rodriguez thing, but it seems the game's best player--yes, Alex Rodriguez--is the one ballplayer most identified with bush league play. The slapping incident against Bronson Arroyo and the Red Sox in the ALCS. ("You know what, it was a bush-league play," said Curt Schilling.) The barking at the Blue Jays infielder as he attempted to catch a pop-up ("Big league smarts or bush league stunt," wondered the AP.) The stepping on Dallas Braden's mound. The announcing his free agency during the World Series.

You get the picture.

Bush league. Geez, the games in the bush league must've been fun to watch! Brawls! Fielders getting pantsed, catchers sliding Wet Willies through batter's ear holes! Players rubbing their rear ends on pitchers' beloved pitching rubbers.

Where does "bush league" come from? Wikipedia's baseball glossary offers this definition:

A slang term used to describe play that is of minor league or unprofessional quality. The "bushes" or the "sticks" are small towns where minor league teams may operate, the latter term also used in the acting profession.

Dictionary.com says the term dates back to 1908.

...from bush in the slang sense of "rural, provincial," which originally was not a value judgment.

The Seattle rock outfit Pearl Jam offered the song "BushLeaguer" on 2002's "Riot Act" album. The song ripped then-President George Bush, and featured some baseball-inspired lyrics about the former president and Texas Rangers owner.

A confidence man, but why so beleaguered?
He's not a leader, he's a Texas leaguer
Swinging for the fence, got lucky with a strike
Drilling for fear, makes the job simple
Born on third, thinks he got a triple

Five Bush's have played in the major leagues, according to Baseball-Reference.com, most recently Randy Bush (1982-1993) and Homer Bush (1997-2004).

Don't let Homer's moniker fool you--the guy only hit 11 dingers across nine seasons.

Bush's on-field behavior, however, was anything but bush league.

K-Rod's History of 'Violence'

2010-08-17T09:38:00.000-04:00

A little friendly fist-bumping went too far between K-Rod and his father-in-law

The latest on [former?] Mets closer Francisco Rodriguez is that he's out for the year in an injury sustained while pummeling his father-in-law outside the kiddie room at Citi Field. Any Mets fan knows K-Rod's had a string of violent incidents this year, including a grapple with the Mets bullpen coach. (The bullpen coach? Isn't that like the Barney of the coaching squad?)

I don't recall K-Rod ever having such incidents--or ever having his character questioned--while he was with the Angels. Then again, New York has a way of coaxing bad behavior out of people.

In fact, K-Rod and "violence" have long been linked. So herky jerky, so spasmodic, so whiplashical, is Rodriguez's windup that it's typically described as "violent."

Back in 2008, Scout.com said Rodriguez was, in fact, trying to take some of the "violence" out of his approach to the plate. "I have a really violent delivery," conceded K-Rod.

Last year, a pundit on FanNation.com said of Rodriguez:

K-Rod's violent windup makes you wonder how his shoulder stays in socket and how he also doesn't fall on his face. Rodriguez's windup also screams desire and emotion.

K-Rod isn't the only hurler who's prone to a bit of violence while on the bump. (And I borrow "bump" as a synonym for pitcher's mound from RiverAvenueBlues.com.) A thread on MinorLeagueBall.com is dedicated to "violent" deliveries and grave pitcher injury resulting from them.

Writes some dude:

[Tim] Lincecum will have major issues. He has a violent delivery and has thrown a LOT of offspeed stuff, and a lot of innings all together.

Of course, pitchers aren't the only "violent" players on the field. Here's a quiz for you...when you think of a swing that was described as "violent" over and over throughout his career, who do you think of? Who put the fear of God in third base coaches when he stepped into the plate due to the amount of bat speed that violent delivery generated. Who had a face that Bill Simmons described as the last man you see when you owe your bookie a giant sum of money?

That's right, Gary Sheffield.

"Sheffield mounted a career based on the violent and swift swings of his bat," wrote Bleacher Report last year.

