Dempster's Purpose Pitch Beyond 'Bush'

How many things could "bootleg" possibly mean?

According to TheFreeDictionary.com, it is primarily, to make, sell or transport liquor illegally--the phrase coming from a bottle of hootch hidden in a lower pant leg.

It is, secondly, doing the same with compact discs or tapes. (Hey, TheFreeDictionary.com--see all those people on the train with the white buds in their ears? They're not listening to CDs or tapes!)

It is, thirdly, essentially doing the same with satellite television.

Finally, it is a sports term:

To fake a hand-off, conceal the ball on the hip, and roll out in order to pass or especially to rush around the end.

Yet bootleg is popping up in baseball too--and as an adjective, no less.

If the Yankees somehow make it into October this year, the pundits will pin it on Ryan Dempster plunking Alex Rodriguez August 18. (Coincidentally, Dempster returns to the hill tonight following his suspension for the incident.)

According to NJ.com:

CC Sabathia referred to Dempster’s behavior as “bootleg.”

Sabathia has used bootleg as a synonym for "bush"--short for, of course, bush league.

I don't see a single usage of it in this manner on Google, but I am checking in with the language of baseball expert, Paul Dickson, author of The Dickson Baseball Dictionary, to see if he has.

[image: vintageperiods.com]

Word of the Week: YANXIETY

YANXIETY: noun The fear that the dreaded Yankees will climb back from even the stiffest of deficits late in the game--that no lead is safe.

Usage: The Rays were up by 6, and Rodney was on the mound, but I still felt pang of Yanxiety as the Bombers prepared to hit in the bottom of the 9th.

[image: NJ.com]

Tie Goes to the Banger

The various sources for new terms on Batter Chatter are of course ballplayers, along with scouts, and sportswriters too--all fairly colorful factions in their own right. 

But those dour-faced figures known as umpires have their own lingo as well.

 Whereas an extremely close play at first is known as a "bang-bang play," to an umpire, it is simply a "banger."

Discussing the plan to increase instant replay usage in Major League Baseball, Jim Evans, who put in 28 years umping in the American League, told the NY Times the replays will  typically vindicate the boys in blue.

“I want the replay to show the umpires are actually right on those bangers 99 percent of the time,” Evans said. “And when you have that unusual play which the ump can’t adjust to, then you go to replay.” 

When I think of "banger", I think of Irish sausages on a bed of mashed potatoes. Yet the "bangers and mash" context is only the #5 definition that pops up over on Urban Dictionary.

The other four:

If a Song is extremly tight or just unbelivably awesome. It is a banger

An intense party, which involves large amounts of drinking, beer pong, and plenty of skanks to grind on.

 

A girl with an attractive body

An old, delapidated worn out car or less commonly, van. 

There is nothing, as if this writing, on Urban Dictionary about bangers being close plays. 

Pounding the Pavement For A Suspect

We all know what a slam dunk is away from the hardwood--a challenge so easy as to not really even be a challenge anymore. Get a craft beer-loving client to go to lunch at the new joint that features 812 microbrews? Slam dunk! Ask for a raise after pouring the overserved boss's boss into a cab at the holiday party? Slam dunk!

Not as well known--the slam dunk has a baseball equivalent. While the slam dunk elicits a very vertical image--Jordan soaring through the air like an Eagle, or little Spud Webb telling gravity to shove its perpetual come-back-to-earth nature up its arse, the baseball counterpart hugs the ground.

In fact, it is a ground ball, and you've probably heard it in this context if you dabble in law enforcement.

Wrote the NY Times about a homicide case on a famous street in broad daylight that remains unsolved:

“You got ground balls and you got mysteries,” said John Cornicello, who used to command homicide detectives in Brooklyn. “A ground ball is husband stabs wife and maybe stays on the scene. This is a mystery.”

Perhaps the gumshoes need a good sinker specialist to get that sorely needed ground ball. 

