Words That Sportswriters Use That Make Me Cringe

At least he wasn't down with a groin

 

And imagine if a guy gets kicked or punched in a certain region near the groin.

 

How about donnybrook?

Also... not a word but I despise when writers give kids nicknames... like Alex 'A-Train' Smith. Or Tom 'Tank' Williams.

 

Not by sportswriters, but a misused sports term is won for any place other than first.

I just read "Héctor Hometown won third place in the district spelling bee."

There's only one winner, everyone else is a finisher.

 

Agree.

You know what's worse? A writer trying to use such a construction who doesn't realize that it sounds - not just reads - ridiculous unless it's a multisyllabic nickname.

Raider Nation/Tar Heel Nation ... whatever. At least it has some rhythm.
Ram Nation ... are you kidding me?

 

Cagers instead of basketball players.
(WTF. When did they ever play in a cage?)

Yellow hanky instead of penalty flag.
(Seriously. I've actually seen this written.)

Netters instead of tennis players.
(Almost as dumb as Cagers.)

Thinclad instead of track athlete
Another old, out-dated shit term still used by some

Links instead of golf or golf course.
(This is fine if it's the British Open. Otherwise, no.)

Tilt instead of game.
(I thought pinball machines did this.)

 

Haha, especially the last one. Happened to me many times during the long hours I spent playing pinball in college.

 

Surely that didn’t make it to print, right?

 

The best team doesn’t always win. Who cares? I’m sure the team that wins in that scenario doesn’t care.

 

In the very early days of the game, wire mesh or string-netting cages were put up around basketball courts. I have read varying reasons, from the netting serving to keep the ball in play (and players could bounce passes off of it) to protecting spectators from players going after loose balls.

When I started my career in the late 1970s, my sports editor wrote a high school game-prediction column under the pen name "Clyde Cager." It made "Leonard's Losers" look refined and upscale.

 

Well …

In its early days, basketball was not a sport for the faint of heart. Fights were commonplace, fans lobbed produce onto the court, and sometimes, much like in baseball, kept the Spalding as a souvenir when it bounded into the crowd. In those days, when the rules still stated that the player who got to an out-of-bounds ball first would retain possession, the ensuing result was lots of diving into the spectators and other slowdowns in play.

Hence, a solution was necessary. Enter: a cage.

The first instance of a caged basketball game occurred in Trenton, N.J. in 1896, In the following decades, cages would become ubiquitous, and the term “cagers” synonymous with basketball players. The rough-and-tumble era of cagers, in which professionals often returned home to their wives and girlfriends with serious rope burns, endeared basketball in the hearts and minds of many Americans.​

Cagers Basketball - Early Basketball Stories

 

Well how about that. Even an old fart like me can learn something. Never knew any of that. Still hate the fucking term about as much as Thinclads and Netters. Get that shit out of print.