USAGE/DEFINITION OF: Game-winning hit

Along the lines of unanswered runs...

In a game tied at 4, Team A hits a home run, then adds 3 more runs to make the final score 8-4. Is the home run the "game-winning" home run? It was docked as being ambiguous because any of the last runs could have been the "game-winning" run. My assertion was that the last 3 were insurance runs...

Was I not correct?

 

The hit that provided the run that gave the team the lead for good is the game-winning RBI. So the home run is the game-winning hit. But readers are likely to think of the final hit as the game-winner. My suggestion: don't use it unless it's a hit that literally ends the game (the "walk off" home run, if you will).

 

You were correct, but again, this has fallen out of usage -- both as an official stat (which it used to be) -- and in newspapers.

The reasoning: The game-winning-RBI when it was a stat was the RBI that put a team ahead for good. Seems fine, until you encounter the following scenario. Player A singles in the first to put team up 1-0. Team goes on to score 10 in the inning.

Other team comes back with nine runs in the bottom of the ninth to move within one, but still loses 10-9.

Who gets the GWRBI?

Again, your professor is showing you something that is more confusing to the reader than helpful, even if you use it correctly. His judgement is sound. Save game-winning hit for extra innings.

 

And don't use "walk-off home run" in your copy, either.

 

Because one day, you might run into a hostile female copy editor out West who might kill over it if she's having a bad day

 

He had the winning hit. Game- adds nothing.

 

I would write "go-ahead hit" if it happened relatively early in the game. Or, to satisfy deskers' penchant for plain English, "the hit which gave the Mudville Nine the lead."

 

sometimes I'll use game-winning hit for emphasis in a blowout situation: "Team's A's Willie Mays led off the game with a home run, which turned out to be the game-winning hit."

I think it gets across that Team A really controlled the game.

 

Sorry, MC, a lead off HR is never a game-winning hit.
That's why MLB dropped the GWH stat..it just got stupid.

 

I would just write something like this: "(Player) hit a solo homer to break a 4-4 tie in the (inning) and Team A tacked on three more on its way to a XXXXX victory over Team B." I would avoid the game-winning/go-ahead issue for the reasons listed above.

 

Sidebar: use the phrase "round tripper" freely.

 

Use walk-off home run. It is a tight, descriptive term that lets the reader know exactly what happened.

Game-winning home run is both longer and more vague. A game-winning home run can be hit in any inning. A walk-off homer can only be hit in the bottom of the last inning.

It is a well-known and well-understood term and, for the life of me, I can't figure out why some journalists get a burr in their saddle about it. [/end rant]