crooked number
n.— «Manuel believes the home run “is your greatest hit in baseball.” It gives the Phillies big-innings capability. They began Game 5 with 14 multi-run innings—”crooked numbers” in the parlance—out of 112 innings in the postseason.» —“Rays, Phillies make runs with speed, power” by Gerry Fraley USA Today Oct. 27, 2008. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Chase from Jacksonville, Florida, grew up in Sacramento, California, where kids played Rochambeau instead of rock, paper, scissors. Why the difference in names? Nobody knows. Folklorists call this a choosing game, and while the hand-game itself...
Screwball was originally a sports term referring to the looping, irregular path of a ball in games such as cricket, tennis, and baseball. The term was popularized in the 1930s by baseball pitcher Carl Hubble’s corkscrew-like throw that made him a...