document.write('<div class="sidebar-module linkbox-module" id="linkbox-module-vocabulary_list">');
document.write('<h5>VOCABULARY LIST<\/h5>');
document.write('<ul>');
document.write('<li>EX-CUB FACTOR THEORY<br />');
document.write('A theory created by columnist Mike Royko which held that A) the greater the number of former Chicago Cubs players on a team, the worse that team will be, and B) no team with more than three ex-Cubs on it can win the World Series or the team with the most ex-Cubs on it will lose the series.');
document.write('     Andy Knobel ("Baltimore Sun," April 1, 1995) figured that 14 teams with three or more former Cubs have played in the World Series since 1945 and that the ex-Cub teams have gone 1-13 with the lone winner being the 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates.');
document.write('    "USA Today" (Oct. 30, 1986) concluded, "Since 1970, a dozen ex-Cubs have played for world champion teams and 23 have played for losing teams." In the World Series that year, the New York Mets, with no former Cubs on its roster, defeated the Boston Red Sox, whose first baseman, ex-Cub Bill Buckner, committed the infamous error in Game 6.<\/li>');
document.write('<li>MURPHY MONEY<br />');
document.write('Spring Training spending money and/or money given to players for meals while on the road. ETYMOLOGY: According to Art Rosenbaum (Apr. 12, 1972), in 1946, Boston lawyer Robert Murphy tried to organize a player\'s union called the American Baseball Guild. He advocated a pension plan for players, minimum salaries and expense money. After several much bally-hooed but failed strike attempts the union quickly fell apart. The owners, however, were eager to block any future efforts by Murphy (and defections by players to the Mexican League) and made several concessions by the time of the 1946 All-Star Game. They included a $5000 minimum salary, a pension fund and money for expense while on the road and during Spring Training, or as it was then dubbed, "Murphy Money."<\/li>');
document.write('<li>BASEBALL ANNIE<br />');
document.write('A generic name for an unattached woman who favors the company of baseball players. The phrase was given prominence after the Phillies\' Eddie Waitkus was shot without provocation on June 15, 1949. "He sat up in bed and tolerantly described Ruth [Steinhagen, a 19-year old] as a \'Baseball Annie,\' one of an army of hero-worshipping teenage girls who follow the players around." ("Time" magazine, June 17, 1949; Peter Tamony).');
document.write('Although the term is not as common as it once was, it is still occasionally used; e.g., "Margo Adams, who has filed a $6 million paternity suit against [Wade] Boggs, has been categorized as a Baseball Annie, a woman attracted to ballplayers." (Ira Berkow, "New York Times," Aug. 12, 1988).');
document.write('AKA: Baseball Sadie, Chicago Shirley.');
document.write('P.S. My friend Josh pointed out that maybe this was the inspiration for Annie Savoy\'s name in "Bull Durham."<\/li>');
document.write('<li>FLUFFY DUFF<br />');
document.write('A player who is easily hurt. The term was used by Dizzy Dean and may have been coined by him. (I wonder if this is what he would have called JD Drew?)<\/li>');
document.write('<li>SPANGLES<br />');
document.write('(arch.) A player\'s uniform. 1ST USE: 1906. ("Sporting Life," March 3; Edward J. Nichols)<\/li>');
document.write('<li>PAIN GAME<br />');
document.write('A technique for the relief of bullpen boredom which, accoring to San Francisco Giants reliever Rod Beck (as quoted in 1997) requires players to pull the hairs out of each other\'s noses and then judge whose eyes water the most.<\/li>');
document.write('<li>DOUBLE-NAME JOB<br />');
document.write('The locker of a rookie in an overcrowded Spring Training camp. "This is rookie talk. When Spring Training camps are crowded with players from all over the system, there aren\'t enough individual lockers to go around. The rookies are asked to double up. That means there are two names hung over the locker, both with astronomically high uniforn numbers, like 73 and 94. That\'s the kind of numebr you get when you\'re in one of those double-name jobs." (Leonard Schecter, "Baseball Digest," June 1963.)<\/li>');
document.write('<li>PORCELAIN DECORATIONS<br />');
document.write('Teeth; "...what an infielder leaves on the field when he\'s hit in the teeth by a bad-hop grounder..." ("Padres Magazine," 1993)<\/li>');
