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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
It’s a joyful moment burdened by a terrible name. It’s a cascade of emotions for the winning players and their fans, yet it’s described in the most negative way. Johnny Damon, after a home run giving the Yankees their third straight come-from-behind win over the Twins, gets a pie in the face and here’s how it’s portrayed.
A “walk-off home run.”
Is there any more of a buzz kill? Should a face full of whipped cream and gleeful celebration be defined in terms of the losers?
When did this happen anyway? No surprise, it goes back to a pitcher. Back in 1988, San Francisco Chronicle columnist Lowell Cohn quoted Oakland reliever Dennis Eckersley describing a game-ending hit, when the pitcher slumps his shoulders and the team walks off the field. He called it a “walk-off piece.”
The term is now ubiquitous—a “walk-off hit”, a “walk-off walk”. What’s next, a walk-off balk?
No…a “walk-off Dick” would be nice.
Thanks to, irony of ironically enough, Walkoff Walk.
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1. Craig Calcaterra Posted: May 20, 2009 at 08:30 PM (#3186489)Except I can't ever remember an announcer using the phrase "walk off home run" contemporaneously. It's almost always a post-game wrapup or a game story thing. Announcers either have their own home run call or else they say "it's outta here" or whatever.
At the risk of jinxing it, I want to thank whatever diety responsible for keeping BTF mostly moron free for lo these many years.
And no, Jim, this does not mean I think you're God.
Johnny Damon is still active, and Shannon Stewart was active last year. I'm sure there are a couple other outfield arms who would have a horrid time stopping almost any runner from scoring from second, no matter how meandering a stroll the runner decided to take.
The phrase was coined, IIRC, by Dennis Eckersley, and refers to the defensive players walking off the field with their heads down.
Thanks to steroid testing, Juan Pierre is playing regularly again.
Yes I am.
Are we supposed to be reading the intros now?
Jon Miller was just saying this same thing on a Giants radio broadcast the other day. At the time he claimed that ESPN invented and popularized the "walk-off" term, and that he wished MLB media would pick up "sayonara" or at least "goodbye".
and it seems they always punctuate it with "walk-off balk" as the end of civilization.
Year or two ago I was at an A's game against the Angels when K-Rod fumbled the lob back from the catcher in the bottom of the 9th, allowing the winning run to score from 3rd and creating a brief epidemic of T-Shirts bearing the date of the game with the caption "Walk-Off Drop".
Nothing can hold a candle to the sweet collection of pure ignorami over at the www.usatoday.com comments section. I go there when I need a laugh when I am sick, I've added it to 7-up and cinnamon toast to make me feel better.
Probably. Even with a home run, the guy who hit it isn't walking. The offensive team doesn't "walk off" the field -- they run out to celebrate.
It is the fielding 9 who, as the ball sails out of the park or the winning run scores, slowly walks off the field.
My favorite of these, even more so than the home run, is when they load the bases and bring the outfield up close because even a sacrifice fly is a killer, and some guy bloops one over the outfielders that would have been caught in any other configuration. They just sort of watch the ball go past, and start trudging off the field.
All mainstream comments sections teem with idiots, at least as far as sports sites are concerned. There is no finer example of this truth than my employer.
Outside of newspaper columnists, that is.
The AJC comments section does not agree with you.
It's full of people who continue to insist that:
1) Jeff Francouer is a very good (at minimum) major league baseball player
2) Mike Vick > Matt Ryan, and if you disagree, you're just a racist
3) Bobby Cox is the worst manager in baseball history
Is that like a detachable penis?
And for some reason the "News" section comments, despite the overall political makeup of the Baltimore metro area (not to mention the _Sun_ itself), consists almost entirely of people who parrot the Rush Limbaugh line on everything. I prefer not to throw accusations of racism around, but a lot of the "local news" comments are really drenched in vile bigotry.
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