Sometimes, you just can't get out of the cage. We've all been there - you hit ball after ball after ball up into the netting above you. You try to comfort yourself - How far up is this thing today? - as though the cage's location on the field was robbing you of no-doubt homers. You do your best to play it cool, but with each pop-up, a little panic sets in and finding your way out of the turtle seems more and more impossible.
You can't get on top of the ball for the life of you - you're calling for the Driver but somehow the Sand Wedge keeps finding its way into your hands. It's a horrible feeling, and you know it's bad when comfort comes in the form of a dribbling ground ball. I got out! But hey, it happens.
Everyone's been guilty of testing the strength of the cage's netting at some point. There's a little cage-killer in all of us, and even the greats aren't immune - just ask Brickma.
DUGOUT LINGO Series
 |
| Stay hot, Jose. |
Ahh, baseball sarcasm at its finest. Whenever you are told by a teammate to "stay hot," there is a 100% chance you just embarrassed yourself. This term has become a staple in clubhouses and dugouts because, well, baseball players fail - a lot.
"Stay hot" can be used after a variety of mistakes and failures, but it is truly at its best when applied after a string of mishaps. The ump turning in a series of bad calls, the opposing third baseman committing his second error of the inning, a teammate getting rejected by three straight girls at the bar - it's only right to commemorate their shortcomings with a snarky comment. Stay hot, Blue. Stay hot, Miggy. Stay hot, Youk.
Wow - stay hot, Andruw.
DUGOUT LINGO Series
"By You"
"Ugly-Finder"
"Pick Him Up"
"Poo-Slinger"
Whether your swing is a little tardy or your glove is wee bit slow, if you're late at all, you can't escape this term. Immediately after the ball makes its way past you, it will echo from the dugout: BY YOU!
Intended to add insult to injury, this phrase is usually used when you've already embarrassed yourself or done something particularly unathletic - the ass-out flailing swing attempt at an outside fastball; the it's-already-rolling-to-the-Left-Field-wall-but-I'm-just-now-reacting dive attempt at a liner to third - these would both qualify as offenses that warrant this humiliating battle cry. Why? Because by the time you took action, it was too late - the ball was already "by you."
But what good is a great baseball saying if it can't be transformed into completely random spin-off terms that sound the same and thus accomplish the same demeaning affect? I can't sit at the end of the dugout and just yell By You! all day while my pitcher racks up the K's - can't let my chatter get stale, I gotta mix it up. Louisiana Bayou! ... Oksana Baiul!
And who says baseball players aren't resourceful?
DUGOUT LINGO Series
"Ugly-Finder"
"Pick Him Up"
"Poo-Slinger"
No matter where you are on a baseball diamond, the ball will find you. The dugout is no exception. Line drives, ground balls, pop flys, you name it. Whether you're hanging on the top step or sitting by the Gatorade cooler playing movie trivia, you're closer to home plate than the players on the field. Might wanna keep your head up.
So there you are, sitting in the dugout, racking your brain trying to come up with a 'Y' to clinch another 'Baseball Name Game' victory - Yogi and Yadier have already been used, of course - and you hear that crack of the bat. It's not a loud blast, but it's solid wood. You look up and see the ball gaining ground on you. It takes some choppy bounces, but it's got some steam on it. You do your best to avoid the incoming projectile, but the ball's locked on to you - its target is picked.
Plunk. It gets you - usually on the shin, or some pure boney spot offering little to no meat for protection. You express your pain with some expletives, the dugout erupts with laughter, and those around you offer up their best wise crack. And then, you hear it: "Ugly-Finder!"
Adding insult to injury - literally. It always comes from the other side of the dugout, and it always gets at least a couple genuine chuckles. And the beauty of "Ugly-Finder" is that the "Ugly" portion is, of course, interchangible with hundreds of insulting phrases. As you can imagine, "Ugly" is far more tame than some of the more popular options - some can get downright nasty.
So next time you're in the dugout, be ready. If a foul ball finds you, it will undoubtedly be deemed a "_____-Finder." Unless you're really curious as to how your teammates will choose to make fun of you, save yourself a bruise to both body and ego - just get out of the way.
DUGOUT LINGO Series
"Pick Him Up"
"Poo-Slinger"
"Pick him up!" Depending on how a game's going, you'll hear variations of this saying anywhere between six and fifty times per nine innings of baseball.
Picking a guy up can mean one of two things.
1) To give a guy a high-five at the entrance of the dugout.
This can happen after any number of occurrences: he scores a run, bunts a runner over, hits a sac fly, knocks a homer, pitches a shutout inning, or does anything else to help the ball club - you pick him up.
Or it can also be used when things aren't going as well.
2) To bail a teammate out.
A pitcher may come in after blowing a lead, and it's now up to his hitters to "pick him up" - help him out, right his wrong, make people forget about his blunder. A guy strikes out in a key spot with the bases loaded? He's hoping the next batter picks him up.
You pick a guy up after he does something to help the team win, and you hope to pick him up when he lets the team down.
Good teams are picking guys up all day long.
DUGOUT LINGO Series
"Poo-Slinger"
This is a guy who simply cannot bring the heat. His fastball sits in the mid-80's- or at around "Eighty-poo," another must-know phrase- and every time you face him it is an absolute failure in your mind if you do anything but go deep. In the occasion that he gets you out, you thoroughly consider putting all your baseball equipment on Ebay and fleeing the country. 'If I can't get a hit off this guy then I should start setting up some job interviews or something cause I have no future in baseball.'
We've all been there. A guy throws 95-MPH by you? Tip your cap, get 'em next time. Get caught looking at a curveball you're pretty sure didn't even register on the radar gun behind the plate? Time to find a nearby tall building or Google yourself a new hobby. These guys are just plain bad, and yet the long lineage of poo-slingers continues today.
These guys don't scare anybody, but they usually have above average off-speed stuff and can pinpoint all their pitches. They know they throw slow, and so they make a living out of capitalizing on the fact that you're up there salivating in the batter's box. They make you chase big fat juicy pitches out of the zone and then after an onslaught of off-speed, they're able to blow 84 right by you on the black. And that, my friends, is how a hitter's confidence gets destroyed. Frickin' poo-slingers.
