Testy Copy Editors
http://www.testycopyeditors.org/phpBB3/

More baseball lingo
http://www.testycopyeditors.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2412
Page 1 of 1

Author:  ADKbrown [ Sat Oct 18, 2003 5:20 pm ]
Post subject:  More baseball lingo

BOSTON GLOBE: Grady Little is a good man. His players respect him and will go to the mattresses for him.<p>*Is that a joke or a mistake?*

Author:  jjmoney62 [ Sat Oct 18, 2003 5:47 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: More baseball lingo

"He's a nice guy. He'll probably finish last."<p>at least until he learns how to handle pitchers.

Author:  tim [ Sat Oct 18, 2003 6:00 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: More baseball lingo

<blockquote><font size="1" face="TImes, TimesNR, serif">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by ADKbrown:
BOSTON GLOBE: Grady Little is a good man. His players respect him and will go to the mattresses for him.<p>*Is that a joke or a mistake?*<hr></blockquote><p>I'm assuming since Bob Ryan wrote this that it's intended to be a cute twist on a tired phrase often said about managers. Ryan's known for this sort of thing, among others. <p>To go to the mattresses is mafia terminology for going into hiding. Of course, it's so obscure that few people will get it. I had to search to find out what it meant.

Author:  thmrit [ Sat Oct 18, 2003 6:39 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: More baseball lingo

"Go to the mattresses" obscure? Then I suppose saying: "It's not personal, Sonny. It's just business." would be baffling.
I was going to go with: "Realizing the importance of the case, my men are rounding up twice the usual number of suspects." but i got scared.

Author:  jjmoney62 [ Sat Oct 18, 2003 8:59 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: More baseball lingo

"It bothers me when people, all they can remember, is the last game," Little said. <p>**When the "last game" is Game 7 vs. the Yankees, the one that decides the pennant -- and didn't need to be the last game of the season -- then, yeah, it's going to stick in the mind a while.**

Author:  ADKbrown [ Mon Oct 20, 2003 10:44 am ]
Post subject:  Re: More baseball lingo

<blockquote><font size="1" face="TImes, TimesNR, serif">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by thomrit:
"Go to the mattresses" obscure? Then I suppose saying: "It's not personal, Sonny. It's just business." would be baffling.
I was going to go with: "Realizing the importance of the case, my men are rounding up twice the usual number of suspects." but i got scared.
<hr></blockquote><p>What is obscure is the meaning of your post.

Author:  ADKbrown [ Mon Oct 20, 2003 10:46 am ]
Post subject:  Re: More baseball lingo

<blockquote><font size="1" face="TImes, TimesNR, serif">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by jjmoney62:
"It bothers me when people, all they can remember, is the last game," Little said. <p>**When the "last game" is Game 7 vs. the Yankees, the one that decides the pennant -- and didn't need to be the last game of the season -- then, yeah, it's going to stick in the mind a while.**<hr></blockquote><p>If you do a google search for "Grady Little" and "idiot" you come up with 18 pages of hits (and counting).

Author:  Finn DeSiecle [ Tue Oct 21, 2003 3:36 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: More baseball lingo

<blockquote><font size="1" face="TImes, TimesNR, serif">quote:</font><hr>To go to the mattresses is mafia terminology for going into hiding. Of course, it's so obscure that few people will get it. I had to search to find out what it meant.<hr></blockquote>
If I remember right (though my source was Puzo's The Godfather, not anything factual), there was more to it than that.<p>In the novel, when a major war was about to break out between Mafia families, the front-line guys of a family went out, rented empty apartments in nondescript places, and filled the floors with mattresses for the combatants so they'd have a place to sleep. The apartments were "hidden," true, but the idea was that by being hidden, they'd be a front-line base of operations protected from the other families -- the "trenches."<p>So to me, the figure of speech means that Little's team will fight for him under uncomfortable conditions for as long as it takes.

Page 1 of 1 All times are UTC - 5 hours
Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Group
http://www.phpbb.com/