Vocabulary Lessons

You won't find these words in the program, but we still keep score

Welcome to Warning Track Power, a weekly newsletter of baseball stories and analysis grounded in front office and scouting experiences and the personalities encountered along the way.

My kids and I went to our first game of the season last week. The getaway day tilt between the Diamondbacks and the Padres started at 1:10 pm. Considering that the average time of game this season is significantly less than it’s been since I became a parent, I felt good about our chances of lasting longer than both teams’ starting pitchers.

With Zac Gallen facing off against Yu Darvish, there was at least some competition. Last year, those two hurlers combined for 24 starts of seven innings pitched or more. It was early in the season, though, and Darvish was still building up after being underused in the WBC.

While curious as to how the pitch clock would impact the players, I was also interested in seeing how it could improve the engagement of two young fans. Well, we didn’t have to wait long to see how the players felt.

In the bottom of the first, with two outs and nobody on, Manny Machado — the player my kids were most excited to see — requested time prior to a 3-2 delivery as the pitch clocked reached the critical :08 mark. Home plate umpire Ron Kulpa ruled that Machado was in violation of the new rule, and strike three was called. At bat over. Inning over.

And Manny’s day over.

In the argument that ensued, there was an ejection. Naturally, my daughter had questions.

In early March, on Opening Day of the 8U girls softball season, my daughter learned a new word. I’ve come to accept that her vocabulary will grow. Many of her first-grade classmates have older siblings, and older siblings know things.

Lately, I’ve been trying to recall the stewards of my informal education. Much of this knowledge came via my best friend Jason, who had an older sister and at least five older boys as neighbors.

There was no way that dirty jokes, bewildering ditties, and myriad uses of the F-word weren’t finding their way to me. It was the ’80s after all, and I was a beneficiary of a trickle-down economy of words.

There’s also plenty for kids — young, naive, or otherwise — to learn around a baseball field. New teammates offer fresh perspectives, perhaps not heard before from classmates or close friends. My sister learned a special word in the Memorial Stadium bleachers where enthusiastic Orioles fans greeted Yankees left fielder Rickey Henderson by telling him how they truly felt.

Now I’m not saying it’s a Title IX issue, but let’s not limit this conversation to baseball only.

With the 8U girls facing live pitching for the first time ever, some of the swings have been questionable. Plate discipline is usually not a strength of seven-year-olds. On the flip side, strike-throwing is also a work in progress. The combination of the two builds character, I suppose.

On one specific two-strike offering, a teammate of my daughter swung, missed, and was also hit by the very pitch that struck her out.

Let me make it clear: This is nothing to be ashamed of. It happened just last week to a two-time All-Star and two-time World Series champion. You can see Lance Lynn strike out Joc Pederson on a nasty cutter by clicking here. Hey, sometimes you commit to the fastball and get something else.

On the softball field, though, this play created some confusion. The umpire quietly called the batter out and sent her back to the dugout. But it hit her! Yes, it did. Mostly because she didn’t hit it first.

While a couple protests from adults continued, the answer was simple: She had swung. But I didn’t need to weigh in. I’ve come to appreciate that most opinions, in life and especially around youth sports, are best kept to oneself.

To tie a bow on the entire at bat, one person concluded: “That’s BS!”

There are times when my daughter is five feet away from me, and she doesn’t hear whatever I’ve told her — What do you want for breakfast? Get ready for bed. Please stop antagonizing your brother. — but if someone says something that registers as potentially profane from 500 yards away, she not only hears it, she retains it. She listens.

During the drive home after the game: “Dad, what’s BS?”

She really has a preternatural sense for sniffing out things she knows weren’t for her ears, words she knows she shouldn’t be hearing.

Well, it’s BS that the best Southwest seat assignment I can get six seconds after the check-in window opens is B27, but I don’t think that’s what my daughter was asking. So I told her the truth. She already knew the magic word in the equation anyway, and she has a healthy respect for it. Just yesterday, she reported to me that a classmate had used “the S-word” during recess. “It’s inappropriate,” she continued.

I also let her know — in different words — that it would be BS to report such language to the teacher.

When Machado was ejected after taking issue with the automatic strike called against him, I had mistakenly thought that it was manager Bob Melvin who had gotten tossed. My daughter, naturally, wanted to know why he was thrown out.

I explained that he had probably said something disrespectful to the umpire, like the unabbreviated version of the word that she heard that one time at softball. She smirked. Her rope is probably a lot shorter than Kulpa’s. That kid on the playground wouldn’t stand a chance if my daughter was calling balls and strikes. (For the record, it turns out Machado’s invective exceeded everyday manure.)

Immediately following the ejection, my kids decided it was time to visit the concessions. Top of the second — that’s the snack frame, right?

The mission — to acquire a soft pretzel and popcorn — was as much about research to me as it was fulfilling a promise of ballpark food to my kids.

Yesterday, MLB announced that through play on Wednesday, the average nine-inning game time in 2023 was 2:37. Last year, through the same number of games, it was 3:07. Everyone around baseball had been expecting that type of impact from the pitch clock. If you’ve watched even part of a game this season, you’ve likely noticed the quickened tempo of the pitchers and hitters.

In March, I asked a few people employed by Major League teams if there was any concern that shorter games would result in decreased revenues at the concessions. No one was overly worried, and the impact on in-game sales was expected to be “minimal.” Still, I wonder what a half-hour 81 times will do to the bottom line.

Except for the — shall we say — thirstiest in attendance, I don’t think that shorter games will motivate fans to buy more earlier in the game or eat as if they’re on a clock.

My kids, on the other hand, may have been impervious to quicker games. They’ve still yet to be in the stadium when the final out is recorded, so their purchasing desires — No, you can’t have M&Ms. Yes, I’ll get you a hot dog. Fine, here are the M&Ms, just share them with your sister. — weren’t affected by the game’s newfound rhythm.

I’ll add that the game we attended was not particular crisp. Nevertheless, the teams combined for 14 runs over nine innings, and the game was played in an efficient 2:55. The pitch clock helped a game that felt like it should have taken three-and-a-half hours wrap up in a tidy, made-for-TV window.

And I was grateful that my kids didn’t have to endure minute-long gaps between pitches. By the middle innings, my daughter was thinking complete game. My son, who was born during the five-and-dive era of starting pitching, was willing to let the bullpen take over at the first sign of fatigue.

On this day, I had been thrust into the role of bench coach, contemplating late-inning matchups and bullpen options if once the starter lost it. Our All-Star bench coach, Mrs. WTP, had other obligations that prevented her from joining us.

Parenting, really, is a lot like managing a baseball game; if you wait too long to go to the pen, there’s no hiding from the ensuing meltdown.

Still, for the first time ever, my kids and I stood together — among 34,000 other fans — and sang “Take Me Out To The Ball Game” during the Seventh Inning Stretch.

My son boldly belted out:

Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack

I don’t care if I never get that

Well, I’ve heard worse at a game.

In the eighth inning, it all unraveled for the Padres. The D-backs scored four times to take a three-run lead. We remained one step ahead of the home team. After a scoreless bottom of the eighth, we made our exit.

Both starting pitchers and the Padres best player had hit the showers long ago. For Machado, it had been one, two, three strikes you’re out.

For us, we had a winning day at the ballpark even if it didn’t go the home team’s way.

No BS.

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