Baseball remains one of the most fertile grounds for inventive wordplay in American life. Among the more notable-and on the face of it more bewildering-recent neologisms are to dial 8 for a home run and Linda Ronstadt for a good fastball. Dial 8 comes from the practice among hotels of requiring customers to dial 8 for a long-distance line. Linda Ronstadt, more complicatedly, is an allusion to her song Blue Bayou, the significance of which becomes less puzzling when you reflect that a good fastball blew by you. Baseball terms presumed to be new often are not.
Baseball is a rich source of innovative language and puns in American culture. Recent examples of quirky new phrases include "to dial 8 for a home run" and "Linda Ronstadt for a good fastball." The first refers to a hotel practice where dialing 8 connects users to long-distance service. The second metaphor is rooted in the song "Blue Bayou," drawing a clever parallel between the fleeting nature of a good fastball...
