It’s not exactly a novel, but The Dickson Baseball Dictionary is one of the best reads that I know. The author, Paul Dickson, defines just about every word and phrase, common and obscure, related to the most excellent game in the world. If you’re a baseball fan, it should be on your bookshelf.

I thought it would be fun to share a few of my favorites, including their origins. Naturally, the source material for most of them is the aforementioned tome of 900+ pages.

CAN OF CORN. When my three daughters were little, I used to take them to Padres games. At one game, an outfielder caught a fly ball with relative ease. “Can of corn,” I said, using one of my favorite expressions. My daughter Molly looked at me rather cross-eyed and exclaimed, “What?” I told her that it meant exactly what she’d just witnessed, a fielder easily catching a fly ball or popup. She absolutely loved the phrase and continued to invoke it throughout the rest of that game, and beyond.

Its likely origin has to do with small grocery stores in days of old, when shelves of products were stacked high to the ceiling. Grocers would use a long grabber to move items, such as cans of corn, off the shelf and catch them in their aprons. Can of corn is easily in my top five favorites.

Wee Willie Keeler: “Hit ’em where they ain’t.”

HIGH CHEESE. The word “cheese” is used to denote any kind of a fastball. High cheese is a fastball up and out of the strike zone.

FROZEN ROPE. A line drive hit really hard, low and straight, with no arc. One sports writer glorified it by saying, “You can almost see the icicles dripping off it.” A long-ago broadcaster said, “You can hang a week’s wash on it and not have to worry.” I think you get the picture.

TOOLS OF IGNORANCE. This seemingly derogatory phrase denotes a catcher’s equipment: mitt, chest protector, mask, etc. A former manager once said, “They call catching gear the tools of ignorance. They don’t say that because catchers are stupid. They say it because you’ve got to be an idiot to want to play there in the first place.”

Actually, the term is rather ironic. A catcher has to be highly intelligent and knowledgeable to handle an entire pitching staff, as well as to perform all of the tasks that the position demands.

TATER. A home run. Derived from “potato,” originally in the Negro leagues. A Red Sox player, George Scott, popularized it in the 1960s by calling all of his home runs taters.

DINGER. Also a home run. Think Crash Davis in Bull Durham. Likely derived from “humdinger,” meaning “an excellent action.”

Crash Davis (Kevin Costner) prepares to hit another dinger.

BALTIMORE CHOP. A batted ball that hits the ground near home plate and bounces high in the air, which allows the batter to reach first base safely. This one goes all the way back to the 1890s, when a Hall of Famer named Wee Willie Keeler of the (old) Baltimore Orioles perfected the art of chopping down on the ball and getting on base. He is also known for his hitting philosophy: “Hit ’em where they ain’t.”

YAKKER. A sharp-breaking curve ball. This is one of my frontline favorites. Apparently first used by a sports writer who noted that a pitcher had “…total command of the yakker.” Curiously, Hall of Famer Dennis Eckersley used the word to describe his fastball.

KEYSTONE. Second base. Different terms include “keystone corner,” “keystone cushion,” “keystone bag,” among others. A double play by the shortstop and second baseman is sometimes called a “keystone combination.” Its usage goes all the way back to 1906.

CHIN MUSIC. Another one of my favorites. This is a brushback pitch that whizzes dangerously close to a batter’s face. Regarding chin music, a sports writer in the 1970s noted that “Nolan Ryan played an entire medley of his favorite inside tunes.”

Nolan Ryan (c 1972) conducted plenty of chin music.

GREASEBALL. An illegal pitch. In days of yore, pitchers would doctor the baseball with hair tonic, petroleum jelly, lard, or any kind of sticky substance to make it spin erratically.

MOON SHOT. A home run that is hit a tremendous distance. Sports writers began using it liberally after the NASA Apollo missions to the moon.

MOLLY PUTZ. A name for a player who performs like crap on the field. Even a casual baseball fan has heard most of the previous words and phrases. But this is an obscure one. According to author/pitcher Jim Bouton, “A lot of managers say their players look like Molly Putz out there.”

There are countless words and phrases in the wonderful world of baseball. Maybe we’ll look at more of the obscure ones in a future post.