Readers: We apologize in advance for beating up on sports writers. Many of our closest friends are sports writers. For years, Eliot’s dad wrote for, and later ran, the sports department at the old Miami News.

We understand how hard it is to write something clever and original when you’re the baseball writer, covering the second game of a three-game series in August between two last-place teams.

And, frankly, you are bombarded by athletes, coaches and fans who regularly throw around clichés or repeat errors, or bad grammar, or just dumb phrases. It’s no surprise that some of that rubs off on you.

And don’t forget twisted phrases made legendary by people
such as baseball’s Yogi Berra. (“When you see a fork in the road, take it.”)

And we salute comedian Norm Crosby, the king of the malaprop, who died in November 2020. A malaprop is a word that mistakenly is used in place of one that sounds similar. Crosby did it for comedic effect. The New York Times cleverly opened his obituary with, “He spoke from his diagram and related many funny antidotes, often to a standing ovulation.” But we’re guessing many writers use malaprops out of ignorance.

So avoid bad writing. Be brave!

1. The pitcher has been scuffling his last few games.

This horrible, horrible malaprop must have snuck into the country with the coronavirus! What the headline writer wanted to say is that the pitcher has been “struggling.” As in not doing so great. A “scuffle” is a fight, usually just shoving, between two guys at a bar.

2. Pushing and shoving

Pretty much redundant. A shove is a push that’s a little more forceful. If you’re talking about what happens in a baseball game after a pitcher throws at a batter’s head and players come running, “shoving” will do it.

3. Bench-clearing brawl

Not only is this a brutal cliché, it’s also wrong. If people are just pushing and shoving — or maybe just shoving — that’s not a brawl. To have a brawl, you need some serious punches thrown.

4. A walk-off homer

This one isn’t so much wrong as misplaced. In baseball, in case you don’t know, in the bottom of the ninth inning, if the score is tied or the home team is behind, it gets a last chance. If it then wins, it’s called a “walk-off.” But most fans presume the term refers to the winners. It doesn’t. It’s the visiting team that must walk off in defeat while the home team celebrates.

5. “They left it all on the field.”

All of it? Brutal cliché.

6. This offense is untracked.

Should be, ”On track.” Actually, they probably meant “off track.” Yes, announcers actually have said “untracked.”

7. ”Browns Cut Safety After Threatening To Kill Fans And Fight Reporters On Twitter.”

This actual tweet is a case of misplaced modifiers gone amok! So, the NFL football franchise threatened to kill fans. Then it threatened to fight reporters on Twitter. (Not sure how that works.) Then it fired one of its players. It takes real talent to jam so many grammatical mistakes into one sentence. Here’s what they meant: “Browns cut safety who threatened on Twitter to fight reporters and kill fans.” There. It now makes sense. And has one fewer word. And also is reordered so it ends on the punch line, killing fans.

8. Don Shula was an NFL head coach from 1963-95. He was in three Super Bowls between 1971-1973.

The hyphen stands for both “from" and "to.” So the "from" is redundant. Best way is to say Shula coached "from 1963 to 1995." Same thing with “between.” Say “He was in three Super Bowls between 1971 and 1973.”

9. The Red Sox clinched a win on the last play of the game. The White Sox clinched the playoffs on the last game of the season.    

Both are impossible. A team “clinches” when it puts itself in a position where it’s guaranteed a win/playoff berth before the game/regular season is over. You can’t clinch unless play remains. If you win the game on the last play, or get into the playoffs on the last play of the last game, you won.

Watch this on video! https://youtu.be/osJ3vufgx64

Next time: One word or two?

Readers: "Something Went Horribly Wrong," features samples of bad writing we see nearly every day. You can participate! Be our duly deputized “grammar police:” Your motto: “To protect and correct.” Send in your photos of store signs, street signs, menus, TV news graphics, newspaper headlines, tweets, and so on. It doesn’t have to be a grammatical error. It can be just what we call “cowardly writing.” Include your name and home town so we properly can credit you. You're free to add a comment, although we reserve the right to edit or omit. Now get out there! Send to Eliot@eliotkleinberg.com

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NOTE: Eliot and Lou Ann are available for speaking engagements, and can travel. Reach us through the comments section. Just think of all of your employees getting back to work on a Monday, their heads filled with all the ways we’ve shown them to be better communicators!