A-Z of Baseball Terms

Do you know your aces from your human rain delays? Your basket catches from your circus catches? Your moon shots from your dingers? If not, then Barry’s has you covered with our MLB guide to baseball terms. Everything from alleys to Uncle Charlie’s, bazookas to whiffs and more will be covered with this comprehensive A-Z baseball guide to our national pastime’s terms, lingo and slang.

Aboard: Used when someone is on a base.

Ace: The team’s best starting pitcher.

Alley (also known as gap): The area in between the outfielders.

Backdoor Slider: One of the most effective pitches in baseball. It appears like it would miss the plate entirely, but passes through the back corner of the plate.

Balk: When a pitcher has no intention of pitching, but pretends to do so, this is referred to as a ‘balk.’ When this happens (and the referee calls it), each runner is awarded a base.

Basket Catch:  When a fielder catches a ball with their glove near or on belt level.

Bazooka: A fielder who can throw well.

Can of Corn: An easy catch from a fielder.

Cheese: A good fastball.

Circus Catch: An extraordinary catch from a player.

Curveball: A type of pitch that when thrown causes the ball to unexpectedly swerve from its straight path.

Dead Pull Hitter: A right-handed batter who always hits the ball to the left or vice versa.

Dinger: Home Run.

Double: A hit that allows the batter to reach second base.

Extra Bases: Refers to hits where runners can reach more than one base.

Fastball: A fast pitch.

Fly Ball: Used when a batter hits a ball and it goes high in the air.

Foul Ball: Used when a batter hits a ball and it goes outside the foul lines.

Goose Egg: When a team fails to score any runs during the game.

Grand Slam: Used when the bases are loaded and the batter hits a home run whereby 4 runs are scored.

Heat: Pitches thrown with extra speed.

Home Plate: Starting position for a batter. Final base for a runner in order to score a home run.

Home Run: A hit, which allows a runner (or more) to reach home base.

Human Rain Delay: A batter who takes more than their designated time to get ready.

Infield: The area of the field inside the bases.

Infielder: Player who plays in the infield.

Inning: Time of play in which each team bats until three batters are out.

Juiced: Refers to loaded bases.

Knock: Hit.

Knuckle ball: A pitch thrown with no spin.

Leg Out: Used when a runner advances a base quickly.

Meat Ball: A pitch that is easy to hit.

Moon Shot: A home run derived from a high fly ball.

Murderer’s Row: A string of good batters in order.

No-No: Used when no hits have been made because of the pitcher’s good performance.

Outfield: Area outside of the infield towards the home run fence.

Outfielder: Player who plays in the outfield.

Phantom Tag: Used when a runner is called out when the defending team had never actually tagged them.

Pitcher’s Mound: A slight hill in the middle of in the infield where the pitchers stand when pitching.

Quality At Bat: A batter who is an quality all-rounder player no matter the batting situation.

Run: A point earned when a base runner safely makes it to home plate.

Slugger: A strong batter.

South Paw: A left-handed thrower.

Steal: Used when runners move to the next base without the batter hitting the ball.

Tag: Used to get a runner out by touching them with the ball.

Triple Play: A defensive play where three base runners are out from three quick throws.

Upper Decker: A home run hit onto the stadium top levels.

Uncle Charlie: Slang for curveball.

Visiting Team: The opposing team playing at another team’s home stadium.

Wheels: Used to refer a fast player.

Whiff: When a batter swings and misses.

Yakker: Slang for curveball.

Zip: A player who can throw hard.

And there you have it! A quick rundown to Major League Baseball’s terms. What do you think – are we missing anything? If so, get back to us by commenting below!

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5 thoughts on “A-Z of Baseball Terms

  1. Pingback: My Homepage
  2. Question. On the pitching statistics sheet for a collegiate summer league there 2 categorizes I have no idea what they mean. SO/X and BB/X. Any idea? Thank you in advance for you time.

    Tom

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