document.write('<li>CORK POPPER<br />');
document.write('Syn. for Opening Day. "Yesterday\'s cork popper witnessed nine innings of errorless play." (from an undated Jack McDonald column in the "San Francisco Call-Bulletin")<\/li>');
document.write('<li>GETAWAY<br />');
document.write('The frequency with which baseball games are won at the beginning of the season; e.g. "The Phillies\' sluggish getaway was the big mystery of the new season."<\/li>');
document.write('<li>DREAMER\'S MONTH<br />');
document.write('The month of March, because the regular season usually does not get under way until early April and the only games being played are Spring Training exhibition games. At this point in the baseball year, anything seems possible for any team. "They call it Dreamer\'s Month. In March, on paper, every team looks stronger than it did a year ago, and they are counting heavily on a player they got in a trade with a team that no longer wanted him." (Bob Uecker, "Catcher In The Wry," 1982; Charles D. Poe).<\/li>');
document.write('<li>LOW BRIDGE<br />');
document.write('1. v. To brush the batter back so he has to bend over backwards, as if (much like the limbo) he appears to be going under a low bridge. (As Piladelphia A\'s first baseman Ferris Pain put it in the "San Francisco Examiner" on August 3, 1949: "Once is a while they \'low bridge\' you, but no real shooting.") 2. n. The position of bending over backwards to avoid being hit by a high and tight pitch. (As listed in "An Historical Dictionary of Baseball Terminology" by Edward J. Nichols, 1939.) 3. v. To knock down a runner with a throw. (In his book "Don Baylor," Don Baylor mentioned one such occasion: "Bert Campaneris started a brawl using a relay throw to low bridge the baserunner."');
document.write('ETYMOLOGY: The term originates from the days of canal boats that would traverse beneath bridges low enough to the water that the standing passengers would have to duck their heads.<\/li>');
document.write('<li>CHICAGO<br />');
document.write('v./arch. To shut out the opposing team. To have been "Chicagoed" was to be shut out.  1st USE: In the July 30, 1870 edition of the "Cleveland Leader" it was reported that "Each party was Chicagoed."');
document.write('ETYMOLOGY: George Moreland ("Balldom: The Britannica of Baseball," 1940) positted that the term was coined on July 23, 1870, when the Mutuals of New York shut out the Chicago [White Stockings, who became the Cubs in 1907] by a sscore of 9-0. Up until that particular game, there had only been five other shut outs on record, making the feat somewhat a novelty. "DeWitt\'s Base Ball Guide" (1876) confirms the 1870 game, adding: "From that time on, all contests in which one side has failed to score a run have been known as Chicago defeats..." <\/li>');
document.write('<li>BELLCOW<br />');
document.write('The leader of a pitching staff. (Syn.: bellwether)<\/li>');
document.write('<li>COME FROM AHEAD<br />');
document.write('1. To win or be winning in a game after losing a lead and then reclaiming it.  2. To lose or be losing in a game after having a lead.<\/li>');
document.write('<li>PULL OUT OF THE FIRE<br />');
document.write('To win a game that appeared to have been lost.<\/li>');
document.write('<li>POSITIVE SUBTRACTION<br />');
document.write('The art of improving a team by trading or releasing a poor player. The term was coined by baseball executive Branch Rickey.<\/li>');
document.write('<li>BATBOY SHOT<br />');
document.write('A homerun of such clear and immediate magnitude that the batter is simply able to hand his bat to the batboy, taking whatever time he wants as he circles the bases.');
document.write('ENTYMOLOGY: According to Joe Goddard ("The Sporting News," March 6, 1982): "This is the brainchild of Yankee Oscar Gamble, who says he knows when he hits one well and it\'s out of the park. \'I don\'t even look at it,\' Gamble says. \'I know it\'s gone. I just turn around and hand my bat to the batboy.\'"<\/li>');
document.write('<li>FALL ON A PITCHER<br />');
document.write('To get many hits off a pitcher during an inning or over the course of a game.<\/li>');
document.write('<li>NICKEL CURVE<br />');
document.write('A derogatory term for a slow curveball; a "cheap shot"; an early name for the slider.');
