Now that baseball season is quickly approaching, I have been thinking. I understand that the thinking part is somewhat of a dangerous proposition for me, so just bear with me for a minute. I was thinking about the difficulty of explaining how certain things work or why they do what they do when it 
occurred to me how difficult it would be to explain the game of baseball. For instance, if you fail seven out of 10 times as a hitter, you are a hero. That is right; get a hit just three out of 10 times that you are at the plate and you are the juggernaut and more than likely a first-ballot hall of famer.
f I only did my job successfully 30 percent of the time, I would probably be looking for another job, but if I were a baseball player, I would more than likely be in the Hall. Pitchers and fielders are judged a little more harshly with ERAs and fielding percentages and such. If a pitcher was only able to get three of 10 hitters out or if a second baseman made seven errors in 10 chances, he will more than likely be encouraged to find something else to do.
But on the offensive side of things, three out of 10 is just fine. Now WAR and OBPs are another story for another day, but they are key as well.
Other aspects of the game that confuse people are what certain things are called, such as a sweep, twin killing, Texas Leaguer, can-of-corn, yak, yik-yak, went yard, frozen rope, bang-bang play, basket catch, banjo hitter, backdoor slider, brush-back, change-up, chopper, chin music, dinger (the same as yik, yik-yak and going yard), high cheese, hook, the freak-nasty, leg(ged) out, in-the-black, punch out (knuckles not involved usually), round-tripper (same as dinger and all that other stuff), short porch (related to dinger and all that other stuff), solo shot, SLAM, ace, ate him up, around the horn, alley, belt, big fly (see dinger), bomb (see big fly), bread and butter, bullet, the bump, Bush League, cherry hop, cracker box, dead-red, crossing the dish, ducks on the pond, dome piece (hat), eephus pitch, error squad (a not-so-good team), filthy (actually good for your team if your pitcher is filthy), Five’O clock hitter (y’all know who you are), garden, golden sombrero, grabbing pine, green light, had eyes, seeing eye single, hanger, heart of the order, hose(d), hot corner, tools of ignorance, jack (see dinger and such), K-burger, flashing leather, lollipop, lazy fly, moonshot (see dinger), no-doubter (see dinger, again), oppo shot, pearls (baseball players love new, white baseballs), poke, pocket monster (the inside-out back pocket), rake, Ric Flair (that nice little soft fly that lands in no man’s land), rubber arm, sawed off, seed, shagging flies, snow cone, spray hitter, tater (see dinger or yik), through the wickets, wheelhouse, yolked, bag, sac, salami (see yak, but better), setting the table, short hop, shuts the door, side retired, slap hitter, dying quail, whiff and so on. There are more, that was just a few I could rattle off while writing this literary masterpiece. How do you explain all of that to someone who has no knowledge of this great game? The answer is…you cannot.
A person has to live it to understand it and rarely does anyone excel at it if they haven’t been around it nearly all of their lives. It is a beautiful yet complicated game that is centered on the single most difficult thing to do in sports, which is to hit a thrown baseball traveling at high speeds with all sorts of weird movements. Batters have to be ready for some crazy stuff like sliders, circle change-ups, curve balls, cutters, four seamers, two-seamers, spitters (kind of not legal, but anything will work like sweat, vaseline, forehead oil or actual spit), splitters, knuckle balls and whatever else a pitcher has in his repertoire.
Again, trying to explain that to someone that has no knowledge of the game would probably cause the brain to bleed. Most of what I have mentioned is just slang for stuff that happens in every single game, not necessarily technical terms for what they really are. Players must know when to run, bunt, sacrifice, steal, hit away, turn a double play, when an infield fly is in order, who their cut-off man is as pertaining to where the runners are, when to tag someone or touch the base, when to swing away, how to swing according to the count, when to swing according to the count and when to charge a ground ball or to dive for a gap shot. There are so many nuances to the game and many I have failed to mention, but it is so beautifully nuanced I might add. Once it is understood, not mastered but just merely understood, a player who will soon become a fan will have a lifetime of joy taking part in America’s pastime because unfortunately we cannot play forever. Hank Aaron said it best, “When you really know how to play the game, you are too old to play it.”
There is a lot of baseball and softball just around the corner, February 23 to be exact, and our area is blessed with an abundance of talented and well coached teams and I myself am more than ready to hear, “PLAY BALL!!!”
