Baseball in French, Lesson 10: La Balle Tombante

Welcome to Baseball in French, Lesson 10. Previous lessons can be found here.

 

Today's term is la balle tombante.

 

In English, that translates to "the falling ball" or "the drooping ball". What's the baseball translation?

Sinker.

Here's pitcher Steve Rogers on his 1981 O-Pee-Chee poster (one per wax pack), perhaps receiving the sign for a sinker from an imaginary catcher.

The classic Expos uniform. The inspired pose. The mustache. The poster design. Pretty high coolness factor all around.

 

And Steve Rogers was a pretty cool customer out there on the mound. The sinkerballer with a good slider to boot pitched his entire career for the Expos, and in 1982—a year after the poster above was released—he led the majors in ERA (2.40). It was one of his best seasons overall, as he went 19–8 with 14 complete games, 4 shutouts, and 179 strikeouts. He finished second to Steve Carlton in the N.L. Cy Young race, and made the All-Star team. (The All-Star game was in Montreal that year. Rogers got the start and was the winning pitcher.)

 

Unfortunately, Rogers didn't get much playoff action with those late-70s and early-80s Montreal teams. In 1981, however, he did go 2-0 in the NLDS against Philly, starting two games, with a 0.51 ERA and 17.2 innings pitched. Then he went 1-1 against Los Angeles in the NLCS, starting one of those two games, with a 1.80 ERA in 10 innings pitched.

But overall, the guy had a super-solid 13-year career with 5 All-Star appearances. And a pretty good "falling ball".

What do you think of the French terminology?

 

Jeffrey Leonard at the plate. Here's Rogers to the wind-up. The pitch . . . 

 

. . . and Leonard swings right over the falling ball!

 

Yeah. I like the English version better this time, for sure. 

 

Share your thoughts in the comment section, and thanks for reading!