document.write('Jim Bouton, in his book "Ball Four" (1970), said that the nickle curve is what that slider was called by old-timers "who didn\'t have to hit against it." <\/li>');
document.write('<li>MEASURE BATS<br />');
document.write('To meet and play another team.  1st USE: 1880. (New York Herald, July 16, 1880; Edward J. Nichols).<\/li>');
document.write('<li>NEAR BEER PITCHER<br />');
document.write('A pitcher who commonly works himself into a 3 ball, 2 strike count.');
document.write('ENTYMOLOGY: Patrick Ercolano ("Fungoes, Floaters and Fork Balls," 1987) notes the term was coined by NY Yankees catcher Aaron Robinson in the 1940\'s. He said: "The term alludes to near beer, a weakened type of brew that contains only 3.2 percent alcohol and is sometimes called \'3.2 beer.\'"<\/li>');
document.write('<li>SHOEHORN<br />');
document.write('To enter a relief pitcher into the game just to pitch to one batter, usually with runners on base and the game on the line.<\/li>');
document.write('<li>BAG OF PEANUTS<br />');
document.write('A broken or misshapen hand, like that of a veteran catcher. IST USE: "His hand looked like a bag of peanuts." (Leonard Shecter in "Baseball Digest", June 1963).<\/li>');
document.write('<li>SIEGE GUN<br />');
document.write('A strong, excellent player.<\/li>');
document.write('<li>FOOZLE<br />');
document.write('A bungled play.  "Goldblatt... scored on Shaneman\'s foozle of Sullivan\'s fly..." ("Dartmouth Alumni Magazine," Feb. 1922; David Shulman).  1ST USE: 1905. ("Sporting Life," Sept. 9; Edward J. Nichols).<\/li>');
document.write('<li>BALL HAWK<br />');
document.write('An outfielder who covers his territory with speed and skill; an especially fast and adept outfielder; one who covers a lot of ground. aka: hawk.');
document.write('Willie Mays was always regarded as being in this elite group. Ducky Medwick (of The Gashouse Gang fame) may have been the first to earn this honorific title. 1st USE: "New York Times," October 10, 1920.<\/li>');
document.write('<li>SKULL PRACTICE<br />');
document.write('A club meeting where the manager, coaches and players "put their heads together" to discuss strategy before a game. IST USE: 1917. ("New York Times," Oct. 6).<\/li>');
document.write('<li>THROW HIS GLOVE IN THE BOX<br />');
document.write('Said of a pitcher who has another team so completely dominated that all he has to do is throw his glove on the mound to win. 1ST USE: 1914. Quoted from "You Know Me Al," by Ring Lardner.<\/li>');
document.write('<li>YOUNEVERKNOW<br />');
document.write('Pitcher Joaquin Andujar\'s "favorite English word" (according to Ron Fimrite who quoted the then Houston Astro in a "Sports Illustrated" article published on March 17, 1986). It\'s meaning was summed up in a story written for "USA Today"  (April 2, 1986) about California Angels pitcher Don Sutton, who assked his teammates for "the one word that sums up baseball perfectly." When no one could come up with that single word, Sutton himself gleefully supplied it, quoting Andujar: "youneverknow."');
document.write('     Sandy Alomar once said: "I understand baseball. It\'s a profession that one day you can be here and the next day be there. I never thought I was going to be traded from San Diego. But I was traded to Toronto. You never know." (Baltimore Sun, May 28, 1998).');
document.write('ETYMOLOGY: The original Joaquin Andujar quote from 1986: "There is one word in America that says it all, and that one word is, \'Youneverknow.\'"<\/li>');
document.write('<li>RHYTHM PITCHER<br />');
document.write('A pitcher who usually takes two or three innings before reaching maximum effectiveness... or "to get in his groove" as we like to say.<\/li>');
document.write('<li>STICKSMITH<br />');
document.write('(Arch.) Syn. of \'batter.\' As in, "Albert Pujols is a real sticksmith." 1st USE: 1910 in the May edition of "Baseball Magazine"; Edward J. Nichols. <\/li>');
document.write('<li>LITTLE BO-BO<br />');
document.write('(Arch.) A manager\'s favorite player. aka: "Bobo." Roger Bresnahan was known to be NY Giants manager John McGraw\'s bobo. (Bill James, "The Politics Of Glory," 1994.)<\/li>');
document.write('<li>WABBLE<br />');
document.write('Arch.  To lose control of the ball while pitching.<\/li>');
document.write('<li>LAMP<br />');
document.write('To look at. As in: "Lamp the girl in Row 22." (from John Hall, "Baseball Digest," Dec. 1973).');
