Ode to Spring: The Baseball Subjunctive

With the start of the baseball season, Dr. Tiemann reflects on the wonders of the language favored by baseball commentators and others in love with the sport.  The Baseball Subjunctive, he writes, “sounds natural, knowledgeable.  The Standard construction sounds stilted.  Some few great writers and announcers could describe the game in Standard English and excel the rest of us.  But those few — Vin Scully, Ring Lardner, Roger Angell — possessed the gift of poetry. . . .”