4 Action Verbs

Picking and spitting, and digging and blowing…these are just 4 verbs describing the action in the dug-out of a baseball game. If you’ve watched baseball on television, you know what I am talking about. Inevidentably, whenever the camera pans over to the dug-out, in-between plays…you are seeing something that isn’t pretty.

The camera will catch a player with his finger up his nose...a regular coal-miner’s son. (The brother of the coal miner’s daughter.) I am sure he’s been told by his mother…a thousand times…that this is something to be done in private. Unfortunately, this is not what is happening…the excavating is seen by a million or so viewers.

Personally, I think the spitting verb is the worse. A quick saliva spit might be okay, but I never understood spitting...unless, of course, you are the spitting image of someone…or you are within spitting distance, of someone who is the spitting image of you. A spit of sunflower seeds looks disgusting when it emerges as a shower spray …but the worse is a spit that includes black, nasty chewing tobacco. I know spit happens…but I draw the line in the dirt with chew.

Yep, it is these types of activities that the camera people want to entertain us with in-between plays. Granted, there is a lot of down time with baseball. I know I am looking for things to do in-between plays, but spitting is not one of them. That’s when I usually go for a bowl of ice cream or paint my toe nails.

At the end of the game, the TV network replays all the great catches, runs, steals, home runs and puts them all together....a montage of great moments from the game. I dare them to replay the action in the dug-out…all the picking, spitting, digging, and blowing shots. A montage of this action would be an instant hit on YouTube.

After the Angels lost in the final game to the Red Sox in the ALCS …(yippee)…the cameras panned over to the Angels dug-out. So after we’ve watched the players pick, spit, blow and dig…now we have to watch them cry, sob, wail, and blubber.

Baseball dug-outs are not pretty.