The language of sports
By FAITH MOLDAN
Bigfork Eagle
I love words in any language. They're just fun.
It was an easy decision for me to combine my love of words, language, art and sports when I chose my career. Sports, my area of interest and coverage at the Eagle, has a language all its own. And sometimes it gets confusing if you're not fluent in baseball, basketball, hockey or whatever it may be.
I try my best every week to piece together and combine the English language and sports, but I still get questioned almost weekly by coworkers who don't speak sports as to what I mean in some articles. I can understand their confusion when it comes to referencing goaltending in a basketball article. They might mistake it for a goaltender in hockey or goalkeeper in soccer. Take for instance the baseball terms balk and walk. For a layperson they could be easily confused. At least I know that my coworkers know what the Super Bowl is and can understand some basic rules to different sports, but I do occasionally get some blank stares when I start going off on a sports tangent.
It drives me up the wall when my dear, sweet mother tells me that the Minnesota Twins scored four points in the eighth inning and won the game because the other team didn't score any points the rest of the game. I have to constantly remind her that baseball teams do not score points, instead score runs.
"It's runs batted in, mom. Not points batted in," I always tell her. "Hence the abbreviation RBI."
I remember one discussion in my college newsroom with our copyeditor. She insisted that I use a different word in my volleyball article or prove to me the definition of libero. I searched the Associated Press Stylebook up and down as well as the large dictionary in our office and could not find the word in either.
"I'm not making it up. I swear!" I told her. "The libero is basically a defensive specialist that can substitute in . . ." and that's when she cut me off and told me to use defensive specialist instead. I gave her an unhappy look and went back to my desk to change my article. Libero rolls off the tongue so much better.
It often times feels like to me that I am back in introduction to Spanish, learning the alphabet, numbers, animals, colors, food and just starting to learn how to conjugate verbs. Think of how many positions each sport has and the fact that each sport has different names for those positions. Then there are all the rules and the different words and phrases used to explain those rules and the penalties for breaking them. The different lines and locations on the field, court or course just add more possibilities for confusion. It's making my head spin a little.
It seems like a no-brainer to big sports fans like myself. Why doesn't everyone understand what we're talking about? It's so simple. Who doesn't know what a bye is during a tournament or playoffs? I have to admit though, that I am still learning on the job. Having never played soccer or football some of the terms and phrases used in those sports still confuse me at times. Thank goodness my oldest brother was always chattering about golf, otherwise I'd be lost when I visited Eagle Bend Golf Course. I still call him when I have questions about the game.
Maybe by the end of my time here in Bigfork I'll be completely fluent and able to talk my way into a cushy sportswriter job elsewhere with other people who speak sports fluently.