“Let’s see…what’s the baseball word or concept for that sort of thing?”
The long season of baseball has been compared to the long run of life for as long as most of us have been reading the thoughts of others. Not assuming here that it’s never been done before – since all things really have – but maybe its time to honor that metaphorical relationship between baseball and life by developing our own, always-building, never-finishing list of words, concepts and definitions for a “Baseball-to-Life Dictionary and Thesaurus”.
The ones listed below are simply the few that we’ve come up wit here at The Pecan Park Eagle since I started thinking about this possibility this Friday afternoon. Please feel free to include your own additions, changes, or subtractions from the ones I came up with – and with no air of great expectation or exaltation. Those are not my bells. My bells are truth, humor, passion, creativity, connection to others and history, and making sure that anyone I ever work with gets both the right to think differently from me and get full credit for whatever they contribute.
If this little exercise ever turns into a book, anyone who makes a definition contribution here that goes to print will get a byline credit that is unmistakably their own.
Simply let your mind range. – What is there about baseball that reminds me of life? What is there about life that reminds me of baseball? – What occurs? – Is it a word? – Or a concept derived from life or baseball? – What strikes me as either ironic or funny? – And can I find the words to express my thoughts?
Most of all – let it be lie a sandlot baseball game! – Keep it fun! _ And don’t do th one thing that destroys all real creativity: Don’t take yourself – this fun – me or anyone else – too seriously. – That’s not what the sweet spot of life, or baseball, is all about.
Then leave your contributions – and those you invite others to contribute – as a comment on this column. And we will let marinate and stew for a few months.
My gosh! There are two active ancient columns here at TPPE that have taken on lives of their own. Maybe we baseball fun fans can do the same with this idea for putting together an egalitarian baseball fan baseball/life dictionary/thesaurus
“Old Houston Car Dealers”
https://bill37mccurdy.com/2010/11/11/old-houston-car-dealers/
and “Early Houston TV Programs & Personalities”
https://bill37mccurdy.com/2010/08/21/early-houston-tv-programs-personalities/
Here’s the list I did as our primer. It will help putting things together, someday, if that ever happens, if you culd write up your contributions in the form I used below.
Most of all – keep it fun! 🙂
Our Starter List of Suggested Entries
Can of Corn (can-of-corn): concept; anything in life that comes easy.
Dictionary (diction-airy) noun; def.: a speech condition among players whose post-game comments inevitably fail to rise above light and airy statements on the cliche level of “we have to keep taking each game one day at a time.”
Grounder (ground-er) noun; def.: a person who never raises his or her eyes high enough to see the sunshine beyond the rain.
Human Rain Delay (human-rain-delay): concept; def.: anyone whose late appearance in a group function arrives like a windy storm of rain at the ballpark due to his or her lack of concern or sensitivity to how they suddenly may have interrupted or shut down what was going on prior to their arrival. As with the storm, the original game of group interaction only resumes after the human rain delay has dropped his or her load and moved on.
Luhnowtics (loo-now-tics): noun; def.: baseball people who subscribe to the administrative tenants of Luhnowcy. (See Luhnowcy.)
Luhnowcy (loo-now-see): noun; def.: a baseball administrative belief system based upon two major propositions: (1) that an overpaid mediocre club must prepare to be the worst poorly paid club in the game before it can ever hope to become the best club in baseball; and (2) if that new best club in baseball’s players then insist upon becoming overpaid for their accomplishments, which they inevitably will through their agents, that it is better to again go through the process of talent dumping and re-loading with younger, more controllable players than it is to yield to the demands of agents for aging talents that are unlikely to be worth the compensations they seek for new multi-year contracts.
Paranoids (pair-of-noids): noun; def.: a couple of distrustful HGH users who are inseparable due to their mutual fear that whoever leaves will betray the other about their safe blood and urine sources.
Playing Manager (playing-manager): concept; archaic def.: a manager who also appears on the roster as an active player; modern def.: a manager who simply doesn’t take his job that seriously.
Psychopath (psych-a-path): noun; def.: a base runner who uses mind games and physical mimicry as a variant on trash talk to successfully steal bases against a now mentally compromised pitcher, his catcher, and the other infielders.
Ruthian (ru-thi-an): adjective; def.: anything that happens in life that is larger than life itself.
Squeeze Play (squeeze-play): concept; def: a trade offer from an out-of-the-running club to send the arguably best pitcher in baseball to a contender in late July in the final year of the ace’s big contract in exchange for six major-league ready AAA-level minor leaguers.
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The Pecan Park Eagle 
August 15, 2015 at 5:42 pm |
My recollection is that the Sporting News, in tis palmy days, was replete with strange and wonderful uses of the English language. For instance, a shutout was a “calcimine job”,