When we were young whipper-snapper sports writers, it brought us great pleasure to mock the writing techniques of those who had come generations before us. They were good men, but they were never at a loss for a cliché.
“Ducats still available for Porker grid tilt” was one headline and “… toed the slap on the alien humpback” was part of an actual sentence in another Pulitzer Prize winner.
Gold. Pure gold.
(In case you need a translator, football tickets were on sale for an Arkansas Razorbacks’ game and in the other, a player for the visiting team was going to be the starting pitcher.)
Funny thing is, these writers (and it wasn’t just local ones) wouldn’t actually talk like that, and only used those terms when they sat down and banged out a story on their Smith-Corona.
And we loved to laugh at how outdated the terminology was because nobody talks like that.
Well, apparently they do.
With obviously little to do, I have watched way too much college baseball in the last couple of weeks and let me assure you that, thanks to our buddies at ESPN, the cliches are flying around all over the place.
Though they aren’t using terms like “flannelclads” (baseball players) or “initial sack” (first base), there’s a whole new terminology at play at the College World Series.
There used to be the idea that you should present your broadcast so that a third grader could understand it, but I’ve never been one to want it to be dumbed down so much that it borders on absurd (“a force play occurs when…”).
But these guys are often speaking a different language.
To wit (see what I did there?) –
- Let’s start with broadcaster names. Better pay attention when they first come on because otherwise you’ll think that Ravy, KP and Burkie are written on their birth certificates. Hey, we know y’all are bros. You don’t have to constantly prove it.
- I missed the federal legislation that banned it from being called the pitcher’s mound. It’s now the bump and don’t you forget it. Same goes for home plate; dish will now suffice.
- I promise I’d never heard this one a month ago and now it’s on every broadcast: “He has great bat-to-ball skills.” Maybe it’s just me, but I never remember anyone saying Tony Gywnn had “great bat-to-ball skills.” I do remember lots of people saying he was a good hitter. How about we just go with that instead of overtalking?
- I’ve seen more than a few baseball games in my time and this “pull side” and “glove side” business is out of control. I gotta admit it’s a little confusing because It makes me stop for a moment to figure out which is which. If a left hander hits a ball down the right field line, I instantly know exactly what means. Tell me it’s “pull side” and I need a half-second to process that. Same deal when a pitcher misses “glove side”; I need a moment for a synapse to fire. You couldn’t just say the ball missed outside?
- “They’ve had four free 90s” may not be a bridge too far, but I guarantee there aren’t a whole lot of third graders who can decipher that. In a recent game, one team allowed four players from the other team to reach base in ways that were preventable (walk, error, wild pitch, etc.). A “90” is the distance in feet from one base to the other and when the opposition can advance to the next base in that manner, it’s considered free. Now you know.
- I’ve heard home runs called a lot of things (taters, trot shots, dingers, blasts), but I found out a player has three “pumps” in the tournament. I’m going to leave that one alone.
- And then there was this, so good that I ran to write it down. In describing a relief pitcher who had just entered the game (and climbed the humpback!) it was said “every now and then he will give you a four or a five.” OK, hang on for a minute and let me think about this. It took me a while, but I finally figured out that it meant he often threw pitches in the low 90s but could get it up to 94 (a four) or 95 (a five) miles per hour. I felt like had just passed a bar exam after that one.
Contact JJ at johnjamesmarshall@yahoo.com