bang v. in baseball, to call off a game because of inclement weather. Editorial Note: This verb is usually transitive: bang a game. Etymological Note: Perhaps from the notion of a judge banging a gavel, an act of finality comparable to a referee deciding to end a game prematurely. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
A magnificent new book celebrates the richness and diversity of 450 years of written and spoken English in what is now the United States. It’s called The People’s Tongue, and it’s a sumptuous collection of essays, letters, poems...
Tom Harris from Bluebell, Pennsylvania, wonders: In baseball, when a batter is said to take a ball, what exactly does take mean in that context? Batters have been advised to take a ball since the mid-1850s, when rule changes established the modern...