March 12, 2011

The language of baseball

I love the way baseball sportscasters talk about the game. They say such odd things.

For instance, they present a united front on this point: the singular of Red Sox is Red Sock -- "He used to be a Red Sock, didn't he?" You hear this all the time.

Moving right along, the plural of baseman is basemans. -- "He was one of the all-time great first basemans." (Though they probably would spell it "basemens", if asked. Me, I don't see the need.)

I also like the way they talk about young players. They'll say, "He's a good-lookin' second baseman, yup, a good-lookin' second baseman." The first time I heard this, I looked at the guy and thought, "Well, he seems good-looking enough. Still, it's an odd remark." When, in a later game, I heard an announcer refer to a horse-faced young man as a "good-lookin' player," their intended meaning finally hit me.

Rather than put every one of these odd phrasings into a single post, I'm going to save a few so I can do another "language of baseball" post at a later date. In fact, I'll probably write several of them. It's a big field.

Do you have any favorite sportscaster language? Chime in.

4 comments:

Anna Guess Pick said...

My chime is on silent, but I am excited about this one, MORE came the call from the crowd.

PS In my 'awayness' today I missed a Cubs game on TV, damn. But tomorrow I get another chance.

writenow said...

All in good time.

Anna Guess Pick said...

Speaking about young Cub Starlin Castro - "He had a tendency last year to take too much time on routine balls when he needed to get rid of it sooner and then maybe hurry when he had more time."

Read more: http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/len-and-bob/2011/03/starlin-star-is-on-the-rise.html#ixzz1GVLFvDnz

writenow said...

Wow. That's like a Yogi Berra remark. These guys crack me up.