Day 345: Baseball for Beginners: Lesson #8 - More Lingo!

Only a couple weeks left to learn (almost) everything you need know to be the best baseball fan ever! So far, Baseball for Beginners has covered the following important areas: Pitchers, Catchers, Infielders, Outfielders, the Lineup, Some Basic Rules and the Lingo. Let's be serious here... if you haven't been following right along, you might be screwed. The baseball season opens in approximately 20 days (depending on where you live) and you've got some reading to do!

There's really so much slang in baseball that one post just barely scratched the surface. Every aspect of the game—from pitching to hitting to fielding—has some special term associated with it. From a simple single, also called a base knock, to a frozen rope or hard hit line drive, to a shot up the middle (through the middle of the infield), there are a variety of different types of hits. A gapper hit between two outfielders could mean two bases, and sometimes even three.

But there's no hit in baseball that has more awesome names than a home run. If you ask me, it makes it that much more fun when you're sitting in the stands and the guy up to bat hits a dinger—it might even be a moon shot (a high, towering shot.) You could hear fans around you refer to it as a four bagger... you know, because the player gets to run around the bases or four bags. Or they might say, "he went yard."

One of the most dramatic round-trippers in baseball happens when the bases are juiced or loaded, meaning there's a runner on each bag. That's called a grand slam or grand salami! My favorite recent grand salami happened last October... watch and enjoy! Ahhhhhh... While it wasn't a tape measure shot (a very long home run), it was certainly a special one. Even that cop in the bullpen thought so.

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That long ball by Big Papi didn't win the game, but it did tie it up giving them a fighting chance. The Red Sox ended up winning this one with a walk off single (a hit that wins the game in the final at bat for the home team.) It really was one of the best games ever!!

Here's hoping for more of the same in 2014!!