From the notebook: Baseball words
Posted: January 30th, 2009 | Filed under: Baseball, Other Sports | 42 Comments »
I was watching the video of George Carlin’s “baseball and football,†and I started to play around with some baseball words. It seemed like a fun and pointless thing to do on a Super Bowl Friday, when the hype is up to your ears and the ticket brokers are getting red-ant aggressive and everybody is just ready to play the game and go on to the next thing. I have no earthly idea if this will make sense to anyone. It’s not supposed to make a whole lot of sense. It’s not a poem either, though I have it written that way. It’s … well, just say that the price is right.
Everybody by now has heard George Carlin’s utterly brilliant comparison of baseball and football. My favorite part of the bit is when he compares the languages of the sports.
Baseball has a seventh-inning stretch. Football has a two-minute warning.
In football you wear a helmet. In baseball you wear a cap.
Football is concerned with downs. What DOWN is it? Baseball is concerned with ups — who’s up? Are you up? No, he’s up!
And so on.
The reason I love this so much is that baseball is a game of language … only we’ve repeated the words so often that we don’t even think about them anymore. Football, like Carlin points out, is a game of language too, but mostly (as you see every year at the Super Bowl) the language in football is the language of war: Shotgun, ground attack, blitz, coordinators, touchdown, formations, firepower, defensive lines, territory, red zones. Guys who protect the quarterback are called “guards.†Quarterbacks who can throw don’t have arms, they have “guns†or “bazookas,†and they throw “bullets†and “bombs†and “missiles†and “daggers.†Receivers who catch the ball over the middle have “courage*.†Defensive players try to “fight off†blockers, while field goal kickers will attempt “long range†kicks. This week people wonder if the Steelers defense can neutralize the Cardinals weapons. It should be quite a battle.
*Kudos to the NFL for their controversial decision, announced on Thursday, to “salute service, courage and bravery†at this year’s Super Bowl. That is so much better than the theme in Super Bowl XXXIV, which was, I believe, “to lightly mock service, courage and bravery†or the pregame show in Super Bowl XIII which was designed to “just kind of ignore service, courage and bravery.†Come on: Is there anyone out there opposed to service, courage and bravery?** Do these qualities really need a salute so that they cal feel loved?
**And by the way, why is it courage AND bravery? Aren’t these precisely the same thing?
My dictionary says that courage is: “The ability to do something that frightens one.“
And bravery is: “Courageous behavior or character.â€
It sounds there that courage and bravery are precisely the same thing. So I looked in another dictionary:
Courage: the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, pain, etc., without fear; bravery.
Bravery: brave spirit or conduct; courage; valor.
Hmm. That sounds like the same thing also. How about the Cambridge Dictionary?
Courage: the ability to control your fear in a dangerous or difficult situation:
Bravery: The ability to show no fear of dangerous or difficult things
Encarta?
Courage: the ability to face danger, difficulty, uncertainty, or pain without being overcome by fear or being deflected from a chosen course of action.
Bravery: courage in the face of danger, difficulty, or pain
I’m not going to lie to you … since this is a blog post about language and words, I started to obsess a bit over this — certainly more than the NFL did when they came up with this idea. I kept looking in different place to see if there is a difference, even the slightest difference, between courage and bravery. Is there a situation that would require courage but not quite bravery, or demand bravery but not quite courage. I can’t find it. At the end of the day, I think this is a lot like the NFL saying it is going to salute Ted Williams, the Splendid Splinter, the Kid AND Teddy Ballgame.
But the words we use in baseball are so much more … well, let’s say gentlemanly and childlike and comfortable. Just about every word or phrase — can of corn, bang-bang play, dinger, tater, gopher ball, round-tripper, sinker, slider, — sounds like something a small child came up with long ago. A fight is a rhubarb. A rundown is a pickle. A knuckleball dances. And when there are men standing on base, you can still say that there a ducks on the pond.
A fly ball hit by a coach to a fielder before a game is called a fungo.
What could be a better word than “fungo?â€
It has “fun,†and it has “goâ€
The two words that drive childhood.
To hit these, the coach uses a “fungo bat.â€
Carlin was right.
You play baseball in a park.
Where everyone dresses and undresses in a clubhouse.
Balls hit in the air are said to fly.
And fly balls can be lazy.
The ball is not thrown. It is pitched. Like horseshoes.
