Baseball slang collected during the 1930s includes fishing trip for “taking a swing at a bad ball,” pour the pine for “to hit a good ball solidly,” and the derisive term collisions for “college players,”, that is, “collegians.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “1930s Baseball Slang”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.
I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette.
Hey, Grant, thank you so much for sending me that collection of slang from the sporting news in the 19, what was it, 1933?
Oh, yeah, the baseball slang from 1933.
I knew you’d love that.
It’s just a thing we like to say back and forth, isn’t it?
I know.
Baseball is just this endless repository of fantastic slang.
It’s so poetic.
I love, for example, fishing trip, which is swinging at a bad ball.
He took a fishing trip.
Yeah, that’s totally what they’re doing.
They’re just like throwing the bad out there, just kind of trying to hit any junk that comes their way.
Right.
And sometimes they end up with a line drive to the catcher.
That’s when they miss the third strike.
A line drive to the catcher.
Yeah, that’s awesome.
Yeah, but somebody who’s really good is going to pour on the pine.
They’re going to hit that ball really solidly.
Pour on the pine.
Pour on the pine.
And one that really jumped out at me was the term collisions.
Oh, yeah.
I think we’ve mentioned that on the show before.
That’s an intentional, jokey mispronunciation of collegian, referring to college-level baseball players who often think they’re hot stuff when they come up to the show or the big time, the big leagues.
So they kind of get teased and made fun of.
Yeah, well, maybe we can talk some more about baseball slang later in the show.
Absolutely.
And, you know, we’ve got a lot of sports players who listen to the show by radio and podcast.
Send us your stuff.
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