Baseball for dummies (and forgetful Royals fans)

A can of corn. The tools of ignorance. Uncle Charlie.

Baseball can be a foreign language. And if you’ve been away from it for a while, you may be rusty. Or maybe you never knew that much to begin with. Either way, it has been 29 years since the Royals have been to the postseason, and now their feel-good story has countless new fans tuning in to catch the magic.

You know the essentials (don’t you?) — three strikes and you’re out, four balls and you walk, nine innings to a game (usually).

Still, before the boys in blue play the Baltimore Orioles on Friday in the seven-game ALCS series that will send the winner to the World Series, you just might want to brush up on a few baseball basics.

Five things to know

▪ Although it sounds like a disease, ALCS just stands for the American League Championship Series. The ALDS, which the Royals just won, is the American League Divisional Series.

▪ The Royals will begin the series in Oriole Park at Camden Yards, considered one of the most beautiful ballparks in all of baseball.

▪ Announcers will note that the Royals like to play “small ball.” That means the team typically doesn’t hit a lot of home runs and instead “manufactures” runs by stealing bases, bunting runners into scoring position and hitting sacrifice flies.

▪ The Orioles are playing well, despite losing two of their best players — third baseman Manny Machado to a knee injury and slugging first baseman Chris Davis to a 25-game suspension for using Adderall.

▪ The Orioles have won the World Series three times, and the Royals have won it once.

A few more facts about …

Pitching

▪ Royals pitcher Yordano Ventura tops 100 mph with his fastball. So-called “off speed” pitches, which are typically 10 to 20 mph slower, include curve balls, sliders, fork balls, split-fingers, change ups and knuckle balls.

▪ A pitcher is said to have a “quality start” if he throws at least six innings and allows no more than three runs.

▪ A team’s pitching staff consists of starters and relievers. A group of relievers is known as a bullpen, and the Royals have one of baseball’s best. If the Royals have the lead entering the seventh inning, they usually win.

▪ If a pitcher “balks,” base runners are awarded the next base. That’s when a pitcher pretends to pitch without actually throwing the ball.

Hitting

▪ A great batting average is over .300, which means a player is getting a hit about every third time. In 1980 the Royals’ George Brett flirted with .400. The future Hall of Famer finished at .390 for the season.

▪ Many experts think batting averages are overrated. A better indicator, they say, is OBP, or on-base percentage, measuring the number of times a player gets on base via a hit, a walk or being hit by a pitch. A batter’s slugging percentage is an indication of his power. It is computed by taking his total bases divided by the number of at-bats.

▪ A right-handed batter is said to “pull” the ball if he hits it to the left side of the field. He hits to the “opposite field” if he sends the ball to the right side. Reverse that for a left-handed hitter.

▪ If a batter is hit by a pitch, he is awarded first base.

▪ You may have heard announcers talking about a “walk-off win.” That’s when a base runner scores the winning run in the bottom half of the ninth inning or later. The batter who drove in that run doesn’t need to run the bases and can simply walk off the field.

Base running

▪ Players can steal a base if they can run from one base to the next before the catcher can throw them out. Usually only fast players do this, such as Royals outfielder Jarrod Dyson, whose slogan is “That’s what speed do.” But you don’t have to be speedy to steal a base. In Sunday’s game, even lumbering Billy Butler of the Royals stole a base when the pitcher let him get too big of a lead off of first.

▪ You don’t have to get a hit to score a run. Example: the sacrifice fly. If a player is on third base with fewer than two outs, he can “tag up” (by touching third base) on a caught fly ball and try to race home before being thrown out.

▪ If a runner is hit by a batted ball, he is out.

▪ If a runner interferes with an infielder, he is out.

▪ If a batted ball bounces over a fence, it’s declared a “ground rule double.” The batter must stop at second base, and any base runners may advance only two bases.

Lingo

There are many old-fashioned baseball terms. For instance, a lazy fly is called a “can of corn.” Here’s one possible explanation, according to the “New Dickson Baseball Dictionary.” The phrase, first used in 1896, makes reference to an old practice where a grocer would use a stick to tip a can of vegetables, such as corn, off a high shelf and then catch it.

A curve that buckles a batter’s legs is called “Uncle Charlie,” or a “yakker. “ A fastball is sometimes called a “heater.” And a catcher’s equipment is called “the tools of ignorance” because only a fool would play a position hazardous enough to require so much protective equipment, says baseball-reference.com.

There you go, fans. The Royals have surprised plenty of people on the field. Maybe now you can surprise at least a few people at your next watch party.

Don’t say we never gave you anything.

This story was originally published October 9, 2014 at 11:55 AM with the headline "Baseball for dummies (and forgetful Royals fans)."