Twirls, hurls and souvenirs

We newspaper types try to avoid clichés like the plague — or, to be correct, as if they were the plague.

But one of the nation’s largest news organizations, The Associated Press, is off-base, so to speak.

In the 2015 edition of its stylebook, a bible for newspersons, it instructs those writing about baseball to “avoid hackneyed words and phrases, redundancies and exaggerations.”

Come on! Baseball and hackneyed words and phrases go together like an $8 beer and a $6 hotdog, or Cracker and Jack.

They are part of our nation’s heritage. If baseball writers and broadcasters quit using them, they could eventually fall from public use altogether.

The AP dictates that home runs are either just that, or homers — not “dingers, jacks or bombs.”

Does Dinger, the Rockies’ loveable mascot, want to be renamed Homer? Probably not.

Permit me to rebel and shout in print that home runs are also called “taters,” “round-trippers,” “circuit clouts,” “four-ply swats,” “four-masters” and “souvenirs.”

If all home runs are merely “home runs,” how would readers learn that some are “moon shots,” or “tape-measure jobs?”

If the bases can only be referred to as first, second or third, the “initial hassock,” the “keystone bag” and the “hot corner” could disappear from our vernacular. And what about home plate? May it never again be called “the dish?”

Innings are also “cantos” or “frames.” Pitchers not only pitch, they “twirl,” “hurl,” “toe the rubber” or “take the mound.” Some are “port-siders.” They throw “heat,” “gas’’ or even the players’ best pitch of all time, the “Linda Rondstadt” (“blewby-you”).

Errors should live forever as “boots,” “bobbles” or “miscues.”

The cliché can provide the perfect description for players, too. Those who seldom “go yard” (hit a homer) when batters are dubbed “banjo hitters.” But they wouldn’t be in “the bigs” if they couldn’t “flash leather” or “cover ground like a tarpaulin” when afield.

And consider this: If a single is always a single, how will we know if it actually was a “frozen rope,” “Texas Leaguer,” “dying quail” or “seeing-eye grounder?”

And think of the potential burden on headline writers. If the Rockies should win two games in one day, would the headline writer be barred from saying “Rox sweep twin-bill”? Let the AP experts try getting “Rockies win both games of double-header” into two columns.

You, the reader, are probably thinking there is really no danger of clichés not surviving. You figure they are protected by the First Amendment.

Don’t be so sure. Look what has happened to baseball nicknames. Good ones are rare these days. None can match the classic monikers such as “Tomato Face,” “Schnozz,” “The Gerbil,” “Three-Finger,” Puddin’ Head,” “Oil Can” or “Mudcat.”

Two reasons: Political correctness and endorsement money. Today’s players and their agents want lots of money from appearing in ads. Anyone called “Schnozz” or “Puddin’ Head” would have limited appeal to Madison Avenue

Real nicknames may be history. But let’s not concede the baseball cliché.

As the Columbia Journalism Review notes, compiling a stylebook is difficult. But so is getting people to follow it.

Let’s hope so. Dick Hilker of Arvada (dhilker529@aol.com) is a retired Denver suburban newspaper editor and columnist. His columns appear twice a month in The Denver Post.