soupcan

For Annie/Switch Hitter: Meet The Mets original multi-verse version Don't say I never did nuthin' for ya...

October 16, 2005 On Language Baseballingo By WILLIAM SAFIRE With the approach of the "World Serious," as Brooklyn Dodger fans in the Ebbets Field bleachers used to call the approaching "fall classic," topical lexicographers stride out to the linguistic mound. Baseball has long been a source of dramatic phrases in the American language. From the plaintive fan's "Say it ain't so, Joe," aimed at a scandal-tainted hero, to Leo Durocher's "Nice guys finish last" (in 1946, the Dodger manager actually said, "The nice guys are all over there, in seventh place"), we merrily mix and match our metaphors. Sportscasters make their contributions. In the early 1940's, Walter (Red) Barber's "He's sittin' in the catbird seat" popularized a regionalism that means "sitting pretty," in a position of ease, like a batter with a count of three balls, no strikes, or - a century ago - a Southerner feeling high on what was called "electerizing fluid." Mel Allen's enthusiastic shout, punctuating a great play or big hit, was "How 'bout that!" Today, reflecting the influence of movie lines on popular culture, the SportsCenter anchor Steve Berthiaume greets a home run with a line spoken by machine-gunning Al Pacino in the 1983 cult classic "Scarface": "Say hello to my little friend!" Unhappily, the shadow of enhancement by hormones has fallen over some hitters of four-baggers. Juiced - a 40's word originally meaning intoxicated on liquor and later on drugs - was applied to ballplayers strengthening their bodies with steroids. That word has now been shortened to roids, as in the title of the former slugger Jose Canseco's book "Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits and How Baseball Got Big." But Paul Daugherty in The Cincinnati Enquirer opines that fans are worn out by steroid scandals. "The three hours of fun they get from watching [barry] Bonds go yard, they don't spend wondering if he's cheating. They just want him to go yard." There are some 16,000 Google hits and 50,000 Yahoo hits for the phrase go yard, most, though not all, having to do with hitting a homer. The Atlanta Braves News reported this month that Julio Franco, 47, needed a homer this year to become "the oldest player to go yard" since Jack Quinn in 1932, but the superannuated slugger had a sore elbow. I cannot find the origin of this phrase, and the next edition of Paul Dickson's Baseball Dictionary, expanding to 10,000 terms, won't be out until 2007. If a Lexicographic Irregular has the answer, e-mail it to safireonlanguage@nytimes.com and find immortality in the Baseball Etymological Hall of Fame. Which won't be located in Cooperstown, N.Y., because John Thorn of New World Sports last year discovered the "Pittsfield prohibition" of 1791. That Massachusetts town's post-revolutionary fathers decreed that "for the Preservation of the Windows in the New Meeting House No Person or Inhabitant of said Town shall be permitted to play at any Game called Wicket, Cricket, Baseball, Batball, Football. . .within the Distance of Eighty Yards from said Meeting House." A half-century before Abner Doubleday of Cooperstown supposedly invented it, Pittsfielders were banning baseball near the town hall. David Block, author of this year's "Baseball Before We Knew It," informs me that "the word Baseball most likely appeared in England at the beginning of the 18th century, having derived from several earlier folkgames played with a ball and sometimes a bat. Most prominent among these was stool-ball, a game played with milking stools as bases." The earliest sighting of the name of the game so far was in a 1744 "Pretty Little Pocket-book," with Base-ball the title of a poem: "The Ball once struck off/Away flies the Boy/To the next destin'd Post,/And then Home with Joy." In today's dugout chatter, the onomatopoeic verb bang has slammed into the lexicon with two meanings. After last year's World Series, St. Louis Cardinals Manager Tony La Russa protested a $10,000 fine that was levied at his pitcher, Julian Tavarez, for throwing at the head of Houston Astros first baseman Jeff Bagwell. The manager claimed that if his pitcher had been deliberately throwing at the batter, "he would have been banged from the game," which he was not. In that context, to bang means "to eject" or, in an earlier usage, "to give the thumb." The more common meaning, however, was used by Bill Madden of The New York Daily News in criticizing an umpire, Durwood Merrill: "He's no better at weather forecasting than he is at calling balls and strikes. Merrill. . . banged the game before it even began. Turned out, the rain didn't start until after 10 p.m." This usage, usually about premature postponement, has been slowly growing for decades: Matt Michael of The Syracuse Post-Standard quoted a SkyChiefs player in 1994 saying, "Early in the game I thought, 'Yeah, we're going to get banged pretty soon,' but once we got into the fifth, sixth inning and they didn't bang, I said 'Well, we're going to play right through."' What about the names of pitches? The hard-to-control spitball was outlawed long ago, and the screwball - a reverse curveball - has all but disappeared because its inside-out twist is too hard on the pitcher's elbow. But we now have what Dickson calls "allusional pitches," alluding to the characteristics of famous people. There's the Linda Ronstadt fastball, one with such speed that it "Blue Bayou," in sharp contrast to the Peggy Lee fastball, a reference to her song of jadedness, "Is That All There Is?" Then there is my favorite, the Bugs Bunny change-up. This is a specialty of the Minnesota Twins' Johan Santana, last year's American League Cy Young winner. Tom Jones of The St. Petersburg Times described Santana's oddly named change-up thus: "It looks like a fastball, but because of the grip (the ball is held firmly in the hand against the palm), it comes in anywhere from 10 to 20 m.p.h. slower. But everything has to look the same as a fastball: the angle of the arm, the speed of the arm motion, the release point." Why name the pitch after Bugs Bunny? Because, to take a fanciful leap, in the tale of the tortoise and the hare, the rabbit starts out fast and then, exhausted, falls behind the steadily plodding turtle. That fable of Aesop's was surely current in England back when stoolball became baseball. Send comments and suggestions to: safireonlanguage@nytimes.com.

