XM MLB Chat: AP World Series Style Guide says avoid using words like 'tater' and 'dinger'

9/28/11, "To help with consistent phrasing in coverage of the Major League Baseball playoffs and the World Series, The Associated Press compiled a World Series Style Guide of key baseball terms and definitions. Also included are some hackneyed terms to avoid. Some of the words are taken from the AP Stylebook. Others are standard usage for baseball stories transmitted by AP Sports. ...

Cliches

Better to say a player hit a home run, rather than he “walloped”‘ or “‘blasted”‘ or “cracked” it. Home runs are also homers, but avoid calling them “dingers,” “‘jacks,” “bombs,” “taters” and “four-baggers.” Pitchers can pitch two-hitters, but avoid “twirling” or “chucking” or “fireballing.” And teams try to reach the World Series instead of the “Fall Classic.” In short, avoid hackneyed words and phrases....

Descriptions

Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter or Yankees’ shortstop Derek Jeter? No apostrophe when describing his role: Jeter is a Yankees shortstop, Roy Halladay is a Phillies pitcher. But if club ownership is implied, use the hyphen for a possessive: the Yankees’ Jeter, the Cardinals’ Albert Pujols and the Braves’ Chipper Jones....

Postseason vs. playoffs

The terms aren’t interchangeable. Postseason encompasses all the games after the regular season ends _ the first round of the league playoffs, the AL and NL championship series and the World Series. It takes 11 wins for a team to go through the postseason and become champions. Playoffs refers only to the first two rounds that determine the World Series opponents.

RBI or RBIs?

For more than one run batted in, the abbreviation is RBIs: Granderson led the majors with 127 RBIs, Braun had five RBIs in the win. The seldom-used plural written out is runs batted in, but in AP Style the “s” is placed at the end of the abbreviation: RBIs.

“Take Me Out to the Ball Game”

Traditionally sung during the seventh-inning stretch as the teams change sides on the field. Even though AP Style is ballgame (one word) on all other uses of the word, it’s two words in the formal title of this baseball anthem.