The Vernacular of Sports

In advance, I would like to apologize for the amount of profanity that you’re about to encounter. It was unavoidable.

When watching baseball, especially when watching a Red Sox game, it becomes clear that a certain language is adopted that one might otherwise not use in a social situation. Certain words become commonplace and are sprinkled throughout a conversation with an exuberance that is not seen outside of conversations with sailors or surly gentleman in more unrefined watering holes.

For instance, today the Red Sox opened their season with a friendly game played against the Detroit Tigers. Over the course of the game, it developed that it was turning into a pitcher’s duel; with Verlander and Lester exchanging volleys with a free-spirited competitiveness that defines baseball.

But as the Red Sox fell behind by first one and then two runs, my fellows and I exchanged a boisterous interchange of wordsmithing:

“Dude! What the fuck! Dude!”

“Goddamn it! God….damn….it.”

Whereupon, the Red Sox then attempted to put away the persistent Tigers with two runs of their own in the top of the ninth. Whereupon, when the Tigers went to bat at the bottom of the ninth, our tensions were, perhaps, higher than they were in previous innings.

“Aceves, you son of a bitch, don’t you fuck this up.”

HE HIT HIM WITH THE FUCKING BALL AND LOADED THE FUCKING BASES! ACEVES! YOU…”

At which point, the air hummed with the most adversarial, adjective-laden, incandescent, invective that we could find at our disposal.

Such is the passion that baseball inspires in its fans; truly a sport for young gentleman and an indicator of our National Character.

Burn in Hell, Aceves.

Dylan Charles