Keith 'Soldiers' On After Dopey Descrip

To have Keith Hernandez on your baseball telecast is to take the good (funny, no filter observations from a sharp mind) with the bad (dopey comments that could've used a filter).

Keith stepped in some of it during the recent Subway Series, when Mets second-sacker Daniel Murphy had his bat sawed off by a filthy pitch in on the hands.

"Well, that is a dead soldier right there, folks, laying in that infield dirt," said Keith.

The problem was, it was Memorial Day, when baseball announcers are wise to avoid metaphors that mention war-dead. 

An SNY rep called it "an honest mistake" and said, "We will address the matter with Keith," reports the NY Daily News.


Keith's misspeak even reached the Daily Mail over in England, which reported "outrage" over Hernandez's characterization of Murph's splintered timber, though the article fails to mention any actual outrage.

The Daily News article says "dead soldier" is an established baseball term (it is not to be confused with "wounded soldier," which refers to half-finished beers that have been abandoned), but I'm not seeing a single usage of it in that context on the interwebs--outside of reports of Hernandez's Memorial Day blunder.
It does not appear in Wikipedia's Baseball Glossary or MLB's pretty lame Baseball Lingo page. 

Keith will not let it happen again--until, of course, he inserts his foot in his mouth once again. 

James Carville Stays Abreast of Current Events

A creative entry to the offbeat (and, relatively off-color) baseball lexicon came from a most unlikely source, as political strategist James Carville tells Rolling Stone magazine that President Obama extending his predecessor's tax cuts for the not terribly wealthy is a "titty high fastball."

If I'm understanding the Bayou boy correctly, Carville is saying that doing so was, to mix sports metaphors, a slam dunk for our president. A no-brainer. In baseball terms, a cookie or a meatball.

"This is what they call in baseball a 'titty high fastball,'" says Carville. "You better swing at it."

I'm not exactly sure who the "they" that Carville refers to are--it's hardly a mainstream term. Googling "titty high fastball" yields but three results.

One site, SethSaith.blogspot.com, recounts Ernie Banks speaking to a room full of kids.
Hopefully nobody's parents got too uptight when Banks humorously recalled Satchel Paige asking him if he could hit a "titty high fastball," especially as far more exuberantly than when discussing his diamond exploits, Ernie urged the youngsters to "learn something new every day."

Another, a chat room on South Carolina sports, features a discussion on fastballs that come in north of the chest, but south of the eyes.

It's all about eye level. The funny thing is that a titty high fastball is meat but a chin or eye high fastball is unhittable, unless you're Ron Gant.

[image: nytimes]

Making Sure the Melk Stays Cool

Melky Cabrera had a helluva All-Star Game, as befits a man having a helluva season.
The man once dubbed "Leche" by then-teammate Derek Jeter, Cabrera was labeled a "six-tool player" by another former teammate, Alex Rodriguez.
Any fan of the game knows what a five-tool player is: a guy who hits for power, average, can run, can field and can throw with the best of them.
A six-tool player, said Rodriguez, according to the All-Star announcers, can play in New York.
Alas, Melky didn't fare quite so well in New York. His best season in Gotham, far as batting average is concerned, saw him hit a respectable .280 in 2006. Best RBI year? Seventy three rib-eye steaks a year later.
Jump ahead to his time in Kansas City last year, and San Francisco this year, where he is on pace to obliterate those marks.
A-Rod could've expanded the geography of the sixth tool; if you can succeed in New York, conventional wisdom says you can succeed in Boston, and vice versa.
Says Paul Konerko of new mate Kevin Youkilis in today's NY Times:

 “I think we knew that eventually, whether it took a couple of weeks, he would do his thing because he’s a good player and he’s always been really good. He’s won the World Series, and if you can play in Boston and play in New York, you can play anywhere.” 
Youk would probably be considered a five-tool player: hits for power and average, fields and throws well, and can succeed in Boston.
Speed? Not so much.       

[image: BleacherReport.com]