Red Sox off-day. Nationals off-day. Which means a post on the absolutely impossible project I’ve been turning over in my head. See, it seems to me that the English language is filled with terms that if, say, you were a foreigner with new English and no baseball experience, you’d find utterly confusing. So this post is to keep track of baseball and baseball terms popping up in places you wouldn’t expect them. And there a lot of them. Far too many to list. Yet I try anyway, so…
For example, baseball in Damn Yankees doesn’t count, because the show is about baseball. But lines like this do:
Merrily We Roll Along, Now You Know - “The side is retired, but there’s still another inning. Right?” (Just randomly put in the middle of a song about the aftermath of a divorce. Makes perfect sense in context, might confuse the hell out of a Danish musical theatre buff who’s translating.)
Songs - Ragtime: “What a Game”
You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown: “There is No Team, Like the Best Team”
Falsettoland: “The Baseball Game” (We’re watching 67 pounders, watching Jewish boys hit grounders…”)
Things like this. I’m going to add more, when I get home from work. (So, it’ll be a while.)
