Clubhouse Glossary

**I'm reposting the Clubhouse Glossary for 2 reasons:
1) I've added a few words to the original list.
2) The words aren't sweeping the nation the way that I expected them to.
Read them. Learn them. Use them. I won't be happy until I hear Donny Osmond accuse Bruno Tonioli of pencil whipping him. (I have no idea who those people are... I consulted Natalie for that pop-culture reference. C'mon, you really think I'd be watching Dancing With The Stars? I'm a So You Think You Can Dance man.)**


I've decided to start a running glossary of terms I often hear in the clubhouse. I'm not 100% sure that they are all unique to baseball, but I've never heard them anywhere else. Feel free to alert me to any that need to be added to the list. I'll start it off with a few that I've heard recently...

salty - [adj.] Possessing a certain savvy due to age or experience. I'm assuming that the term was derived from the phrase "seasoned veteran". The seasoning of choice became salt which led to "salty veteran" and eventually evolved (or devolved?) into just salty.

eye wash - [noun] A drill or exercise that is considered useless and unnecessary by players, but is done anyway to appease the staff. The common belief is that these activities are done to 'appear' to be busy. Examples include (but are not limited to) hip strengthening exercises, ultra-sound therapy, pitcher's pepper, and anything involving a Body Blade.

pencil whip - [verb] To keep score in a way that a player deems incorrect or unfair. For a hitter, this might mean ruling a 'hit' an error, and for a pitcher, this might mean ruling an 'error' a hit. Therefore, on basically every questionable call someone is accusing the scorekeeper of pencil whipping them.

third deck - [noun] The upper level of a major league stadium. Most minor league stadiums consist of two tiers while big league stadiums have three. This distinction is often cited when describing a player's adjustment to the larger crowds in the big leagues, i.e. "He was pitching great in AAA, but once he got in front of that third deck it was a different story."

brenda - [adj.] This is Tony Abreu's interpretation of the phrase "better than that". (Tony's English has always been a bit suspect.) It is, in all likelihood, unique to the Dodger's organization but I thought it was worth mentioning. Tony heard several players jokingly saying "come on, you're better than that" to other players that had made a trivial mistake. Later, while watching reruns of Beverly Hills 90210, he heard the character name Brenda and confused the two. Hence the new phrase, "Come on man, you're Brenda." The new version was quickly adopted by all.

Sleepchasing

I've tried on numerous occasions to film my dog mid-sleepchase. I always seem to wake him when I fumble for my camera. With this video, I no longer feel the need to try because Chambers could never top this:

A Few Things

1) I'm pumped about The Blind Side coming out on Friday. I'm not a football fan but I am a Michael Lewis fan, so I read the book. It was great. Lewis set out to write a Moneyball-type book dealing with the evolution of salaries in the NFL, but in his research he encountered Michael Oher. Oher's story was just too compelling to pass up. I have a feeling it will make a great movie - especially with the can't-miss actor, Tim McGraw (why?).

2) Speaking of great books, I've been reading Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything and I'm loving every page of it. It's already made me realize that I need to read an Isaac Newton biography.
In 1683, Robert Hooke (famous for his description of the cell) and Edmond Halley (of comet fame) were given the challenge of figuring out why planets "were inclined to orbit in a particular kind of oval known as an ellipse." Halley sought Newton's advice to begin his research but Newton had already solved the problem - he just didn't tell anyone... oh, and he also misplaced his work. So he proved it once again, and then some, by writing his masterpiece, Principia.
Then there is an entire chapter about the various attempts at calculating the mass of the earth. The best estimate, and most ingenious method, was provided by a London scientist named Henry Cavendish. Using a delicate system of weights and counter-weights he was able to calculate the gravitational constant, and then use what was already known about the Earth's motion to determine its mass. His experiments produced an estimate in 1797 that is within 1% of today's best estimate. Pretty impressive. Too bad Cavendish just confirmed a guess that Newton had made 110 years before with no experimental evidence to back it.
A later chapter outlines various efforts at determining the age of the earth, none of which came close to what today's scientists believe. The man that first used methods (studying radioactive decay) that got the estimates on the right track was Ernest Rutherford in the early 1900's. Who was the first to suggest these experiments? You guessed it. Sir Isaac.

Life Update - A Post Long Overdue

Eleven days without a post - I have some explaining to do. On November 7, Natalie and I were married. If you like to offset your baseball readings with wedding blogs, feel free to get more info on our event here.
On the 10th, we left for Huatulco, Mexico to begin our honeymoon. We are staying at an amazing vacation home that was offered to us by Natalie's maid of honor. Seriously... amazing. The internet was down for the first few days (apparently for the entire town), but we are now up and running.

Hamels Update

New York Times reporter Tyler Kepner brought some clarity to the Cole Hamels comments that have had so many in an uproar. He added two things that are often omitted from post-game interviews, 1) context, and 2) the quote in its entirety:

Please, let’s spare the outrage and understand the context. I was standing three feet from Hamels when he made that comment. Here’s what happened. Hamels was asked a hypothetical question, to give his state of mind if, in fact, there is no Game 7 on Thursday and he has pitched his final game of the season.

Hamels understood the premise, and here is how he responded:

“I can’t wait for it to end. It’s been mentally draining. But it’s one of those things, when a year ends, you just can’t wait for a fresh start. We have 30 teams right now that are waiting for that next season, that are going to work as hard as they possibly can in the off-season to make things better and go into the season with a positive mindset and get to the World Series. That’s when Game 7 can definitely put it into a better perspective, but it’s one of those things where you just want to work as hard as you possibly can and try to get to the next start. Anytime you get to start over, it makes things a little bit easier.”

I don't want to tell you "I told you so," but .... wait... what's another way to say I told you so?