Summer… hot steamy days, swimming holes, the smell of green grass and the boys of summer. If you have a husband, dad, son or brother who loves baseball, you will know what I’m talking about. Professional baseball begins in April and goes until mid-October. Each team will play about 165 games, not including playoffs. With cable or satellite you can find a baseball game on TV every night. It can be a long season for nonbaseball enthusiasts. 

I must admit that I really enjoy watching baseball on TV…now. I am a huge Yankee fan as is the rest of my family. But it wasn’t always that way. In the early years of my marriage I had a hard time watching baseball….it took so long, nine innings could go all night. But my husband was glued to the television any time the Yanks were on, and in an effort to share some of his passions, I sat and watched and eventually learned to love the game.

What I’d like to do (or attempt to do) is assist my fellow non-loving baseball females in the fine art of baseball jargon, by giving you a few key terms and expressions that will impress your guy. Try some of these the next time he’s in the zone watching a game.

The basics of the game are really quite simple

1. There are 9 players on each team.
2. 9 innings in a game.
3. Three outs per team per inning.
4. The object of the game is to score the most runs. Are you with me so far?
5. The pitcher has a pretty important position, his objective is to throw the baseball so hard and so fast that the batter can’t hit it. Of course being men, they couldn’t leave pitching to just throwing the ball, they had to tweak the throws to include the following terms for a pitch.

A pitcher can throw

1. a slider
2. a fast ball
3. a knuckle ball
4. a breaking ball
5. a cutter
6. a back door cutter
7. an off-speed pitch
8. a sinker
9. a splitter
10. change-up

Different Pitchers

1. a starter begins the game
2. reliever usually comes in mid way through to give the starter a break.
3. set-up guy or closer will come in around the 7th or 8th inning; he throws

I honestly cannot tell the difference but apparently the umpire can. If a pitcher is “throwing heat” or “bringing it,” he’s having a good night.

Each pitcher has an ERA (no, not the clothes soap) but his “earned run average”, very complicated stuff here, just know if a pitcher’s ERA is less than 3.0 he’s a good, 7.5 or higher, not so good. Impress your man with that little tidbit of information.

Each batter has a batting average, which is how well he hits the ball, another complicated statistic, if he’s batting 300 or better, he’s good, 150 (a buck fifty) or less and he’ll probably be traded next year.

If the ball goes out of the stadium it’s a home run. A home run with three men on, the “table is set,” then he gets a “grand slam,” a “four bagger,” a “big fly,” a “dinger,” “going for yard,” a “round tripper,” “down town” or a “grand salami” (I swear to you that’s what it’s called).

Here’s a few more

1. a “K” is a strikeout
2. a backward "K" means the batter never swung the bat; he just sort of watched it go by thus he was “punched out”.
3. If one team loses, let’s say 12 – 1, then they got “spanked” (I honestly don’t make this stuff up).

I hope I’ve shed a little bit of light on the subject. Go watch a baseball game. As one of the Yankee announcers says every time a home run is hit…see ya!

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