Beisbol Words

So, Nats Buzz readers, I'm taking an eight week Spanish class on Wednesday nights to brush up on my Spanish speaking, reading and writing skills. I took several courses in high school and college, but I'm very, very rusty. And, as you can imagine, it's incredibly useful to understand Spanish if you love baseball -- as a fan or a writer. Have you ever tried to read a game recap in Spanish? You'll see the same words appearing over and over again. Same thing with the Spanish radio broadcasts of Nationals games, although those move much faster. Last fall, Jesus Flores gave us some basic translations of important baseball words and that was kind of fun. So, I've been thinking that maybe I could use my class to help us learn some new words together. Each week, our instructor gives us a quiz but we can come up with our own vocabulary words to be tested on. It's completely custom built to our individual interests. Moving forward, I will post my vocabulary list each week and you'll have an opportunity to expand your Spanish baseball vocabulary along with me. In fact, if this seems to work and you like the content, maybe you can keep pushing me to learn a dozen new words even when the class concludes on May 5th (yup, that's Cinco de Mayo). So, what do you think? We'll use this week as a test run to gauge interest. Week One: left field: jardín izquierdo or bosque izquierdo center field: jardín central or bosque central right field: jardín derecho or bosque derecho rain delay: postergación por lluvia save/to save: salvado, salvar extra innings: entradas adicionales to bobble: enmantequillarse bases loaded: bases congestionadas, bases llenas to acquire: adquirir to strike out (pitcher): ponchar to strike out (batter): estrucarse, abanicar rotation: alineación