In fact, Sheffield "used the most violent swing in baseball to hit 478 home runs for seven teams," wrote the Washington Times three years ago.

The saturnine Shef always struck me as a violent guy by nature. But if he ever raised his hand to his father-in-law, he wisely did it away from the stadium.

And did not tear thumb ligaments while doing so.

[image: MetsGuide.com]

Why Can't Ballplayers 'Make Plays'?

2010-08-16T10:27:00.000-04:00

The temperatures in our corner of the country were downright sub-tropic this past weekend. The Jets are playing the Giants tonight, and the Jets coach, Rex Ryan, is making headlines for his foul mouth in the HBO reality show Hard Knocks. (Uh, didn't Rex get the stomach staples? What's with the girth?)

Indeed, football is creeping into the sports fan's mind these days, which prompts us to wonder--how come football players are the only ones who are allowed to "make plays?" You hear it all the time, and I mean ad nauseum, in football: Announcers say Team X has to make plays in today's game, players say they've got to step up and make some plays, blah blah blah.

Dennis Dixon, other locals make plays in NFL exhibitions, said a headline in yesterday's Portland Tribune.

Ball Ready To Step Up, "Help Make Plays, writes NBCDFW.com about Cowboys safety Alan Ball.

Of course, "make plays" is shorthand for "make good plays." Throwing an interception is making a play. Coughing up the pill on the goal line is making a play. But recovering the fumble is making a good play--although that doesn't make for a very cool sports expression.

Football has around 125 plays a game, reports Answers.com.

How many plays in a baseball game? I can't find it online. Say, 54 outs, 20 hits, and a pair of errors, and these are, of course, back of the envelope estimates. So around 77 "plays" a game. It's much less than in football--meaning the importance of each baseball "play" is greater, as is the importance of a player making such a play.

Yet ballplayers don't get to make plays.

I guess things all even out. After all, football involves a ball, just as baseball does. Yet you never hear football guys referred to as ballplayers. The baseball guys get to keep that one all to themselves.

Then again, aforementioned Cowboys safety Alan Ball might be classified as a Ball player.

[image: Dallas Cowboys]

When a Starter is Also a Stopper

2010-08-13T12:50:00.000-04:00

I enjoy it when a baseball terms means two very different things. Take "hook," for instance. On one hand, it's a pitcher's curveball. ("Jon Lester's got his good 'hook' today.")

On the other hand, it's what a manager does to his pitcher when he doesn't have a very good hook on the day. ("Looks like Joe Girardi's giving Burnett the 'hook' here in the fourth...")

Then there's "stopper." The most common baseball usage is, a starting pitcher--typically an ace--who can be counted on to stop a losing streak. Johan Santana comes to mind. With closer K-Rod simmering in a jail cell somewhere in Queens, Santana told skipper Jerry Manuel he could go 10, if needed, before yesterday's game. He only needed 9 in blanking the Rockies. (Don't Mess With the Johan! crowed the Mets blogs.)

Almost exactly a year ago, the NY Daily News saluted Santana for being a stopper.

Johan Santana plays sweep stopper with arm, bat as Mets beat Padres, read the headline.

Any great starter has been described as a stopper: Curt Schilling, Randy Johnson, CC Sabathia, etc.

But stopper can also be a synonym for closer--not the ace starter, but the blue-chip finisher.

Of course, outside of baseball, a stopper is the thing that keeps the water in your bathtub. There is also the gobstopper, which would probably work as a tub stopper should yours be out of commission.

Back to baseball. A recent New York Times Magazine cover story on Mariano Rivera, "The King of the Closers," got into the short history of the closer role. James Traub wrote:

The great Yankees teams of the ’70s relied on one such fabled stopper, Rich Gossage, better known as Goose.

