Tales from the Baseball Thesaurus: Strikeouts

Ballpark Digest Broadcaster Chats

A batter striking out is pulling a Casey, while striking out four times means you're wearing the Golden Sombrero. A strikeout is a core part of the game, one to inspire a slew of colorful terms and descriptive phrases, as related by Jesse Goldberg-Strassler, author of The Baseball Thesaurus.
It may also be one of the most poetic events in a baseball game. Growing up with a speech impediment, a young Ernie Harwell was assigned to recite poems, including “House by the Side of the Road,” Sam Walter Foss, which featured the last two lines:
“Let me live in my house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.”
Those verses ended up being quoted often by the erudite Harwell to describe a strikeout:
“He stood there like the house by the side of the road, and watched the ball go by.”
In this episode, Jesse Goldberg-Strassler explains the Harwell strikeout call as well as other colorful terms for strikeouts. This first episode of Tales from The Baseball Thesaurus runs down the unique terms for a strikeout, certainly a key part of baseball's distinctive patois. You can find The Baseball Thesaurus at augustpublications.com.