Dictionary

inside baseball en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (Australia) audio

Meanings

1. (US, idiomatic, uncountable) Technical matters concerning baseball generally not apparent or of interest to spectators.
   • There always has been a tendency to overlook the catcher, possibly because so much of him is covered up during the game, but more because the greatest part of his work is inside baseball and of the kind which the general public can neither see nor appreciate. 1914, Paul Withington, Lothrop Withington, The Book of Athletics, Lothrop, Lee & Shepard:
   • Here, the game is marked by the "little things" that have come to be defined as "inside baseball". 1993, Michael A. Katovich, “Humor in Baseball: Functions and Dysfunctions”, in The Journal of American Culture, volume 16, number 2, pages 7–16:
2. (US, broadly, idiomatic, uncountable) Matters of interest only to insiders.
   • […] the more inside-baseball the name, the nerdier the subject matter. 2015 June 11, Paul Ford, “What is Code?”, in Bloomberg:
   • “Harry, if that’s what you are worried about, forget it. I didn’t even mention that in the story. To be honest, it’s of course vitally interesting to you, but as far as a newspaper story goes, I thought it was too much inside baseball.” 1994, Michael Connelly, The Concrete Blonde, page 291:
   • But in fact, redistricting remained very much a game of inside baseball. 2003, Sam Hirsch, “The United States House of Unrepresentatives: What Went Wrong in the Latest Round of Congressional Redistricting”, in Election Law Journal, volume 2, number 2, pages 179–216:

Forms

Relateds

small ball · talk shop · shop talk

Translations (5)

pl kulisy baseballu (technical matters usually only of interest to or noticed by baseball insiders) · pl kulisy branżowe (matters of interest only to insiders) · nb fagsjargong (matters of interest only to insiders) · fi baseballin hienoudet (technical matters usually only of interest to or noticed by baseball insiders) · fi sisäpiirijuttu (matters of interest only to insiders)