document.write('RELATED: LAMPS.: Eyes. "[Bill Klem] said he didn\'t miss any [calls] in his heart, but he didn\'t say anything about his lamps." (Shag Crawford, quoted in Larry R. Gerlach\'s "The Men In Blue," 1980.)<\/li>');
document.write('<li>PLUGGER<br />');
document.write('A fan who roots for his/her team.<\/li>');
document.write('<li>SKIN<br />');
document.write('The dirt portion of the infield that is intentionally has no grass (or astroturf).<\/li>');
document.write('<li>MAKE A RIGHT TURN<br />');
document.write('Good fielding. The term refers to aretired batter/runner who turns right at first base on his way back to the dugout.<\/li>');
document.write('<li>ZURDO<br />');
document.write('Spanish for "lefty."<\/li>');
document.write('<li>RUBINOFF<br />');
document.write('Arch. A player in need of a haircut.<\/li>');
document.write('<li>IVORY<br />');
document.write('1. One or more skilled ballplayers who are considered a valuable commodity. "Cuba, which long has developed \'ivory\' for the American market, has splended representatives in COnrado Marero, Sandy Consuegra, and Minnie Minoso." (Fred G. Lieb, "Baseball Magazine," Aug. 1953).');
document.write('1st USE: 1913. "[Ivory is] a natural growth found in the bush leauge jungle, and polished up in the major league." (J.E. Sherwood, "Baseball Magazine," Sept.).');
document.write('2. A high-priced rookie.  USAGE NOTE: The link between the hard, white matter (a variety of dentine) and baseball players is that both are valuable commodities.<\/li>');
document.write('<li>POISONED BAT<br />');
document.write('Arch.  The bat held by a hard hitter.<\/li>');
document.write('<li>FRANK<br />');
document.write('Arch.  To be given a base on balls. 1ST USE: 1922. (Ernest J. Lanigan, "Baseball Cyclopedia"). ');
document.write('ETYMOLOGY: Since the early 19th century, the verb has been used to allow a person or thing free passage. The most common use then and now is to mark a piece of mail with an official mark permitting the sender free mailing. Members of Congress and other federal agencies retain the privilege.<\/li>');
document.write('<li>NAVY YARD HOME RUN<br />');
document.write('Arch.  A strikeout. "The phrase was coined from the fact that at the Navy Yard the men quit at three strikes of the bell." ("Philadelphia Inquirer," Sept. 22, 1904).<\/li>');
document.write('<li>DEAD ARM<br />');
document.write('The fatigued arm of a pitcher. Mike MUssina told the "Baltimore Sun" (Sept. 21, 1996) that he was going through a "dead-arm period." Colorado ROckies pitching coach Frank Funk referred to a dead arm as "a case of asking your arm to do more than it has ever done before, and it goes through a stage where it gets fatigued, but it\'s not sore. It just feels weak. You try to throw the ball just as hard as you ever did. It just doesn\'t go that hard." (as quoted in "Sports Illustrated" on Auguts 24, 1998).<\/li>');
document.write('<li>VULTCH<br />');
document.write('A save by a relief pitcher. ETYMOLOGY: According to Tim Considine in "The Language of Sport" (1982): "From the word "vulture." In the 1960s, pitchers likened relievers, who came into well-pitched games in the late innings and got credit for saves and sometimes wins, to vultures, figuratively picking over the bones of starting pitchers."<\/li>');
document.write('<li>BIG BANG THEORY<br />');
document.write('The assumption that, in a majority of games, the winning team scores as many or more runs in one inning than the loser scores in nine innings; the notion that baseball is a game of "big innings." The name was given to the theory by Thomas Bowell in "How Life Imitates The World Series" (1982).<\/li>');
document.write('<li>NEXT STOP PEORIA<br />');
document.write('Said of a player who is in a slump, committing several errors, or otherwise on the skids. It is a reference to a St. Louis Cardinals minor-league team that, under team owner Branch Rickey (1917-1919), became baseball\'s equivilent of Podunk.<\/li>');
document.write('<li>ROCK<br />');
document.write('n. A dumb play; a boner; e.g., "Smith pulled a rock in the third inning." Jim Brosnan ("Pennant Race," 1962) was asked by a young player to explain a "rock"; his answer: "Any time you do something the manager knows you shouldn\'t, you pull a \'rock.\'"<\/li>');
document.write('<li>FALL ON A PITCHER<br />');
document.write('To get many hits off a pitcher during an inning or over the course of a game.<\/li>');