Traub's closer-as-stopper usage is less common than starter-as stopper. (Starter as stopper...what a concept!) I'll chalk it up to Traub not being a baseball guy. He's been with the Times Magazine for eons and has written books on everything from India to Times Square to Kofi Annan. Smart guy, indeed. Baseball guy? Not so sure.

But get this: Answers.com says "stopper" is, in fact, a baseball closer.

Check out the third definition:

1.A device, such as a cork or plug, that is inserted to close an opening.
2.One that causes something to stop: a conversation stopper.
3.Baseball. A relief pitcher, especially one called upon to protect a lead.

So if you're going by the book--or at least Answers.com--a stopper is a reliever.

But if you're going by the baseball book, a stopper is a starter.

[image: NY Daily News]

David Wright Sports Gilded Lid of Shame

2010-08-12T09:52:00.000-04:00

I don't feel good about what I've done.

I really like David Wright, just as any Mets fan does.

He's terrific on both sides of the ball, plays every day, and does not beat up his father-in-law (In case you haven't heard, teammate K-Rod is being arraigned for assaulting his father-in-law after last night's game. Surely many Mets felt like doing so after Melvin Mora's crushing grand salami, but you don't actually do it.) Wright "plays the game the right way," as the old-timers say.

But I was rooting for Wright to strike out in the 9th against the Rockies last night.

Why would I do that? Well, it was sort of a foregone conclusion that Wright would K; when he's slumping, you can see the strikeouts coming a mile away, usually with weak swings on on low and outside offerings.

Wright's strikeout was his fourth of the game, earning him the ignominious Golden Sombrero, as all four-strikeout victims are figuratively awarded. And I'd been waiting for a reason to write about the Golden Sombrero for weeks.

SNY announcer Gary Cohen set up Wright's fourth K by saying that he'd already struck out 124 times this season--well on pace to obliterate last year's awful 140-K performance.

"And one more," says Cohen after Wright's sorry attempt at contact. "A Golden Sombrero for David Wright."

The term has its origins in the hat trick, which we know comes from hockey and represents a threesome; three goals, three home runs, three straight titles (more commonly known as a "threepeat.") The Golden Sombrero, as the theory goes, takes the hat trick one step further.

Says Wikipedia of the Sombrero:

The term derives from hockey's hat trick and since four is bigger than three; the rationale was that a four-strikeout performance should be referred to by a bigger hat, such as a sombrero.

Wikipedia then goes one--and two--better than the flaxen fedora. It says:

The "Olympic Rings" or platinum sombrero applies to a player striking out five times in a game,[1] while a horn (after Sam Horn of the Baltimore Orioles, who accomplished the feat in an extra-inning game in 1991) or titanium sombrero is bestowed upon a player who strikes out six times in a single game.[2]

I'd love to know who's got the record for career Golden Sombreros (would one call such a contest a, uh, "derby"?) . It's probably someone really good, like Reggie Jackson. Or maybe it's Tony Clark.

Wikipedia says Major League Baseball has issued 57 platinum sombreros in its history--most recently to Justin Smoak on June 13. Wouldn't you know it, "The Golden Sombrero Baseball Blog" has a running tally of 2010 Sombrero-wearers.

The New York dailies were quick to award Wright his dented crown.

"Wright dons 'Golden Sombrero' with four K's," blared a Daily News headline.

"Mets' Wright gets golden sombrero and boos," went a Newsday hed.

Speaking of peculiar headware, back in May, Mets outfielder Jason Bay told the NY Times he'd don his "cheerleading cap" after being benched for poor performance. "That’s baseball," said Jay Bay. "I went out there and put a cheerleading cap on and tried to help that way.”

Bay is of course wearing the cheerleading cap now as he recovers from post-concussion symptoms. If he'd been wearing the thing when he slammed into the wall against the Dodgers last month, perhaps he could've avoided the head injury.