Anybody remember the episode of 'Welcome back Kotter' when Barbarino did a report on the Irish Potato Phantom?

I'm with Vic on this one. Not bad, just not as good as I thought it would/should be.

I'm not getting the Red Buttons reference.

I'm hoping for the Pale Hose -v- the Red Birds. I like old-time matchups in the Series when my team's not involved.

16 innings ties Mets-'Stros '86 for longest postseason game by innings. Here's hoping the 'Stros win THIS one.

KC wrote: It's like soupcan was destined to sit in the good seats. I didn't go that many games at that age, but sneaking down to the loge after the fourth inning was about as adventurous as we were. Well I wasn't going by myself - I had a family friend who was about 18 that would go with me. Most of the moxie came from her. As to being pre-destined, once I found out my then-girlfriend-now-wife's family controlled primo seats at The Big Shea that sealed the deal for me

I've got a Lenny Randle story! When Lenny was with the Mets I guess I was what - 12, 13? Anyway it was late '70's, Mets sucked, nobody ever went to the games. I would go, buy a general admission ticket for $1.50, slip the field level guard $2 to get onto field level and then give an usher another $2 and he'd bring me down to the front row on the third base side next to the visitors dugout. I liked that side because you could look into the Mets dugout the whole game. Anyhoo - one game Lenny's playing third and there's a high pop fly. The catcher lost sight and didn't know where it went. Lenny charges in and runs full speed right to the barrier in front of my seat but he just missed it. He's standing maybe two feet right in front of me (12-13 year-old, wide-eyed Mets fan) and yells 'FUCK!' Then just jogged back to third. I thought it was great.

I think I read a while back that Wilson and Todd Hundley were rival high school catchers. Not that it contributes anything to the conversation but its a Dan Wilson tidbit for you. P.S. Johnny Bench won 10 freakin' gold gloves.

Whatever happened to all that trade talk for Shoppach? Seems we're loaded with pitchers and Varitek's a roadblock in Boston. It's a natural fit.

Torre was bad, Bamberger was bad, Howe was bad. Let's go with Torre just to bring him down to earth.

Edgy DC wrote: Any particular argument with Johnson's X's and O's? In terms of specifics, the memory's not what it used to be but I remember having much disagreement with Davey during his tenure, especially the '86 postseason.

Bobby. Davey had great teams and all but when it came to the x's and o's he was not the bestest. Never saw Gil or Casey but I don't think Gil had enough of a resume to really judge.

You big on Jacobs Edgy?

Edgy DC wrote: Questionable hat. Hat? What hat? Oh, yeah, she is wearing a hat. Didn't notice.

And she's hot.

Vic Sage wrote: 5) Naked pictures of Ann Coulter getting corn-holed by Alec Baldwin. Gee Vic don't be shy tell us what you really want....

Did not know until just now when I checked the standings on mlb.com that the Mets won last night. After going to bed with them down 4-1, I...I...I..just assumed they'd lost. The game ended too late for the score to be in the papers so when I went to mlb.com to check the SD/SF score I noticed that the Mets were TWO games over .500. I said to myself 'Self, that's a mistake. The Mets lost last night' Then I checked the box and saw that Jacobs once again played the hero. So that's good.

I'd like to commute on a private train who do I have call?

On a related note - my dog Mookie turns 10 on September 7th.

I believe it was McGoohan, no?

Very nice.Some excellent bon mots...At 80-mph (on a good day), my two-seamer resembles Kevin Brown's, minus 10-12 mph and the personality disorder.And, of course, I'm the one they go to with questions about Jeter - the most common of which is: who's he banging?

You gotta tell me how much money we're talking about before I can give you an answer.

The two of you are killing me tonight.