Cliches

Clichés

One meaning of the word cliché (klee-shay) is an overused expression. Nowhere other than in sports are you inundated with so many clichés.

Just picture yourself coming from a foreign country and you are in the process of learning the language. You turn on your TV and start to watch a baseball game. You hear the announcer say, “He took a good cut at that one.” Later on he says, “He hit that one squarely.” Try to explain that to your Indian friend.

Watching the pitcher you hear the following, he’s really throwing some heat, and he took something off that pitch, or he’s got good mechanics. Now I see my friend frantically flipping through his dictionary to try to decipher what’s being said.

As they talk about the teams, my friend tries to make some sense out of, they’ve got great team chemistry, and they’ve been on a roll, or they have a lot of weapons. Chemistry, roll, weapons - my friend has a big question mark on his face.

The losing team is described in the following manner, they’re on the ropes, this could get ugly, and a lot of the faithful are heading towards the exits.

How about when they describe the players – he’s being shopped around, he’s got a bad wheel, or he’s lost a step or two.

Watch any interview with a manager or coach and I’m sure you’ll hear some of the following:

They can’t look past these guys
They need to take one game at a time
They have to stay hungry
They have to play within themselves
The season is a marathon – not a sprint
They can’t look past these guys

After Friday night’s loss to the Red Sox, a Yankee player said "we had a chance to put them away and didn't do it. We let them off the hook."
"He needs to come up big." That’s what Joe Torre, manager of the New York Yankees, expected from his starting pitcher and he did come up big to beat the Red Sox giving rise to a new cliché, Yankees win the American League pennant.
My Indian friend is lagging behind trying to learn the meaning of all these clichés just like the Red Sox are trying to find a way to win a pennant for once.