Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2018 September 9

= September 9 =

Inside baseball
I had in mind that the term "inside baseball" had to do with throwing inside. The implications, I thought, were that it's something that's within the rules, but close to the edge (it's legal to intentionally throw an inside pitch, but illegal to intentionally throw at the batter), and where you're willing to get the other side angry in order to accomplish your goals.

But our article inside baseball (metaphor), and likewise the Wiktionary article, have quite a different understanding.

Did I just make my version up, or is it an acception in actual use somewhere? People seemed to understand it. --Trovatore (talk) 06:31, 9 September 2018 (UTC)


 * It can mean several different things. An inside pitch ("an inside baseball" is also possible, though rare) is one that passes close to the batter so that it is more difficult for him to swing his bat. —Stephen (talk) 07:45, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
 * No, I mean metaphorically. A batter doesn't need to swing the bat on an inside pitch; if he recognizes it in time, it's just a ball, which is usually to his advantage.
 * But it's intimidating, because it's close to hitting the batter. As I say, legal, but hard to distinguish from something illegal (deliberately aiming at the batter), and aggressive.
 * So I thought that was what "inside baseball" meant as a metaphor. Like "hardball", but less cliched, and with some subtly different nuances. --Trovatore (talk) 09:36, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I suppose I might understand your statement in context, but I would still recognize it as a non-standard (so to speak) use of the metaphor (which I have always thought of as 'something people don't (shouldn't) really care about because it is too obscure/technical/irrelevant', etc. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:51, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
 * There are all kinds of synonyms for inside pitches (brushback, duster, beanball, purpose pitch) but "inside baseball" is not on the list. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:50, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
 * The phrase that Trovatore is looking for is "inside pitching"; the phrase "inside baseball" has always been used only to mean "insider knowledge", i.e. wonkery. -- Jayron 32 01:38, 10 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Checking references in newspapers.com (a pay site), the earliest I'm seeing is in the 1890s, in reference to the Orioles style of play. It eventually became metaphoric, and what used to be called inside baseball tends nowadays to be called small ball, or manufacturing runs. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:46, 10 September 2018 (UTC)
 * WHAAOE: Small ball (baseball). shoy (reactions) 17:40, 10 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Also, the kind of "inside baseball" Bugs is talking about is at Inside baseball (strategy). -- Jayron 32 18:06, 10 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Inside pitching is a useless article when we already have brushback pitch, but it also scans oddly to me. It should be "pitching inside". Matt Deres (talk) 18:05, 10 September 2018 (UTC)