Decoding Baseball Slang: From 'Can of Corn' to 'Uncle Charlie'

In today's episode we look at five common slang terms used in baseball. We'll see what they mean and where they came from.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome back to this is Baseball.
My name is Brandon Johnson andtoday we are going to get into five
baseball slang terms that aresome of my favorite.
And we're gonna look at wherethese terms came from.
If you know baseball andfollow baseball.

(00:21):
It is very well known forhaving a lot of weird sayings.
And honestly, I feel like Icould have done an entire series
on weird baseball slang terms.
But gonna cut it down to five.
And if you are interested infinding a list of these terms that

(00:42):
are used in baseball, MLB.comhas an entire list of slang terms
on their website.
So let's get into this.
The first one that I want tocover is can of corn.
You've heard this one a lot.
You'll hear an announcer usecan of corn when a routine fly ball

(01:02):
is hit to an outfielder.
So literally, can of corn, afly ball to the outfield that is
easy to catch.
From mlb.com and I got on tobaseball almanac.com because they
have a good list of sayingsand definitions in some of the history

(01:23):
of where these come from.
So Baseball Almanac says thisphrase has long been assumed to have
come from an old time grocerystore where the grocer used a pole
or a mechanical grabber to tipan item such as a can of corn off
of a high shelf and let ittumble into his hands or apron, which
they held out like a fire net.
So, so now you have that information.

(01:46):
The next one that is on thelist is a saying or a term that you
as a player don't want to haveused on you or for you because it
means you had a pretty bad dayat the plate.
And this one is golden sombrero.
And what is a golden sombrero?

(02:07):
It's when a player strikes outfour times in a game.
So this is kind of a play offof a hat trick.
If you're a hockey fan, youknow that a hat trick is when a player
scores three goals in one game.
So what's more than a hat?
A sombrero.

(02:28):
What's more than a sombrero?
A golden sombrero.
And the definition of this haskind of changed over the years.
It used to be a sombrero wasfour strikeouts, a golden sombrero
was five strikeouts in the game.
But it's pretty much universalto four strikeouts in a game is a
golden sombrero.
Now, when I was looking upwhere this came from, I got a lot

(02:48):
of mixed information.
So I'll give you a fewdifferent points of origin that it
could come from.
Some say that it came from aPeter Gammon's article.
He's been a baseball writer forever.
Some say that he coined theterm in a 1982 article.
Others say, and this part isfrom Baseball Almanac as well, that

(03:13):
Padres outfielder CarlosMartinez coined the term golden sombrero
in 1984.
But there's other sources thatsay that this has been a term that's
been used since at least the 70s.
So I don't know where it camefrom, but just to give you a few
origins of who possibly couldhave said it.

(03:35):
But again, golden sombrero isnot something that you as a batter
want to have said about yourself.
Now let's move on to my nextphrase and this one's kind of fun.
It was always one of myfavorites, just because it's silly,

(03:57):
but it is loogie L O O G Y andit's an acronym for lefty one out
guy.
So this was used to describe aleft handed pitcher that was a specialist.
These guys were especiallypopular during the 2010s when bullpens

(04:24):
were very specialized.
So you would have basically aguy in your bullpen that his job
was to come in and get alefty, lefty matchup and then go
hit the showers.
He would face one guy and hecould throw one pitch, he could throw

(04:44):
12 pitches, it just depended.
All he had to do was pitch toone guy.
Now loogies don't existanymore just because of how baseball's
rules are with how reliefpitchers can be used.
So relief pitchers now theyhave to face at least three batters
or end an inning, so they canface less than three.

(05:07):
If they come in and get thefinal out of the final two outs of
an inning, they don't have tocome back out the next inning and
face a third guy.
But if they come in and startan inning, then, then they have to
face at least three beforethey can switch out.
So these loogies, these leftyone out guys, either don't pitch

(05:28):
in the league anymore orthey're just more traditional relievers.
And I was personally always ofthe opinion of loogies.
If you're a loogie guy, youprobably aren't really worthy of
being on a major league roster anyways.
If your job is to come in andget one out, I mean you could make

(05:50):
the argument that they'remaking a major contribution.
I would argue that they'rewasting a roster spot that could
be better used somewhere else.
And I think that MLB saw itthat way as well.
And I think that's part of whythe rule has changed.
I know.
Pace of play in the back halfof baseball games completely slowing
down.
Pace of play was a majorfactor in that as well.

(06:12):
But let's move on to the next one.
Another common term that wehear a lot that you don't necessarily
want to have attached to yourname, and it is the Mendoza Line.
What is that?
It is when you are batting,when your batting average is around.200.
This is named after the formermajor leaguer Mario Mendoza, who
posted a.215 career average.

(06:34):
There were four times in hiscareer where he finished below.200
for his season batting average.
Honestly, how would you liketo be the guy that has something
named after you in a negative way?
That's.
That's what he has going on.
And where this comes from is,according to Baseball Almanac, this

(06:56):
comes from Major LeagueBaseball hall of Famer George Brett.
He was in a slump early in the1980 season, and he said to reporters,
the first thing that I lookfor in the Sunday papers is who is
below the Mendoza Line.
Brett eventually mentioned theterm to ESPN's Chris Berman, and
from there it spread likewildfire, eventually becoming universally

(07:19):
recognized shorthand forbatting futility.
I think the craziest part ofthat is, again, it says that George
Brett was slumping early inthe 1980 season.
The 1980 season is the seasonthat George Brett finished with.390
batting averages when he was hitting.400.

(07:39):
He was hitting.400 as late asSeptember 19th and finished with
that 390 average.
So it's crazy to think that hewas slumping at all that season when
you have an average like that.
He was doing Ted Williams numbers.
Just goes to show you howgreat George Brett really was.
Now let's look at my finalsaying for the day.
It is Uncle Charlie, which isa curveball.

(08:02):
You had players like DwightGooden, who had an amazing curveball.
He was called Lord Charles.
And you had Adam Wainwright,who a lot of people refer to him
as Uncle Charlie.
But where did Uncle Charlieactually come from?
So from Baseball Almanac,again, this term was derived from

(08:24):
the name of the Harvardpresident, Charles Elliot, who was
opposed to the adoption of thecurveball and considered it to be
cheating.
So people started calling acurveball Uncle Charlie.
Just take a dig at him.
According to Baseball Almanac,a few honorable mentions for me was

(08:46):
high cheese, which is a highfastball up and in ducks on the pond
is another one that I like a lot.
It is when there are two orthree players on base, an, excuse
me, swing is good it's when abatter inadvertently makes contact
with a checked swing.
So that's the list.
Today again, you can go checkout mlbslangtermsmlb.

(09:08):
Com.
There's an entire glossary ofthem there.
A lot of fun ones that wedidn't cover today, but go check
that out.
Thank you for listening to theshow today.
I will see you next time.