[image: nydailynews.com

Reds Not 'Dead' Yet

2010-08-11T12:00:00.001-04:00

If you missed the Cards-Reds brawl last night (boy, are there a lot of words for sports brawls: donnybrook, melee, brouhaha, etc.), you missed the spectacle of Reds pitcher Johnny Cueto kicking spasmodically like Maradona on cocaine. [Here's the video.]

The brawl began after Reds infielder Brandon Phillips called the Cardinals whiners, whereupon Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina replied, "I take issue with your perjorative declaration, hale fellow!", and the fisticuffs commenced.

Cueto was pinned against the backstop (catchers are also referred to as "backstops" at times, but Cueto was most definitely not pinned against Yadier Molina). Panic seemed to set in for Cueto, who feared becoming one dead Red.

Speaking of dead Reds, what a peculiar baseball term "dead red" is.

Dead red is defined by the Baseball Glossary as a battter sitting on a fat pitch.

If a batter is "sitting/looking dead red" on a pitch, this means he was looking for a pitch (typically a fastball), and received it, usually hitting a home run or base hit.

In the Joe Torre/Tom Verducci book The Yankee Years, former Red Sox Kevin Millar--he of one of the great baseball terms in "cowboy up"--described a vital hit he had off Mariano Rivera in the 2004 ALCS.

"I just just actually looking for one pitch. I was looking dead red and in."

Earlier this season, ESPNNewYork.com's Ian O'Connor used the term to describe David Wright failing to connect on a 3-1 pitch against the Yanks.

Before he took a third strike way too close to take, Wright sat dead red on a 3-1 Joba fastball and still couldn't beat the pitch to the punch.

Out there in the webosphere, "Dead Red" is a blog that never got off the ground, a dyslexic's take on a popular video game, an album from a miserable-sounding punk band, and a detective novel.

Fittingly, the Cards and Reds--both whom sport red uni's--are tied for first in the NL Central. As such, and in stark contrast to the previous, oh, 30 seasons, the Reds are hardly dead in the dead of summer.

[image: zimbio.com]

What's Better Than 'Cheddar'?

2010-08-10T10:26:00.000-04:00

Somehow, we haven't mentioned the ever quotable Keith Hernandez here in a few weeks, but Keith has been driving a newish term in the baseball lexicon: cheddar.

"Cheese" has been a popular term for a good fastball for some time. The San Francisco Chronicle's "Bleacher Report" (gratuitous shout-out to old friend/SF Chron sports editor Al Saracevic!) had Giants closer Brian Wilson striking out Dodger Casey Blake with "97 miles per hour cheese" recently. (Several have surely described Wilson's fauxhawk as "cheesy" too.)

When the Metsies faced the Reds last month, Hernandez said of the Reds closer, "Cordero is throwing nothing but cheese."

But Hernandez, and perhaps other announcers, have taken the slang term and slanged it even further.

A Mets-Giants game last month prompted Hernandez, who is prone to stream of consciousness musings now and then, to think of old fireballing reliever Bobby Thigpen, who set the since-broken save record with 57 in 1990, and won the award for MLB Player Whose Name Most Sounds Like Pigpen for ten years running.

Keith could not come up with Thigpen's first name, but Gary Cohen, of course, knew it. (That's the Hernandez-Cohen SNY dynamic in a nutshell: Hernandez offering up some loopy thought, and the ever-solid Cohen closing the loop for him.)

"That guy threw some serious cheddar," said Hernandez.

Wikipedia's Glossary of Baseball has "cheese" and "high cheese" in it, but no "cheddar."

It offers: A fastball, particularly one that reaches the mid- to upper-90s in velocity. Also high cheese.

(According to the Babe Ruth biography, The Big Bam, the Babe once jumped into the stands during 1920's spring training to attack a spectator who kept calling him "a big piece of cheese," then quickly retreated when the fan pulled out a knife and threatened to turn the Babe to Swiss cheese.)

If we can squeeze another joke out of Brian Wilson's foul haircut, we would posit another term for his 98 m.p.h. fastball: Herman Munster cheese.

