Here’s a great way to watch the All-Star Game next week: with an autographed copy of Jesse Goldberg-Strassler’s best-seller: The Baseball Thesaurus.
All-Star Game is the very first entry in The Baseball Thesaurus:
n. Midsummer Classic (or midsummer classic), showcase of stars, Summer Classic; summer showcase; SPANISH juego de estrella
Baseball is a sport with its own lingo — a colorful patois that’s developed over the years and millions of games. In The Baseball Thesaurus, a fascinating compendium of baseball terms, Jesse Goldberg-Strassler — broadcaster, storyteller, talker, voice — explains what baseball terms mean and how they came to be. Whether it’s Red Barber talking about the pea patch or Ernie Harwell discussing no-hitters, the language of America’s Pastime is brilliantly captured by Goldberg-Strassler. Sluggers deposit a Ballantine Blast in the nosebleeds. The top of the lineup sets the table for the heart of the order. Corner infielders guard the line. A lumberjack with a bad wheel staggers down the line while a glovesman flashes leather.
Who should read The Baseball Thesaurus? It’s for the media linguist whose job relies upon baseball jargon, the radio listener, the blog reader, the talk-show caller, the minor-league diehard, the Strat-O-Matic connoisseur, the seventh-inning stretcher, the stereotype breaker, the crank, the postgame fireworks enthusiast, the t-ball coach, the seamhead, the baseball Annie, the hot-stove moper, the bandwagoner, the purist, the casual rooter who enjoys a quick tidbit and has no need to attend both games of a doubleheader, and the fan who takes pride in scoring the game and teaching the tradition to others.
We’re now offering autographed copies of The Baseball Thesaurus ordered directly from the August Publications website. (Sorry, we can’t help you if you order from Amazon or another online source.) We’re very proud of how this book turned out; we think you’ll find it to be a most enjoyable read.
Image: Members of the 1937 All-Star Game played on July 7 in Washington, D.C. Left to right: Lou Gehrig, Joe Cronin, Bill Dickey, Joe DiMaggio, Charlie Gehringer, Jimmie Foxx, and Hank Greenberg. (Courtesy Library of Congress, LC-DIG-hec-22989.)
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