up = ahead / x < 1 = more than you'd think

My boyfriend: "So, you like the Sox for tonight?"
Me: *looks down at his feet*

In sports, when you say "up," you mean "ahead" or "leading" or "having a higher score." They use the term "up" because it's so short and perky (LIKE ME!), not because it means that anything has gone into the air. Maybe the ball, but that's not what they mean.
**THEORY: I wonder whether syllables are in high demand when discussing sports, so that you don't waste time using longer words when shorter ones will suffice, meaning that you miss fewer important activities. Let's keep an eye on that.**

Ortiz is having a fantastic World Series. Adults and small children alike are all in awe of him (credit: my Facebook feed). That's what I know for sure.
I'm going to give you some more, probably correct information. He's a male (a little light profiling: he plays on a professional baseball team) and possibly Hispanic (a little light profiling: his last name). He plays for - wait for it! - either the Cardinals or the Sox. So there, sports world. This ain't so hard.

The way that we know that he's doing well is that his batting average is high. Adorably, people in sports consider numbers less than 1 to be high.
**free advice: There are SO MANY numbers! Numbers are like words, only when I say the possibilities are infinite, you may take me literally. Please consider using numbers commensurate with the point you are trying to make.**

Baseball aficionados would like you to think that the minuscule number situation is a statistical one. I have no idea what to tell you about that because, while highly intelligent in other ways, I do not have a mind for statistics. Anyone who sat next to me in STATS 280 in college can attest. That class was nicknamed "STATS 2 EASY" because it was a joke...to everyone but me.

Regardless, I *do* understand percentages. If they're going to use numbers below 1, it had darn well better be because you're planning to turn it into a percentage. .75 doesn't sound nearly as good as 75%. Although, to be fair, even in percentages, 75% is still a "C." This might be my opening to make a joke about athletes and school grades, but on second thought, that's probably not very nice. A "C" is fine, I guess, sure, if that's what you're going for. But is it THE BEST GRADE EVER?

In baseball, apparently so. Ortiz is the honors student of sports right now. Kudos, sir!

win, lose, draw

So, a few days ago I said I didn't like a guy and then apparently I jinxed him.
(Peavy, I'm sorry. For the record, I only said that thing about you because my manager had been feeding me lines for flirting with my boyfriend. I actually couldn't pick you out of a lineup. Now you can go take that information and do better next time, OK?)

In other news, I have learned that when you have a tied game in baseball, they don't let it end that way. They go into overtime, which in baseball is called "extra innings." Each team tries and tries and tries until finally one of them wins. Extra points for determination!

I learned what it was called because I asked the question. You see, Game 3 of the World Series was tied the one time I checked the score. My awareness of a score always strikes me as earth-shattering enough that it's probably cemented right then and there, as if the Gods of Sports saw me coming and decreed that No More Time Shall Pass.

Tied games are particularly tough for people who don't like sports because it means that the people you love who care are probably pissed off (a tie doesn't make ANYONE happy, no matter how many times I point out that it's kind of like we all learned how to get along) and also...and this is noticeably worse...because the game may CONTINUE LONG PAST ITS SCHEDULED TIME.

No one watches TV on a schedule anymore, so this is not quite as upsetting as it was back in the day when my shows would get preempted because SOME GUY didn't perform quite as well as, let's face it, he should have, and now I don't get to watch Mad About You tonight.
But still, it takes longer.

Speaking of performance, why is it referred to as "performance anxiety" in both sports and sex, but as "stage fright" in other performance-based scenarios? This is an excellent case of sports using words poorly. A sport is not technically a "performance," nor is (done correctly) sex. That seems odd and kind of backwards. There are numerous other cases of words being used wrong in sports but if I listed them all here I'd have nothing to talk about later. We wouldn't want that.


UPDATE: The Cardinals won that game. Game 3. So that means they were winning, 2-1, at that juncture. At some point we will discuss when they play where and why. I just have to research this, first, because from where I sit it seems somewhat arbitrary.