Four balls are a walk.
But nobody walks after a walk.
Just like nobody runs home after hitting a home run.
You don’t punch the runner with the baseball or slug him with it.
You tag him. Tag. You are it.
A botched play is not the end of the world. It is only an error.
And if they score a run on that error,
it is acknowledged by everyone that the run is unearned.
A winded pitcher does not get benched or replaced.
He gets relieved.
While a team in a pinch can use a pinch hitter.
And a reliever who finishes a winning game is often credited for saving it.
There are infielders and outfielders
the difference being that one plays in, the other plays out.
There are three bases. Base is a war term.
But the most important is not a base. It is a plate. Home plate.
A fielder is responsible for each of those bases.
There are four other fielders.
Three go to the outfield.
One stops short. He is called the shortstop.
An outfielder can lose the ball in the sun.
And a shortstop is responsible for foul balsl hit behind third.
The ball does not bounce so much as it hops.
A particularly tricky bounce is a bad hop.
A convenient bounce can be called room service.
You don’t make a double play. You turn it.
The way kisses turn frogs into princes.
An easy double play is tailor made.
A more involved double play can be said to go around the horn.
Though there are no horns anywhere.
The weight put on the end of the bat to give it extra mass is called a donut,
apparently because it looks like a doughnut.
When a pitcher throws a type of pitch the catcher is not expecting,
we say he “crossed him up.â€
When a pitcher throws a pitch that almost hits a batter
he is not inciting and not provoking.
He is merely brushing the hitter back.
The mound of dirt where a pitcher throws is called a mound.
And the little box where the batter stands is called the batters box.
A batter struck out without swinging should not feel humiliated.
He just got caught looking.
An easy-to-hit curveball is said to be hanging,
like a low-flying cloud.
And an impossible-to-hit slider can be called filthy,
like a child playing in the mud.
A game is only a game, unless there are two.
Then each game is a header in the doubleheader.
You can single, double or triple, but you cannot “home run.â€
You can homer, but you cannot singler, doubler or tripler.
An outfielder sometimes jumps and sometimes gets a good jump,
but those are different things.
When a manager comes out of the dugout,
he goes to visit the pitcher.
And a manager, like an uninvited relative,
can only make one visit before there is trouble.
Each field has a track to warn outfielders that the wall is close.
It’s called a warning track.
An infielder does not always make his own throw to the plate.
Sometimes, he relays the throw from the outfielder.
Sometimes, though, he cuts off the outfielder’s throw.
A baseball field has alleys and gaps and holes and corners
A ball hit into the field of play is said to be fair.
And a ball hit outside the field of play is called foul.
The foul pole is in fair territory,
but it’s fair play to catch a foul ball.
Ron Fairly fouled out 16 times in his fair career,
and Jim Fairey fouled out 22 more,
but it was only fair
because Art Fowler fared well on fair balls.
A runner left on base can be called stranded,
like a crying kid in a mall.
A third base coach waves a runner home,
when the time is right.
And if the time is not right,
the coach holds him up,
like you would for a friend at the end of a long night.
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FIRST
Bravo. By the end of the post, I couldn’t recognize the game I love.
Courage: the ability to face danger, difficulty, uncertainty, or pain without being overcome by fear or being deflected from a chosen course of action.
Bravery: courage in the face of danger, difficulty, or pain
so courage is the ability to face danger without being overcome by fear
and bravery is the ability to face danger -in the face of danger- without being overcome by fear
i can be courageous playing freecell and reading joeblog, but being brave requires me to actually face danger!
I can’t tell if thats a poem or not, but i love it
If we look at the Cambridge definition, there is a distinction between courage and bravery:
“Courage: the ability to control your fear in a dangerous or difficult situation.
Bravery: The ability to show no fear of dangerous or difficult things.”
So courage allows you to have fear, as long as you can control it and act in spite of it. Bravery, on the other hand, suggests that you are not afraid in a situation that would make normal people afraid (or at least that you do not display what fear you have). But let us not leave it at that, for the American Heritage Dictionary addresses this very question:
“These adjectives [several other synonyms are also listed] mean having or showing courage under difficult or dangerous conditions. Brave, the least specific, is frequently associated with an innate quality: ‘Familiarity with danger makes a brave man braver’ (Herman Melville). Courageous implies consciously rising to a specific test by drawing on a reserve of inner strength: ‘The courageous soldier helped the civilians escape from the enemy.’ For the full entry, see http://www.bartleby.com/61/4/B0460400.html.
