ESPN's DUMBEST STAT EVER

ESPN didn't coin the phrase. It was invented, or at least originally popularized, by Dennis Eckersley. It refers to him walking off the field as soon as the batter makes contact because he can tell he just served up a "walk-off piece."

And everyone had never heard the phrase at one point -- that how stuff works when it gets invented.

 

How many times did Eck serve one up at home? ;D

 

By the way, when did the pitcher's mound become a fucking "bump"? That term annoys the fuck out of me.

 

Will the closer even last long enough?

 

I thought that walkoff business came from Eck. I'm partial to cheese and yakker; have been known to plead with a pitcher to "yak him out!" from time to time.

There, I said it.

 

Walk-off and game-winning are two different terms, though related. You can hit a game-winning homer in the 7th if it puts your team up for good and no other runs are scored.

Walk-off and game-ending are the same, though. I don't see what the fuss is about. What's next, outrage over the term alley-oop?

 

Feel free to put walk-off in your stories, and I'll feel free to change it. It's a shitty term that has to be explained, therefore it shouldn't be used.

 

That's really for a newspaper style committee to decide. Or failing that, a quick meeting with the SE "If writer uses walk-off HR, do we use it or change it? And if we should change it, please tell him not to use it so we don't have to change it."

Otherwise, you get Monday's copy editor changing it, Tuesday's allowing it, Wednesday's changing it . . . and so on. Doesn't do the writer or the reader any good.

 

Sounds like a good plan to me.

 

A term that has to be explained? How is it any different from alley oop, suicide squeeze, flea flicker or birdie, eagle, par and bogey?

100 percent of the readers aren't going to know 100 percent of the terms we use. And every article can't be a remedial course. That's how it is.

 

You won't get away several of those with me either. There's no need to use jargon, and that's what walkoff is. It's in your story and I'm editing it, it disappears and I reiterate to you that we don't use that term at this paper.

 

Now I'm curious:

Other than perhaps alley-oop (which to me is an acceptable way to describe a certain kind of assist leading to a dunk), exactly which of these terms wouldn't make the cut at your paper?

If it's any of the last four, I've just got to see your golf coverage.