The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1905-07-02
VOCABULARY OF BASEBALL.
Written Language Too Poor TO Elk
press the Emotions of the Fan.
G[ansas civ JoI1rnaIO


A captiouS eastern editor asks petu-
lantly what the baseball writer of the
Journal means by the following:
Tinker led off for the Cubs and
OzOned- Evers slammed a clean single
to left and went to third on Kings
solitaire TO the same place King pur-
Joined second. Pfeffer cauntered on four
wide ones, and the To let signs We're
pulled down from all the bases"
In our minds eve we can picture this
eastern editor as he is. Of course, he
wears whiskers. and they are probably
red and cut Van Dyke. He parts his
hair in the middle-if he has any hair
and wears big. round glasses. He was
the pet of his family and spent his early
youth III some nice, refined Boston
nursery and never, never played "one-
old-cat'' in the alley with boys OF his
own age He never climbed a telegraph
pole TO witness the home team pedal
the bags for a winning game, and
could not have experienced the tri-
umphant JOY of chasing foul ball out
side the fence which. when garnered,
entitled him to a seat on the bleachers.
AS the years of his adolescence
passed. this editor always kept at his
work during the long, Sultry days of
summer, and never lOnged for a breath
of fresh air the blOOd-stirring sight of
the big green diamond, and the blessed
privilege of roofing for the home
team and hurting picturesque malediC-
lions at the robber umpire. The editor
was sttdious and carefully avoided
sneaking out to the ball park on q Sat
urday afternoon and telling his COufid-
ing wife afterWard that the reason she
could not reach him at his office was
because his telephone was out of order
oh no. Our captious brother editor
was a model. The result is that he has
allowed the world to go by him. He
sits in isolated ignorance of the great
est American Observation-Disclosures
The absolute poverty of written Ian
euage to express human emotions was
probably first eXemplified when the
paleozOtic sporting writer with his
stylus and his papyrus pad tried to
d. scribe the first cocoauut tWIrhnS
game between the "Niegatherium Mud
Eaters and the ''Megalosaurus Gil
ants" From that time to this the IAN
guage of sport has always been in
advance of the ages. 1t has outstripped
the classicalists, who are bound by
rote and rule. The baseball writer.
with his sleeves rolled up and his
trlISty typewriter eating on "A roll OF
paper is "a maker of language. His
is Natures own method. He gets
close to his readers because he is SUI
blimely free from hamperng gram
NAUTICAL form, and his VOCa bulary is
evolved as he goes along 1t weaves
itself from the wool OF encircliug smoke
from MS lldlOuOIOuS pipe dllu d. LiC
caily sails out into the bOundleSs
realm of his red and green magma
ton he coyly picks the choicest idioms
and fits from flower 10 flower in the
glorious gardens of budding synonym
and blooming metaphor
The baseball writer writes for those
" no understand his linguistic Vagaries,
and reve1 in the seeming confusion of
his complex phraseOlogy. He is the
journalistic free lance, who denies the
right of precedent and rides roughshOd
over the StickieT for literary finish. He
knows his saders and they know him
When he says, Tinker led off for the
Cubs and ozOned,' every legitimate
fan grasps Immediately the graphic
picture thus painted.
Let the baseball writer alone In his
very frenZied philOlOgy he contributes
a vivid and refreshing contrast 10 the
monOtOnOuS news pages and the weary
ing. precision of the nice, round edi-
torial sentences. And we who also
write for a living must confess to a
king admiration for his boldness
his originality, and the easy familiarity
OF his style.