Kerry Wood Minds His 'Peas' and Q's

2010-08-09T12:21:00.000-04:00

If we've picking up on any themes in the almost three months of publishing Batter Chatter, it's that baseball lingo owes a gigantic debt of gratitude to the food world. There is the snow cone catch, the can of corn, the rib-eye steak, and so on. By the way, did someone call Jose Reyes a hot dog?

Yankees announcer Michael Kay added another one to the baseball-foodie portfolio over the weekend. New acquisition Kerry Wood--he of the "nuclear" stuff--had just allowed the past three batters to hit noisy, fearsome shots all over the Stadium. (Though thankfully for Wood, none landed in the short porch.)

Kay said Wood had just had three "peas" hit against him.

Yes, a pea. I'd heard it a few times before; I think it comes from the fact that a particularly hard hit ball, to the human eye, is but a tiny orb flying through the stratosphere.

Back when Tim McCarver used to call the Mets games, he'd use the term "seed" in the same way, as in, Todd Hundley just hit a seed to right-center for a double. The way McCarver said it, it had at least two syllables: seee-eeed.

Oddly, Wikipedia's "Glossary of Baseball" defines "pea" as a fast pitch: A pitched ball thrown at high speed. "Clem can really fling that pea."

On a personal note, we saw a few peas and seeds hit last night at "The Dutch," as the Hudson Valley Renegades stadium is known, as the hometown 'Gades took on the Jammers of Jamestown. Fun for the whole family, and the announcer even made fun of me in front of a crowd of 5,000 or so as I tried to distribute the Family Four Pack of hot dogs and sodas to the clan and missed the opportunity to keep a bouncing beach ball aloft in our section.

To be honest, the beach ball looked like a pea out of the corner of my eye.

[image: yankees.com]

Yankees Add to Rap Around 'Porch'

2010-08-09T10:01:00.000-04:00

UPDATE: Our best "short porch" intell comes from Ben over at the exquisitely detailed Yankee site RiverAvenueBlues.com.

According to the third edition of the Dickson Baseball Dictionary, the short porch originated with the old Tigers Stadium. It's a right- or left-field wall that is unusually short and provides a friendly target to batters. Says Dickson's, "The term derives from the design of older ballparks which often featured overhanging roofs that made outfield spectators look like they were sitting on a porch."

Late last week, we wondered where the term "short porch," as the close rightfield seats in Yankee Stadium are known, comes from. Sure, it's a short distance from home plate; I ventured that I could pop one out in rightfield with a wind at my back, and no lesser light than Pedro Martinez did too.

“It’s a level playing field now,” Martinez told the NY Times last week, “except for right field at Yankee Stadium, where even I could hit a home run batting left-handed.”

I reached out to the Yankees PR office about the origins of "short porch." Initially, I got a "Hmmm...that's an interesting one," from one of the guys up on River Avenue.

Last night, we got a little more from the Yanks, though nothing resembling an answer.

The pinstriped PR guys wrote:

Thank you for reaching out to the Yankees. Unfortunately, we do not have any information regarding your question.

Best of luck in the future on your Batter Chatter blog!

Hey, thanks, guys!

Yet the mystery remains unsolved. One reader posits that "short porch" has its origins in street stickball, when you could actually park one on the porch. Another says the porch was built for Babe Ruth, and the term may have come from a sportswriter back in the '60s.

Shoot us any insights or theories you might have.

[image: thisoldhouse.com]

Milestone A-Rod Shot Misses 'Porch'

2010-08-05T13:26:00.000-04:00

Section 136 of Yankee Stadium had the best chance of receiving A-Rod's 600th homer, according to Hit Tracker and SeatGeek, followed by Section 135. Both are in left field.

Alas, the shot went to Monument Park, where a security guard grabbed it, and A-Rod did not have to offer a bat, a game-worn jersey and a date with Cameron Diaz in return for the milestone ball.

