Baseball Cheese

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Ed Sadowski calling from Williamsburg, Virginia.

Well, hello, Ed. We’re glad to have you. What’s up?

Well, I would like to ask you a question that concerns baseball.

And I’m a bit of a baseball nerd, a seam head, I guess you might call me.

My question is, concerns the term high cheese.

And I hear broadcasters using this, and it refers to a really good, hard, high fastball.

And they say, well, this guy is bringing high cheese.

And so I guess my question is, what in the world does cheese have to do with the speed of a baseball?

All right. You sound like a man who knows something about baseball.

Who do you follow in the MLB?

Well, I’m a Baltimore Orioles fan.

Okay.

But, yeah, my interest in baseball goes all the way back to the 1940s, I guess, when I was a child.

But after I retired from my professional career, I lived out a Walter Mitty dream and became the PA announcer for the College of William & Mary Baseball for 20 years.

Oh, wow.

So I’ve heard all the terms, but this one I’m usually able to explain most of them, but this one I can’t.

Oh, yeah, but you’ve got the lingo down, it sounds like.

So, yeah, so cheese alone is just a fastball, right?

So that’s a ball that’s high in the strike zone, maybe about head height of the batter?

That’s usually what they usually say he’s bringing high cheese.

Now, they can say, I’ve heard him say, well, he’s throwing cheese, but it’s usually high cheese,

Like a fastball that’s high up in the strike zone, yes.

Have you ever heard it called alto queso, the Spanish words for high cheese?

No, I haven’t.

Sometimes you’ll hear that.

And it’s not surprising since baseball is popular in so many Spanish-speaking countries like Venezuela and Cuba and Puerto Rico and so forth.

The Dominican Republic.

The Dominican Republic, of course.

Yeah, DR has some amazing players over the years.

The thing about the cheese part of it is it’s probably connected to when we talk about somebody being a big cheese,

Meaning the high muckety muck or, you know, big mahoff, somebody who’s like a big deal.

And that probably comes into English from Hindi and other Indian languages where the word cheese meant thing.

So if somebody’s like the big thing, that means that the top item, the number one important person of the place or the moment or the situation.

And so when we talk about a baseball being cheese, we’re talking about that’s like, that’s the pitch.

Right.

So a fastball is for a pitcher, the one they need to have.

Right. And out of all the pitches they have, like nobody really gets to the majors without a good fastball.

Okay, okay.

And origin going back to something that’s a high muckety-muck, something that’s high.

And so a good fastball is highly sought after.

And so, yeah, it kind of all fits together.

My goodness.

Well, aren’t you smart?

In my wildest dreams, I’ve ever thought about it in that terms.

Yeah, we always have to talk about Paul Dixon.

He was a fantastic lexicographer.

And if you don’t, Ed, have a copy of the Dixon Baseball Dictionary.

I highly recommend it.

He has done some great work and worked with a lot of great baseball people and lexicographers

To really put together kind of the definitive work on the lingo of baseball.

It’s just good stuff.

Oh, right. Very good.

Well, Ed, you take care of yourself.

And thanks for your call.

Thank you very kindly.

It was my pleasure and my honor.

And thank you, and you have a great, great week.

You too. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

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