Curious about things you dont know what they are talking about???
 

I thought this would be a good thread for questions about things you dont know about.... When "slangs" or Traditional things are said, and you dont know what they mean....

I'll start it off....

First of all, why are nebraska referred to as "blackshirts"? where does that come from?


Keep this thread going...could be fun and informative...

Everything out of Bill Walton's mouth confuses the hell out of me.

Most notable: "Matt Geiger has been a real <b>Rock of Gibralter</b> this season."

Right, Bill... right.

Re: Curious about things you dont know what they are talking about???
 

That's cuz they wear blark jerseys in practice.

and after years of dominance, they came to be referred to as the blackshirts.

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and anything that comes out of bill walton/dennis miller is shit.

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Why is notre dame called "fighting" irish? i dont get it.

I think he's saying that the guy's solid. (In other words, dependable.)

Yeah... but... Matt Geiger, come on!

Okay, I have one. I should know this from years of football digestion...both real and video...however, what exactly is a 'hot route'??

i can take a guess on this one.

when your wr is lined up against a lineback, your wr can pretty easily smoke the slow lb. this streak is the hot route.

I could be wrong... but I always thought that a "hot route" was a quick route by a receiver to the inside for a quick easy dump-off for short yardage.

Hot route is a route by a receiver that a QB can change by an audible. It doesn't effect the entire team, just that one receiver, so the QB knows where he's going, but not the defense and hopefully the defense sees something that's not there and bites and you have a big play on your hands.

A hot route is the Key route that a QB can go to... its the one that the play is built around... where the QB will most likely go to...
or so i think

Where do all the newly drafted players go? Seems like about a 100 people get drafted every year, but what happens to all these people?

Obviously, some make it. Others just dont make it? Do they get cut? Do they quit?

there are about 200 people drafted... about half make the teams some make the practice squad, others go to the CFL, or NFL europe to gain experiance... and others just dont make it and are out of the NFL....

are the CFL/EFL like the farm teams for mbl? meaning that the nfl owners own teams in canada/europe?

for NFL europe yes, NFL teams have the rights to most of the players over there... CFL is the canadian football league... so those players have no affiliation with NFL unless they are under contract with a team and go over there for practice

A hot route is an audibalized call at the line based on the QB see'n a blitz that the assigned blockers can not handle. most often the hot route is to the slot, or TE, being a flat or slant. has to be fast so that the QB can read it and throw off of a 3 step or less drop.

Ok, in baseball, what the hell is "slugging" and "slugging percentage", I can't quite work it out.

Oooh, oooh, I can answer that one. Slugging percentage is a calculation involving total bases and at-bats.

Lets say I go 4-4, hitting for the cycle. Well I add 1 for the single, 2 for the double, 3 for the triple, and 4 for the homerun. Then I divide the total 10 by the number of at-bats (in this case 4) and voila, my slugging percentage was 2.500.

Or I go 1-6 with a double. Then its 2/6 which yields a .333 slugging percentage.

I'm pretty sure walks count as a base but not as an at-bat. So in the same exampe as above if I went 1-6 with a walk my new slugging percentage would be 3/6 or .500

Ooh, thanks! :D

Also, why are the Montreal Canadiens also referred to as the "Habs" ? The only explanation I can come up with is perhaps the "Hasbeens" :p

Ha, I like your interpretation much better.

Verbatim from a web-site:

"Habs is an abbreviation of "les habitants," the informal name given to the original settlers of New France, dating back to the 17th Century. So it seems a natural nickname for the Montreal Canadiens, established in 1909 as a French-Canadian hockey team appealing to the city's Francophone community."

Actually, walks are subtracted from the root number to calculate slugging percentage. Walks, hit-by-pitch, and sacrifices are subtracted from the total number of plate apperances and then follow the formula TitleFight gave.

Slugging Percentage = ((HRx4)+(3Bx3)+(2Bx2)+1B) / (PA-(BB+HP+SAC+BSAC))

Ok, I've been watching baseball a long time, and have just recently been hearing the term 'walk off homer'. Can someone help me out with what this means?

I don't have anything to add right now, except to link in my earlier sports language question "Off the Schnide?" for further reference.

Paddyjoe - I've always thought that a walk off homer is a home run that gives your team the lead/win in the bottom of the ninth. if your team is down by one run with one out in the bottom of the ninth and you hit a two run homer the game is over you win. I would guess it's called a walk off because you get to walk off the field as soon as you touch home. something like that.

I may have heard it for home runs that give a team the lead in the top of the ninth, but those wouldn't end the game on the spot, so im not sure if they count.


I have a question.

squeeze bunt vs. sucide squeeze bunt?

I thought suicide squeeze bunt referred to bunt up the third-base line while a runner was being forced home. I could be wrong though.

Several NFL team owners also own part-interest in some Arena League teams. Jerry Jones owns the Desparadoes and the Crush are half-owned by the Broncos and the other half by Jon Elway.

While the Arena League isn't true football, it's close enough to get an idea as to how someone would play true football. I predict in ten years all NFL teams will have part-interest in an Arena/AF2 team. This would be the NFL "farm system".

I thought a walk-off homer was when your first hitter of the inning knocks a home run.

I would call that a leadoff home run. I think soriano has the record for those in a season with 13. I would guess that Henderson has the career record, but I'm not sure.

Leadoff homerun - leading off the inning with a homer
Walkoff homerun - ending the game with the homerun, as in the bottom of the ninth.

