The Baseball Pain Glossary: Fan-Invented Terms for Surviving the Game

The Baseball Pain Glossary

The Glossary

BASERUNNING DUMBASSERY

When a runner decides they are the second coming of Rickey Henderson and gets hosed by 10 feet. You scream “WHAT THE F— WAS THAT?!” before realizing: oh. It was a TOOTBLAN.

The fielder had the ball. They had the throw. They just… didn’t execute any of it. Ball sails into the dugout, runner trots home, you question why you love this stupid sport.

Bases juiced, nobody out. Hope in the air. And then: strikeout, pop-up, groundout. No runs. No life. No joy. Just a text chain full of “NOBLETIGER” and curse words.

Coined by this blog’s author after watching the Mets invent new ways to ruin a promising inning. The NOBLASETIGER is the darkest timeline version of the NOBLETIGER — when your team loads the bases with no outs, then proceeds to go down on three straight strikeouts. The only thing worse than a zero burger is watching your hitters not even put a ball in play. A true badge of shame.

OFFENSIVE FRUSTRATION

Rally brewing, crowd buzzing — and then, one meatball swing later, it’s a tailor-made double play. Inning over. Punch a pillow.

Your team is hitting .128 with runners in scoring position over the last 3 weeks. Every at-bat in those situations feels pre-doomed. You can feel the strikeout coming.

Final box score shows: 2 runs, 11 men left on base. The game wasn’t lost — it was abandoned. You are now RISPLOP-certified depressed.

Walk, strikeout, homer. Zero actual baseball played. The sabermetrics guys love it. You feel like you wasted 10 minutes of your life.

The magic power your team has to turn their own runners in scoring position into outs, while simultaneously letting the opponent score from first on a bloop single. (This one may hit Mets fans especially hard.)

PITCHING PAIN

The reliever can’t miss middle-middle. Every pitch is an audition for the Home Run Derby. Manager looks paralyzed in the dugout. You know what’s coming.

The guy who paints corners for 5 innings — then suddenly can’t find the strike zone at all. Walks the 8-9-1 hitters, gives up a bomb, gets yanked. You throw your hat.

With 2 outs and nobody on, your pitcher walks a scrub hitter. Next batter: double. Next: single. The baseball gods are angry and now 2 runs are in and you’re muttering “goddamn 2-out walks” like a crazy person.

The game is tied in the 7th. You check who’s warming up. It’s the one guy with a 6.25 ERA. Welp — spin the chamber and pray.

DEFENSIVE WTF

Routine play. Easy out. And the fielder boots it, clangs it, or air-mails it. Your stomach drops. Pete Alonso had one a few weeks ago here

A full inning of shitshow: error → wild pitch → bad throw → passed ball → another error. Manager’s face says “kill me.”

Outfielder goes for the full heroic dive — and misses by 5 feet. Ball rolls to the wall. 2–3 runs score. The replay angle hurts your soul. Click here if you want to see a Major Leaguer miss by 30 feet?

Catcher or infielder gets the throw in time… but somehow whiffs on the tag. Runner slides in safely while the stadium collectively facepalms. Jomboy did a break-down of one of the worst here

TEAM-SPECIFIC PAIN

Mets Pain

As soon as Gary Cohen says “he hasn’t given up a homer since May” — the next pitch is launched into the Coca-Cola sign.

A special inning where the Mets manage to combine bad luck, bad execution, and bad vibes into an implosion. It’s not just one play — it’s the whole inning going off the rails.

The sound Mets fans imagine hearing in their heads when Díaz enters a 1-run game after a rough week. The closer equivalent of the shark music in Jaws.

More Team-Specific Pain

Yankees Pain

Some days the Yankees hit 5 homers and look unbeatable. The next day? 15 strikeouts and 2 hits. No in-between. Living with it ages you 5 years.

Boone’s postgame: “I thought we had really good at-bats tonight.” Reality: 3 hits, 15 Ks, stranded 9 runners. Yankee fans everywhere throw things.

Red Sox Pain

Routine fly ball in most parks — but at Fenway, it clangs off the Monster and turns into a double. Runner scores from first. You scream “put that wall on stilts already!”

Late in tight games, the Sox bullpen can’t throw strikes. You sit there praying they don’t issue a bases-loaded walk. Then they do. You slam the remote.

Dodgers Pain

Hall of Fame arm, lifetime of regular season dominance — and every Dodger fan clenches the second Kershaw takes the mound in a big October game. PTSD is real.

You see Roberts making the call to the ‘pen in the 6th inning of a close game. You already know: a reliever is about to give up a 3-run bomb, and Twitter will be calling for Roberts’ job by the 9th.

Phillies Pain

No lead feels safe. None. You’ll be up 5 in the 9th and by the time the last out is recorded, it’s 5-4 with two men on and your soul in a blender.

Phillies love to spend. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it gives you a $300M lineup that hits .198 for a month straight. You’ve seen it. You’ve lived it. You curse ownership and then show up again the next day.

Braves Pain

104-win juggernaut? Historic offense? Regular season greatness? Doesn’t matter — they lose to an 84-win wildcard team in October. Braves fans have aged decades this way.

Ronald Acuña Jr. goes 4-for-5 with two bombs and a stolen base — and they still lose 7-4 because the rest of the lineup turned to mush that night. You shake your head.

Giants Pain

The 2010s glory years trained Giants fans to believe in even-year magic. Now? They half-expect the magic to return every even year… and it doesn’t. Cue deep existential sadness.

Line drive into the gap at Oracle Park — and you already know your outfielders are gonna be chasing that thing forever. Runners score from first, broadcast shows sad fans behind the dugout.