Thanks, Joe. Carlin used to modify and adapt his bits over time, and (obviously) he can’t do that anymore, so thanks for pinch-hitting (which is not the same as hitting in the pinch).
The end of the baseball/football bit is one of my favorite comedy pieces of all time (this is the Baseball Almanac version):
–And finally, the objectives of the two games are completely different:
–In football the object is for the quarterback, also known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use shotgun. With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy’s defensive line.
–In baseball the object is to go home! And to be safe! – I hope I’ll be safe at home!
Let’s hope we will all be safe at home.
There was something about this post that made me feel peaceful reading it. Thanks, Joe.
Next year they’re going to salute bravery first, then courage.
Courage–a quality one possesses.
Bravery–a behavior one exhibits.
The courageous are often brave…that’s boring. But sometimes the timid also display bravery…and that’s interesting (the heart of the appeal of hobbits, for example).
I’m happy to know that I’m not the only one who has tons of baseball on the brain. Pitchers & Catchers please get moving already.
Joe, you’ve got Super Bowl stir craziness. Go to Mons Venus and have a martini.
[...] I’m not jetting to warmer climes — I wish — but rather reading this post from Joe [...]
Blue’s mixed up on courage and bravery. Preston is right on. Bravery is an innate quality. Brave people are rare. Anyone can be courageous from time to time. Courage is something you have to work up when all evidence/instinct shows that the safer choice is running away or cowering or avoiding confrontation. Alcohol is known as “liquid courage” on the battlefield for this reason — it weakens inhibitions. Firefighters are brave. A nerd standing up to a bully requires courage.
The two terms are often used interchangeably, but there is a slight distinction.
I will miss George Carlin.
No way, next year is entitled “Up With People 2: Electric Boogaloo!”
Ha! Good show! Reminds one of back when the sports pages often featured bits of doggerel, and sportswriters were expected to actually write.
Now, to prepare for the Super Bowl, and celebrate service, courage, bravery, and courage. And, er, bravery.
Aw, nuts, I’ll just put in a movie.
Joe, Joe, Joe… of course bravery and courage are different. You have a good enough sense of language to know that two words that sound so completely different could never be indistinguishable.
But all you have to do is look at the etymologies of the two words to see that the difference is that courage is about feeling and bravery is about action. The root of courage is heart, so it’s all about the spirit, the feeling of being fearless. As the OED says in definition 4 — “That quality of mind which shows itself in facing danger without fear or shrinking.”
Bravery is all about ‘braving’ danger and daring to act when imperiled. The first, now obsolete, meaning the OED lists gives a good sense of this — “the action of braving or acting the bravo; daring, defiance; boasting, swaggering; bravado. a bravery: an act of bravado. in, upon, or for a bravery: in bravado, in defiance, in display of courage or daring, as a brag.”
Now the NFL PR people have no sense of these distinctions, and I’m not claiming that their linguistic skills led them to use both words. But those subtle meanings are there behind the words for those who are sensitive to language, and I’m sure all the NFL hoopla has dulled your senses and made you unable to hear them.
The only word that matters in pro sports anymore is “money”.
Pretty sure I remember a distinction from Greek and Roman lit. Courage is one of the classic Greek virtues, but bravery, although not necessarily a vice, is far less contemplative and can therefore be of detrimental purpose. Courage though is always in reference to doing what is thought to be the right thing. For example, “courage” could be as simple as facing up to one’s mistakes. While “bravery” could be jumping off that bridge we’ve always heard a lot about just because the other guy did it. There are of course, as you pointed out, many instances where either could define an act. It also wouldn’t be the first time that 2 distinctly different words end up with the same meaning over time, but despite the similarities of dictionary definitions, I don’t think we’ve reached that point yet with these 2 words.
That was wonderful, Joe. Thank you.
how about a hit and run? Not very gentlemany there…
13 Days, Joe, 13 Days.
Thanks for getting me through.
Joe, you just got me really excited for baseball season. For an Orioles fan this is no easy trick (the same for a Royals fan, I suppose).
I’ll enjoy the “big game” tomorrow (seriously the NFL takes itself way too seriously – god forbid someone would get a group of people together to watch your premier event by using the name of that event in their advertising), but bring on the ballplayers!
