Baseball Phrases - Fan Friday!

It's Fan Friday with Sarah, so let's talk about baseball.

For those who haven't seen my tweets, I've been watching a lot of the Little League World Series lately. I can't flip over to a game for more than 20 seconds without getting completely sucked in and staying awake until 11pm to finish a game. I don't get sucked into any Major League game the way I get sucked into the LLWS.

It's just.. the kids. These are (mostly) 12 and 13 year old kids. Who are smart and athletic and are still at the stage where they play because they love to play. They love the game and they respect the game. A lot of guys lose that as they get older and get into the big leagues and so it's just so nice to see. These kids don't get paid to play and they aren't trying to get a college scholarship yet. They're just playing to win, playing to play. I love it. I'm addicted to it.

Anyway, as I was watching I noticed the announcers saying a lot of phrases. I knew what they meant, but I started thinking that if I'd been watching this with some of my friends, I'd be explaining every other sentence to them. So I started writing them down and today, YOU lucky people get that list with some SIMPLE explanations. So if you're ever watching a game with a potential boyfriend or husband or whatever, you can attempt to know what the heck is going on!

*Update, I just alphabetized them for you. Type A alert*

123 INNING
3 batters come up to the plate, 3 batters go back to the dugout. With none ending up on base.

ACE
The best starting pitcher on the team.
 
BALK
It's a call against the pitcher by the umpire. Typically balks are called when the pitcher doesn't "set" before making his throw or when he doesn't step toward the base he is throwing the ball to. For instance if a pitcher steps towards home and appears to be pitching to the batter, but then throws the ball to first base to pick off the runner, that would be called a balk. In my years of watching baseball and being best friends with a left-handed pitcher, this is one of the trickier calls an umpire has to make.

CHECKED SWING
When the batter begins to swing at the ball, but stops his swing before it cross home plate.

CHOKE UP
When the batter slides his hands up on the bat toward the barrel for better control of the bat.

CLEANUP HITTER
The 4th batter in the batting lineup. For more info on batting order, click here. This explains it way better than I ever could.

DUCKS ON THE POND
One of my best friend's dad used to say this all the time. It's when there are runners on 3rd and 2nd base. Or when the bases are loaded.

FALL OFF THE TABLE
A pitching term for when the ball appears to be in the strike zone (therefore hittable to the batter) but then ends low and out of the hittable zone.
 
FIGHT OFF A PITCH
When a batter has 2 strikes against him so he purposely fouls off the next pitch so he can keep batting.

FULL COUNT
This is when the hitter has 3 balls and 2 strikes. Meaning with the next pitch (unless it is fouled off) the batter will either advance to first (if the next pitch is a ball or a hit) or strike out (if the next pitch is a strike)

GRAND SLAM
A home run with the bases loaded, earning 4 runs.

PICK OFF
When the pitcher (or occasionally the catcher) throws the ball to an infielder at a base (typically 1st or 2nd base) and catches the base runner off the base, resulting in an out. 

RALLY
This is when a team comes back from behind. Say the blue team was down 4-1 and then in one inning scored 4 runs, so the blue team was now up 4-5.
 
SHAKE OFF
When the pitcher doesn't like the pitch the catcher calls, the pitcher might shake his head, indicating that he wants to throw a different pitch. He's "shaking off" the catcher.

SOUTHPAW
Left handed pitcher.


WALK OFF
Typically you will hear the phrase "walk off home run" meaning the home team hits a game winning (and ending) home run, so the visiting team (the losing team) has to "walk off" the field.

Batting terms:

ON DECK
The next batter to bat. If Johnny is batting, and Larry is "on deck", then that means Larry is batting next.

IN THE HOLE
The next batter to bat after the batter on deck. If Johnny is batting, and Larry is on deck, then Trey might be "in the hole", meaning he will bat after Larry.


There you go, some baseball terminology to impress the guys in your life. You're so very welcome! Also, LLWS is on tv tonight and the rest of this weekend, check it out!