ABSTRACT
It is mandatory to talk about the mystic aspects of the game known as "intangibles". A baseball season is under way, and this means that the lingo of the game is back too, after a long, hard winter of normal English. Otherwise stable people now go around saying things like "Good pitching stops good hitting", "A game in April counts as much as a game in September", "Baseball is a game of inches" and "It is not over till it is over". In baseballese, contending teams must be "strong up the middle", and players must "give 110 percent" because "it is a long season", played "one game at a time", and "pennants are not won on paper". The oldest mandatory comment may be "baseball is like life". Commentary on baseball should be thoughtful, enthusiastic, and content-free. This chapter explains some situations in which non-baseball people are called upon to say something sensible in baseballese.
