The Baseball Pain Glossary: Fan-Invented Terms for Surviving the Game
The Baseball Pain Glossary: Fan-Invented Terms for Surviving the Game
Baseball will break your heart in the dumbest ways. Here’s the ultimate Baseball Pain Glossary — from NOBLETIGERs to TOOTBLANs — to help you name, laugh at, and survive the agony of loving this game.
A survival guide for the sickos who keep watching this dumb, beautiful game.
I was watching my Mets play the lowly Colorado Rockies, and things were going well — or so I thought. We had just loaded the bases with the first three batters of the inning, and I was getting excited, dreaming about the big crooked number we were about to pin on the Rockies.
Three batters later — after three back-to-back-to-back strikeouts — the Mets put up a big fat zero burger. What a disappointment. Sometimes, no matter how good things look — bases loaded, no outs — the Baseball Gods have other plans. Trust me, they’re always watching.Read more here.
Naturally, I jumped on Reddit to commiserate with my fellow Mets fans — and discovered there’s already a term for this exact kind of baseball agony: NOBLETIGER (No Out, Bases Loaded, Ending with a Team In Glaring Exasperating Recriminations).
Of course. We Mets fans have seen it all.
But as I sat there stewing, I realized what we had just witnessed deserved its own special place in the pain lexicon. This wasn’t just a NOBLETIGER — this was a NOBLASETIGER: No Out, Bases Loaded, All Strikeouts Ending with a Team In Glaring Exasperating Recriminations. A darker, purer form of pain. And yes — I coined it right then and there.
That got me thinking... if this misery had a name, surely there were more out there.
And oh yes — there are.
Read on to explore the weird, wonderful, and painfully relatable subculture of the Baseball Pain Glossary.
The Glossary
BASERUNNING DUMBASSERY
TOOTBLAN
Thrown Out On The Bases Like A Nincompoop
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.
FARTSLAM
Fielder Allows Runner To Score Like A Moron
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.
NOBLETIGER
No Out, Bases Loaded, Ending with a Team In Glaring Exasperating Recriminations
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.
NOBLASETIGER
No Out, Bases Loaded, All Strikeouts Ending with a Team In Glaring Exasperating Recriminations
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
GIDP-fest
Rally brewing, crowd buzzing — and then, one meatball swing later, it’s a tailor-made double play. Inning over. Punch a pillow.
RISP Depression
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.
RISPLOP
Runners In Scoring Position Left On Parade
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.
3 True Outcome Inning
Walk, strikeout, homer. Zero actual baseball played. The sabermetrics guys love it. You feel like you wasted 10 minutes of your life.
Reverse RISP
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
Meatball Parade
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.
Nibbler Meltdown
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.
2 Out Walk Death Sentence
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.
Reliever Roulette
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
Clankers
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
Comedy of Errors Inning
A full inning of shitshow: error → wild pitch → bad throw → passed ball → another error. Manager’s face says “kill me.”
Run-Denying Dive Disaster
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?
Missed Tag Muppet Show
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
The Gary Jinx
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.
Mets GAG-INNING
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 Edwin Díaz Trauma Bell
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
Bronx Boom-or-Bust
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.
Aaron Boone Gaslight Special
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
Green Monster Double Doom
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!”
Walk-off Walk Watch
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
October Kershaw Collapse
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.
Dave Roberts Bullpen Time Bomb
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
Citizens Bank Park Heart Attack Save
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.
High Payroll, High Blood Pressure
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
Postseason Paper Tigers
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.
Acuna Solo Show Syndrome
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
Even Year Hangover
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.
Oracle Outfield Gap of Doom
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.
Baseball is a game of beauty, heartbreak, and pure dumb pain. But with the right glossary? That pain becomes community.
Next time your team leaves 12 on base, or boots a NOBLETIGER of an inning, or gifts a 2-out walk death sentence — just send this link to your buddies. Misery loves company, and in baseball, it needs it.
Got any terms I missed? Drop them in the comments or send them my way. We’re all in this dumb boat together — might as well laugh while we sink.
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