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SOUTHPAW: a left-handed pitcher in baseball
While watching John Lester pitch the Red Sox to a victory over the Tampa Bay Rays I must have heard the term southpaw used a dozen times. Everybody who follows baseball (or boxing) knows what the...
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RAREFIED : understood by only a small group of people : only for people who...
The other day a sports reporter indicated that you could experience rarefied air surrounding the pitcher’s mound at Fenway Park. His point was that the pitching was so good that it was unusual. To...
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RED SOX FAN: why am I still watching their games?
Coming into today’s game, the Red Sox have lost 7 in a row. It is, without a doubt, one of the worst seasons the Red Sox have seen in a long time. The commentators seem to focus upon their inability...
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PINKIE FINGER: the fifth digit on the hand
When burly professional baseball player, Edwin Encarnacion, who plays for the Toronto Blue Jays, had to leave the Red Sox game on Friday night, it was because he had jammed a finger while sliding into...
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AVULSION: a part torn off
This will be short. Yesterday I posted about a probable fracture to the PINKIE FINGER of a professional baseball player, Edwin Encarnacion of the Toronto Jays. I had indicated that the report of the...
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THE BEST: without competition at the same level
I’m not fond of articles that declare someone to be “the best” in some field. It always seems to me that it’s a very subjective thing to declare someone to be better than someone else. Is it true...
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METTLE: courage and fortitude; spirit
I was sitting at a college football game when I heard the parent of one of the players say, This is a good way to test his mettle.” I immediately knew that I had the next word I wanted to post in this...
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FLATED: The state of an object either before being deflated or after being...
Okay, so the past week or so has been dominated by stories about the alleged football deflation by the Patriots. Every day the story gets more and more complicated and less and less interesting....
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YINZ: a way of expressing “you” in a plural form (in Pittsburgh, anyway)
If you’ve never lived in the South, you probably don’t have the word “y’all” in your vocabulary. But nearly everyone knows that it’s the way southerners refer to a group of people. “Y’all”…it means...
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IMBROGLIO [im-BROL-yoh] : a confused or perplexing political or interpersonal...
It’s getting to be a regular scene in legislatures all over the place. Conflict instead of collaboration. It begins with the U.S. Congress and works its way down to state , county and even local...
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LINGO: the language and speech, especially the jargon of a particular field,...
I’m having fun listening to the commentators for Major League Baseball. I spend most of my time following the Red Sox, so Don Orsillo and Jerry Remy have become part of our family. Don is a little...
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GOOD ENOUGH: another example
We knew a long time ago that we wouldn’t see the Boston Red Sox in post season competition. I just hasn’t been a good season for the American League team. Injuries, trades, and a very sketchy...
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HAT TRICK: the term used for an athlete scoring three goals in a single game
Hockey is one of the many sports in which the term hat trick is used to indicate that an individual player has scored his or her third goal in a single game. But we Americans might be shocked to...
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CONCUSSION: injury to the brain or spinal cord due to jarring from a blow,...
Not having been athletic at any point in my life, I have been spared from many of the injuries and maladies suffered by friends and companions. However, it doesn’t mean that I have been home free. A...
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NIGGLE: to criticize, especially constantly or repeatedly, in a peevish or...
A niggle has a number of variable meanings. It can be something as simple as a persistence of attention to an insignificant issue. Or it can be to work ineffectively. In soccer (or international...
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OUTLIER: someone who stands apart from others of his or her group
This political season has given rise to the use of any number of words that have a “fresh” meaning to them. Among those words is the term outlier. It’s not a new word, having been around since the...
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INDENTURED: a contract by which a person, as an apprentice, is bound to service
I’ve been as confused as anyone by the difference between a slave and an indentured servant. I was under the impression that the latter was just a euphemism, or gentler way of defining a slave. To...
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SANDLOT: an empty lot in an urban setting
There’s something very romantic about hearing a professional baseball player tell us that his first experience with the sport was playing sandlot baseball in his youth. It was a game that took some...
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LOSS: not to win (duh)
If you were among those of us who watched the Master’s Tournament on Sunday, you may understand the sadness I felt when 22-year-old Jordan Spieth blew it on the 12th hole, falling from first place to...
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