Brilliant, Joe.
I read an excellent interview of Carlin right after he died — I believe it was the last one he ever did — in which he said that what really drove his comedy was the language that people used. He was obsessed, he said, with listening to the way people talked about… everything. This baseball/football bit is perfectly representative of that worldview. RIP, funny man.
I’ve always understood the distinction to be as BigSteve describes it–courage is innate, bravery is demonstrable. The Cowardly Lion wants the Wizard to give him courage so that he can be brave.
[...] This, from Joe Posnanski, made me chuckle out loud: Kudos to the NFL for their controversial decision, announced on Thursday, to “salute service, courage and bravery†at this year’s Super Bowl. That is so much better than the theme in Super Bowl XXXIV, which was, I believe, “to lightly mock service, courage and bravery†or the pregame show in Super Bowl XIII which was designed to “just kind of ignore service, courage and bravery.†[...]
TWENTY-SIXTH
It helps if you read this in Carlin’s “baseball” voice!
Also:
“bean ball” — eat your beans!
“brouhaha” — like laughing – ha! ha! wheeee!
…
We do say that an outfielder has a “cannon” or that he “gunned” down a runner, though.
Joe – that was great. Brilliant.
Dan…I wish you wouldn’t do that.
A player also occasionally hits a “rocket.” This is usually a line drive.
Bravery is courage in action.
And courage is bravery at rest.
Holy crap, Dan. How did you do it? Can I have your autograph?
FYI Joe Posnanski writes a $1000 check to the first commenter on each one of his posts. So if you thought Dan was just being a pointless idiot, you were wrong.
The Ron Fairly, Jim Fairey and Art Fowler stuff was interesting… The thing that I wonder about is are these stats actually correct or did Joe make them up(?). Can someone with a better brain than I go to the greatest source of baseball stats and learn that so-and-so fouled out X amount of times? How far back into MLB history do these esoteric stats exist? Do we know what position player caught these foul outs? Is this just too much information? I’m beginning to think so. Anyway, I almost missed the Fairly, Fairey & Fowler lines as I was getting bored (yes, I’m sorry) gazing at the “language of baseball” crap. Well done, but not my particular cup of tea.
Thank you Joe!!!
Only 13 more days, only 13 more days…….
The only word that means anything in pro sports anymore is “money”
[...] the national jargon at a much higher level, as the wonderful Joe Posnanski points out in this wonderful post. More tangibly, MLB partisans will point to attendance figures: But plenty of people go to Major [...]
Joe just scratched the surface on baseball names, even limited just to major leaguers. See the pitchers named Hitt and the batters named Fielder, etc.
Base as a term in safe-haven games such as baseball long predates its use by the military.
First!
This routine always bugged me, because it really goes both ways.
In baseball, the pitcher tries to blow the hitter away with his gas, but the hitter stays alive by fighting off the heat. Eventually the batter wins the battle and connects with a huge blast. He crushes the ball and the outfielder tries to run down the rocket before hitting the warning track. The batter thinks about heading for second, but holds off because the fielder has a cannon. On the next play, the runner might try to steal second, but he could get gunned down by a laser from home plate.
Meanwhile, in football, a runner takes a friendly handoff, then dances behind the line before finding an opening and heading for daylight. He jukes and jives, and if he goes out of bounds, that just means it’s time for another play. Then the quarterback will toss a beautiful spiral to the receiver, who will gallop past the safety (who is just there to make sure nobody gets hurt!) for a touchdown.
I like how baseball phrases can be juxtaposed, i.e:
A pitcher can be said to have an arsenal of pitches – but this is also referred to as his repertoire.
A good closer will always put the fire out – but he also is called in to silence the bats.
A pitcher can buckle the hitters legs with a sharp breaking ball, or make a batter take a seat with a well placed deuce.
A power hitter can crush heat – or take Uncle Charlie deep.
Nicknames: Say Hey Kid, Teddy Ballgame, Cool Papa, Pudge. And, Hammer, The Iron Horse, Killer, Big Train.
Courage comes naturally, bravery can be thought
[...] Phillip Mason Jr. I realized I wasn’t really into it. So instead, I’ll try my hand at imitating Joe Posnanski imitating George Carlin, but instead of football or baseball I’ll do it with basketball (since my girlfriend made me [...]