UPDATE THE SECOND: The Red Sox won Game 4. I thought I should include that in case you were getting your World Series update news from me, which of course you are. Which means that they ARE NOW TIED! 
Boom. 
Shout-out to the Sox for allowing me to wrap up this post in a nice little tie-related bow.

let's make this a thing

So, two of the people who noticed my Facebook summation of Things I Know In Sports thought I should do this sort of a write-up regularly. One of those people was my boyfriend, but the takeaway here is that ONE OF THEM WASN'T. There's so much sports knowledge in the world, and it's about time that we hear about what's happening from people who don't have a clue. I'm that people.

Right now (ish, not "right now this minute," please stop being so literal) the World Series is on.
St. Louis has the Cardinals, who are called "the Cards" if you know what you're talking about, and Boston has the Red Sox, who are, I'm not sure...called...maybe (?) The Sox but there's another Sox team and I'm not quite sure which one locked in that nickname. This is only part of why sports is so hard for some people to understand.

**free advice: NAME YOUR TEAMS DIFFERENT NAMES. This goes for you, too, hockey. There are so many words in the world, you guys. If you don't know what they are, you can talk to me.**

This World Series is the most important event in baseball, where the people who won one side of things play the people who won the other side of things. It's like the Superbowl for baseball, except it takes place over the course of maybe a week and no one throws any parties and there are no commercials beyond the regular ones.

**showcase idea: WORLD SERIES COMMERCIALS! Let's get on this, folks!**

Unlike the Superbowl, which is just one game, the World Series is a Series of games from around the World. Hee, hee...I'm kidding about that last part. I think it's just from this country. Pretty sure. Anyway, best of seven. Which means the first person to win four games wins. If you don't like sports, this means you're rooting for someone to win four in a row so it can be over faster. If you DO like sports, this means you want to see your favorite team start to win and then not so much and then come back at the end to win Game 7, because that way you get to watch more sports and also it means you get to root for the underdog for at least a little while, which is the point of sports.

Speaking of The Point Of Sports, it is this: to feel as if you've come from behind.
"Underdog" is a term used for the person or team who is less good than the better team. I'm not sure whether other countries want to root for the underdog. I guess if you're England or Rome, you probably want to root for the team that was all set to win the whole damn thing and then lost miserably but still has good merchandising and is popular. If you're America, you want to root for the people who started from nothing and overcame the team with the best merchandising. It's ALWAYS better to come from behind and win than come from ahead and lose. Technically, this is true in all venues, not just sports, but sports is the place where people go to be open about this goal (or lack of a goal).

What I think we should all remember, then, is that losing is a really good long-term plan, because it means you are all set to overcome, eventually. Theoretically. Maybe. And, like sports, the longer you go without winning, the more rabid your fanbase will become.

(Sorry. That last part's not technically true, unless your fanbase is your mom.)

Unrelated: I am a little nervous about Jake Peavy starting tonight for the Sox. But don't tell HIM that. I wouldn't want him to be uncomfortable.

...and that's all, folks!

The University of Oregon Ducks are a football team, and their only real rival is Alabama, but they don't get to play them unless they go to the nationals (?) and the only team in their half (?) of the league (?) that they are worried about is Stanford, but that would make you think they would be second-best when in point of fact they are currently ranked third because Florida State beat Clemson, and this is college ball, not professional which is called the NFL and Boston and St. Louis are playing the second game of the World Series and Boston won first but right now the Cardinals are winning except that just changed which tells me that the bruised ribs are not so bad and Chicago won the Stanley cup recently, Boston was robbed, 17 seconds, and there are two hockey teams that are both called the Hawks and Martina Navratilova is a lesbian which no one used to know and that other guy has a super bad temper and sometimes threw his racket, and the Red Sox are saying to "fear the beard" which even I know they stole that from Brian Wilson, who is both a beach boy and also an injured pitcher who is playing in Albuquerque and being sort of a dick to his fans who are fans of the Isotopes but used to be the Dukes and are a feeder (?) team for the Dodgers who were at one point in LA but may have changed. 

(whew) There's all my sports knowledge. I thought I should share in case you didn't know as much as I do.