You can have a homerun be both, like Bill Mazaroski's homer to win the '60 Series leading off the bottom of the ninth.

Squeeze bunt - when a runner is on third, using a bunt to score the runner.
Suicide Squeeze bunt - when the runner on third starts for home as soon as the pitcher pitches it, hoping the batter gets the bunt down.
Safety Squeeze bunt - when the runner waits for the bunt to be put down before starting for home.

The Arena leagues have no "official" connection to the NFL outside of NFL owners owning AFL teams. NFL Europe teams aren't traditional "farm" teams like in baseball: the NFL teams send players over who are distributed among teams.

why do the cowboys and lions always play on thanksgiving? just tradition?

oh! WHY ARE THEY CALLED NOSE TACKLES! I WAS one in high school and i don't know why i was called one! help!

the Cowboys and Lions have ALWAYS traditionally played on thanksgiving... here's the links

http://www.detroitlions.com/document...cument_id=3259

as for nose talkles...

http://mb7.theinsiders.com/fbroreade...picID=43.topic

Ok, what does the "skins" refer to in a "skins match" in golf? I've heard it a few times, but don't have a clue.

from http://www.worldgolf.com/wglibrary/history/skinsgme.html:


...it all started at St. Andrews centuries ago. Fur traders from other countries would stop at seaport towns and sell furs to the furriers. When they came to St Andrews, instead of going straight into port they would anchor offshore, row in, and play the eleven holes over The Old Course from the sea to the town. To make it interesting, they would meet the furrier at the shore, play in together, and gamble along the way. Since they were both dealing in furs, they would play for those on the basis of who won the hole. They played for 'skins'.

I have a couple of mascot questions....

What is a "brown" i.e. Cleveland Browns.

What is a Sooner?

What is the "crimson tide"? (no PMS jokes please).

The Cleveland Browns were originally named after their owner, whose last name was...you guessed it, Brown.

(From my memory, so it might be a little off but I believe the general idea is correct) Sooner was a term from way, way, way back in the 1800's. I'm a little shady on the exacts, but when the United States was "expanding" people could claim the land in these new states (like Oklahoma). The people were supposed to wait so everyone would have a fair chance of getting the land they wanted, however some people cheated and went ahead sooner than everyone else, giving them the name, Sooners.

Crimson Tide is a great movie staring Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman.

Oh, THAT Crimson Tide.

"In early newspaper accounts of Alabama football, the team was simply listed as the "varsity" or the "Crimson White" after the school colors.

The first nickname to become popular and used by headline writers was the "Thin Red Line." The nickname was used until 1906.

The name "Crimson Tide" is supposed to have first been used by Hugh Roberts, former sports editor of the Birmingham Age-Herald. He used "Crimson Tide" in describing an Alabama-Auburn game played in Birmingham in 1907, the last football contest between the two schools until 1948 when the series was resumed. The game was played in a sea of mud and Auburn was a heavy favorite to win.
But, evidently, the "Thin Red Line" played a great game in the red mud and held Auburn to a 6-6 tie, thus gaining the name "Crimson Tide." Zipp Newman, former sports editor of the Birmingham News, probably popularized the name more than any other writer." - http://www.rolltidefan.net/tradition.htm

Ok, I've got a couple of questions:

Why do the Ohio State Buckeyes football players have those stickers on the side of their helmets, what do they exactly represent, and how come some have more than others ?

Also, in college football, why do some coaches whine about other coaches "running up the score" ? As margin of victory isn't taken into account when deciding the BCS rankings (as far as I know, feel free to prove me wrong ;) ), who cares ?

Those are stickers of Buckeye leaves. That's where they get the name: the Buckeye tree.

MoV isn't taken into account anymore, but if you are on a team, would YOU want the other team to keep trying to score the entire game once it is in hand? It's humiliating for the loser, and it's arrogent for the winner.

the stickers on the helmets are given to a player for either A) starting a game, or B) making a really good play. I've heard both explanations but do not know which is correct.

as for running up the score, as dj suggested, its a matter of pride. when the game is late in the 4th quarter and the other team holds 30 point lead on you, it is considered bad sportsmanship for them to continue to try to score, as the game is, for all intents and purposes, over. you are correct that the BCS no longer recognizes margin of victory in calculating its standings. However, this was not always the case. Also, before the BCS, when the two polls (AP and USA Today/Coaches poll) were used to decide the national championship, margin of victory definitely played into the voting process. Teams that scored tons of points, regardless of who they played, tended to rank higher (and still do in those polls).

as for running up the score, what goes around WILL come around. everything is cyclical and a sorry team today might win the national championship in 10 years. u dont wanna be humiliated as a revenge.


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sooners = land grabbers.

I've got a good question. What is a Wahoo?? That is what I hear the University of Virginia called sometimes. I'm definitely no fan the wahoo's after the halftime band stunt at the Continental Tire Bowl last year against my beloved WVU Mountaineers. But I am curious why they call themselves the Wahoo's instead of the Cavaliers.

Why is Tennessee called the volenteers? That makes no sense to me.

The Volunteer thing comes from the War of 1812 when the state was asked to provide something like 5000 volunteers for the army and 75000 men tried to volunteer, so they became the Volunteer state, and that transferred to the university, I guess.

Virginia calls themselves "Wahoos" because that's all the opposing fans say upon kicking UVA's ass ;)