Pitchers are Hungry

Since Dennis Eckersly has been filling in for Jerry Remy on NESN, we have listened to one food reference after another. His use of the word "cheese" to describe a pitch is like a drinking game. In baseball parlance, "Cheese" usually means a fastball, especially one with movement that is, thus, hard to hit, but Eckersly uses it for everything. That is until tonight, when he finally threw in "salad" (an easily hit pitch) to describe the danger of pounding the strikezone. His actual quote was something like, "pounding the strikezone is great, unless you're throwing salad." At this point, Charissa blurted out, "pitchers sure are hungry!" That got us thinking about how many references there are to food in baseball slang.

Here is our list of gatronomical nuggets:

First off, the pitcher throws to the plate (popular slang once called it a "platter"). If he is throwing hard fast balls, he is throwing cheese or mustard, but if his fastball has no movement or is too slow, he is throwing salad. In this situation, the ball is easy to hit and so it's called a meatball, or a grapefruit, or a cookie. If you throw a meatball with the bases loaded, the hitter may hit a salami (grand slam). This would give you four ribeyes or steaks (RBI's or runs batted in). You've been able to do this because the hitters before you are table setters, meaning they tend to get on base. Even if the bases aren't loaded, you could trot the bases slowly, having hit a tater (homerun). This will probably lead to a tea party on the mound, which is a coaching visit involving other players, usually infielders. The pitcher may be able to avoid this if a Ken Griffery jr. type outfielder can jump and catch the ball above the wall, robbing you of your tater. If he catches this in the very top of the web of the glove, he has caught an ice cream cone.

Of course, if a pitcher keeps it high in the zone, he may induce a lazy, easy to catch pop fly, or a can of corn. If the batter has just been called up to the majors and hits too many of these, he will only have a cup of coffee (meaning, he will spend very little time in the majors. . .just enough time to drink a cup of coffee). But maybe that batter will make the team for good next year, if he can prove himself in Grapefruit League play (spring training for the east coast team which takes place in Florida).

If all this food talk is giving you a headache, take an aspirin (a pitched ball to a slumping hitter - because the ball looks small). Perhaps next time, we'll move on to animal slang, mainly because I want to talk about worm-burners.