The "Natinal" Pastime

The team off to the worst start (3-10) in Major League Baseball also employs a vendor with the worst spelling habits.

The Washington Nationals use Majestic Athletic uniforms and, as part of the deal, they get Majestic's crackerjack copy desk too. Nationals players Adam Dunn and Ryan Zimmerman played three innings of a game last week wearing home jerseys that read Natinals.

It took a few days, but Majestik officials finally got around to apologizing.

Uniform typos aren't uncommon, unfortunately. Joe Carter of Toronto (below) was an earlier, famous example. And it took him six innings to figure it out, according to Paul Lukas, who compiled a nice list of jersey injustice two years ago.

By the way, for those of you keeping count, the Nationals lost the Typo Game in extra innings, 3-2. Zimmerman was 2-5 and Dunn 0-3.

Batter up

The first month of the 2008 Major League Baseball season is nearly in the bag, and that calls for some reflection. I was driving somewhere this weekend, listening to the Giants' game, when my wife made an insightful remark (not unusual). Why, she asked, do they say he "flied out" when a ballplayer hits a fly ball that is caught by a fielder? Shouldn't it be flew out? Good question. Freedictionary.com doesn't even mention it, instead defining "to fly out" as

To rush out. To burst into a passion.

Occasionally, you'll hear a broadcaster use "flew out," but not often. It's all the more surprising as it's common to hear a broadcaster describe a long home run by saying "that ball just flew out of here!" (We're not hearing this too frequently this season with the Giants, but that's another story).
The other faux pas that all broadcasters make is the use of the acronym for runs batted in (RBI). "A-Rod has three RBIs today," a broadcaster might say. In fact, the plural needs to be RBI (runs batted in). And then you'll hear newbies exclaim "It's gone! A grand slam home run!" Usually, their more experienced microphone partners will take them aside and gently remind them that a grand slam by definition is a home run.
Such are the things I ponder when my team is forecast to lose 100 games this season.