American English has been enriched by expressions derived from the game of baseball. Sometimes referred to as "America's pastime," baseball has especially affected the language of other competitive activities such as politics and business.
This is an alphabetical list of common English-language idioms based on baseball, excluding the extended metaphor referring to sex, and including illustrative examples for each entry.
See also the Glossary of baseball for the jargon of the game itself, as used by participants, fans, reporters, announcers, and analysts of the game.
Famous quotes containing the words derived and/or baseball:
“If all political power be derived only from Adam, and be to descend only to his successive heirs, by the ordinance of God and divine institution, this is a right antecedent and paramount to all government; and therefore the positive laws of men cannot determine that, which is itself the foundation of all law and government, and is to receive its rule only from the law of God and nature.”
—John Locke (1632–1704)
“Ethnic life in the United States has become a sort of contest like baseball in which the blacks are always the Chicago Cubs.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)