Another place it did not land--the "short porch" of Yankee Stadium.

Ever wonder why it's a short porch? Granted, it's not a difficult shot to reach section 105, 106 and 107; I could probably do it, with a healthy breakfast in me, a breeze blowing out, and a mid-summer Mike Pelfrey on the mound.

So it's short, yes. But what makes it a porch? Dictionary.com defines "porch" thusly:

An exterior appendage to a building, forming a covered approach or vestibule to a doorway; a veranda.

That doesn't describe Yankee Stadium's short porch at all. It doesn't jut into right field, and it isn't covered.

Yet pundits and fans alike have been talking about the Stadium's "short porch" for eons.

The official Chicago Cubs website offered this headline about the new Stadium prior to the year's start:

Short porch to beckon at new Stadium

Wikipedia's baseball dictionary cited, yes, Yankee Stadium under its definition of short porch.

It says:

When one of the outfield walls is closer to home plate than normal, the stadium may be said to have a short porch. For example, Yankee Stadium has long had a short porch in right field.

"Short porch" kicks out almost 300,000 links when Googled. Nearly all refer to Yankee Stadium, with a much smaller number offering up something nasty on UrbanDictionary.com.

The Mets, as they are historically wont to do, indirectly tipped their caps to Yankee history when they named the right field section at new Citi Field the "Pepsi Porch." (There may be a sponsor involved in that; I'm not exactly sure who it might be.)

I'll put in a call to the Yankees to see if they know anything of the origin of short porch.

If you've got any theories, please pass them along.

UPDATE: From Ben over at the Yankee blog RiverAvenueBlues.com:

According to the third edition of the Dickson Baseball Dictionary, the short porch originated with the old Tigers Stadium. It's a right- or left-field wall that is unusually short and provides a friendly target to batters. Says Dickson's, "The term derives from the design of older ballparks which often featured overhanging roofs that made outfield spectators look like they were sitting on a porch."

[image: live.drjays.com]

Showalter: Give Me a Handful of 'Pile Jumpers' and 'Nuggets', and I'll Bring Baltimore A Title

2010-08-04T09:52:00.000-04:00

You just can't take Buck Showalter lightly. He's whipped most every team he's managed into contenders, and even champs, and even eked out a win for the lowly Orioles last night in his Baltimore debut against the Angels.

What does Showalter look for in a team? "Pile jumpers," he told a roomful of reporters earlier this week.

Said Showalter:

"In Texas, we had a lot of commitments to people who probably were not going to be a pile jumper, so to speak, somebody you'll see after Game 7 jumping on the pile on the ground. That's what it boils down to. You're looking for 25 nuggets. You get one, you put it over here, you sift some more, you move a rock here and there, but you've got a nugget over there. When you've got 25 nuggets, you get to play in October. It's as simple as that. It's not nearly as complicated as everybody makes it out to be."

Interesting. The guy wants winners, players who've been there before, even if it hasn't been with the Orioles, who haven't had the opportunity to jump on the pile since before Showalter even made a cameo on Seinfeld as Yankees skipper.

Pile jumpers. Look around your office. Who are the pile jumpers? Who are the nuggets? Who are the guys/girls who will close the deal? Who are the ones who wouldn't know a pile if they stumbled on it? Not many of the latter in the workplace anymore, after the Great Recession and subsequent layoffs.

Look in the mirror, boy-o. Will you be jumping on a pile after your own figurative Game 7?

If so, just be careful when you jump. Showalter can ask his Angels counterpart Mike Scioscia about the perils of pile-jumping; guys get hurt in those scrums.

[image: wrigleyseats.com]

Batter Chatter Introduces Two For Tuesday

2010-08-03T09:59:00.000-04:00

We've dusted off that cheesy FM radio staple "Two For Tuesday" to bring you, dear readers, a pair of like-minded baseball lingo oddities today: "gardeners" and "rake."