document.write('<li>RAMICACK<br />');
document.write('To hit the ball. ETYMOLOGY: Origin unknown, but the term seems to be a combination of "ram" and "crack" or maybe was invented to suggest the action of both those verbs as regarded to in hitting.<\/li>');
document.write('<li>SEE THE BARRELS<br />');
document.write('To experience a good omen.');
document.write('ETYMOLOGY: According to James McBride ("High and Inside," 1980)" "\'Turkey Mike\' Donlin of the NY Giants arrived for a game at the Polo Grounds in the early 1900s and noted a wagon-load of empty barrels going by. On that day, he got three hits. But on the following day he went hitless and blamed this on the fact that he had not seen any barrels before the game. His manager, the crafty John McGraw, hired a wagon loaded with barrels to circle the grounds everyday and Donlin went on a hitting spree."<\/li>');
document.write('<li>BUN<br />');
document.write('arch. The baseball. (One 1918 scrapbook clipping from a Detroit paper talks of a batter "banging the bun in goodly fashion".)<\/li>');
document.write('<li>QUANTITATIVE QUALITY<br />');
document.write('The art of improving a team by signing or purchasing a lot of players who APPEAR to be good, hoping that some of them will turn out to actually BE good. The term was coined by baseball executive Branch Rickey.<\/li>');
document.write('<li>CHAIN-STORE BASEBALL<br />');
document.write('arch. The system by which a team obtains first option on the players on certain minor-league teams. The system was later known as "farm system." <\/li>');
document.write('<li>CROCUS SACK<br />');
document.write('An impending victory. The term became part of broadcaster Red Barber\'s stunning verbal delivery; e.g. he would say that a game was "all tied up in a crocus sack" if it were almost won.<\/li>');
document.write('<li>SCHNEID<br />');
document.write('A game, series of games, or period during which a team has been shut out or a batter has gone hitless.<\/li>');
document.write('<li>DUMP LIST<br />');
document.write('A list of players who are available for trading or releasing, or who are not protected in an expansion draft.<\/li>');
document.write('<li>"WATCH YOUR LIPS"<br />');
document.write('A phrase used to warn players of a rough or bumpy (poorly tended) infield in which a baseball, particularly one that\'s been hard-hit, may take a bad or unpredictable hop. The idea, here, being that a batted ball skidding throught the infield may take an unexpected hop and hit a fielder in the face.<\/li>');
document.write('<li>TOBASCO TAP<br />');
document.write('A hard-hit ground ball. The term ia a variant of "Tabasco" (the hot sauce). 1st USE: 1907. ("New York Evening Journal," Apr. 30.)<\/li>');
document.write('<li>GORKER<br />');
document.write('A cheap hit. Orioles manager Earl Weaver was known to use it, but whether he actually coined it, I\'m not sure. For instance, it was reported in the June 12, 1983 "Washington Post": "In the ninth, Tippy Martinez... gave up two cheap singles. \'You hate to take a guy out after two gorkers,\' manager Earl Weaver said."<\/li>');
document.write('<li>FANCY DAN<br />');
document.write('A player who works to make every play seem spectacular; an excellent fielder. 1ST USE: "The Sporting News record Book," 1927.<\/li>');
document.write('<li>WILTED LILY<br />');
document.write('A batter who lets his bat droop while awaiting a pitch.<\/li>');
document.write('<li>HOOPDY-SCOOP<br />');
document.write('A curveball.<\/li>');
document.write('<li>THROW FOR THE CYCLE<br />');
document.write('To throw a player out at every base, including home plate, during the course of a game. Charles Einstein quoted Walter Alston regarding Willie Mays when he said, "It happened-- or darn near happened-- in May of 1966, when the Giants were playing the Dodgers at Los Angeles, and Mays threw out one man at home, another at first, another at third. He had a fourth one nailed at second but the second baseman, his back to the on-coming runner, turned the wrong way and missed the tag." ("The Sporting News," January 17, 1970.)<\/li>');
document.write('<li>GRENADE<br />');
document.write('A bloop hit. ');
document.write('Tony Gwynn told the "Sports Illustrated": "I knew I could just drop a little grenade down the left field line." (June 15, 1998).<\/li>');
document.write('<\/ul>');
document.write('<\/div>');