Baseball in French, Lesson 3: Le Frappeur D'Urgence

Welcome to Baseball in French, Lesson 3. Previous lessons can be found here.

 

Today's term is le frappeur d'urgence.

 

In English, that translates to "emergency hitter". What's the baseball translation?

Pinch hitter.

Here's one of the best pinch-hitters of all time, proudly wearing the Expos colors on his 1971 O-Pee-Chee card.

 

 

 

Staub, popularly known in Montreal as Le Grande Orange for his ginger hair, put up exactly 100 pinch hits over his career, which at the time of this writing puts him at 19th on the all-time list. He's tied for the most pinch-hit RBI in a season (25) with Joe Cronin and Jerry Lynch.

 

As for the baseball terminology, I think this is a case where I like the English version better. Your team is in a pinch, and you need to bring a hitter off your bench to help you out. Hence, pinch hitter. Easy. Effective.

 

"Emergency hitter" is just a little too dramatic for me. It's not like you're in a Bugs Bunny cartoon where all your teammates are getting trounced so badly that they're being carried off the field on stretchers, and you've got to find someone from the crowd to go bat for the team.

How about you? Do you prefer pinch hitter or emergency hitter? Leave a comment below, and thanks for reading!