An old-time "base ball" game was held recently in honor of the famous poem "Casey at the Bat," which of course features the Mudville Nine. Massachusetts' own Mudville Base Ball Club took the field in Stockton, Calif. last weekend against the local Amador County Crushers; both teams claim to represent fictional Mudville. The game featured old-time baseball rules, such as a ball caught on one bounce being an out, and under-handed pitching.

The New York Times reported that "outdated" terminology dominated the day: Outfielders were known as gardeners, batters as strikers, pitchers as hurlers, and runs as tallies.

"Gardeners." How quaint! They're patrolling the wide expanse of greensward, so they are gardeners. Brilliant.

And it's fitting that Yankees speedster Brett Gardner is, of course, an outfielder, or gardener. (Marlin Lee Gardner is, alas, a relief pitcher, while Ranger Tyler Teagarden is a catcher.)

So what's the most essential piece of equipment for a gardener? If we're talking about an outfielder, it's his glove, of course. If we're talking about real gardeners, it would have to be the rake.

Rake is a modern baseball term, a verb denoting a studly hitting record.

Wikipedia's "Glossary of Baseball" defines "rake" thusly:

To really hit the ball hard, all over the park. When you're raking, you're hitting very well. "Mike Gosling allowed one run on five hits over 6 1/3 innings and Louisville raked Pawtucket pitching for 14 hits as the Bats defeated the Red Sox, 7-1, in an International League game Wednesday.

"Rake" of course also means a cheeky guy; Webster's offers "a dissolute person: LIBERTINE" as its fifth definition for rake--short for "rakehell."

I first heard "rake" in the baseball sense about a decade ago, in a fantasy baseball league with a bunch of whiny Californians. One of the guys said some fin de siecle slugger--maybe it was Lance Berkmann pre-Yankees--could "flat-out rake." I wondered if the term had come from California; it sounds vaguely surfer-ish.

If one Googles "rake" and "baseball", one sees thousands of offers to buy a rake for smoothing out the home plate area. (Amazon has a 36 inch baserunner rake with telescophic handle for a cool $120.)

Braves catcher Brian McCann got a sweet crystal bat for winning MVP at the all-star game last month. Perhaps a crystal rake might've been more appropriate.

Blue Jays catcher John Buck said of McCann to the AP:

Catchers know. He can bang. He can flat-out rake, and the reason he doesn't get noticed very much is because he's that good of a catcher."

Straight 'A's For Hessman

2010-08-02T10:44:00.000-04:00

Gimme an A!

Gimme another A!!

Gimme another A!!!

And, well, gimme one more A, this will be over soon.

What does it spell?

Mets rookie Mike Hessman.

That's right, the new Met, nicknamed Crash Davis for his long and well-traveled minor league career, is a "4-A" player, according to the NY Times.

A 4-A player is a guy who's too good for AAA ball--the top level of minor league competition, of course, but not quite good enough for the Big Show.

So he wallows in the metaphorical purgatory known as "4-A."

Writes Joe Lapointe in the NY Times:

Sometimes, players like Hessman are characterized as “4-A players,” too good for Class AAA but not quite good enough to stick with a major league team.

“I’m sure people have probably labeled me that,” Hessman said. “It’s just about getting chances. I’ve had a couple brief little stints up in the major leagues, but no regular playing time.”

UPDATE: The Times' Tyler Kepner used the same "industry jargon" on August 8 when writing about former Yankee Shelley Duncan: Still, with Kearns gone and Hafner out, Duncan may have the rest of the season to try to shake his 4-A label, industry jargon for a player who succeeds at Class AAA but is thought to lack the skills to be a reliable major leaguer.

Hessman is two for 10 with a pair of rib-eye steaks since his call-up last week. Fittingly, he occupies the 25th spot on the Mets roster on Mets.com--one rung above AAA ball.

[image:

padresteve.wordpress.com]