5 more useful American baseball idioms (Part 3)

3,654 views ・ 2015-06-30

Simple English Videos


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

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Welcome back to our third video on baseball idioms. Baseball is such a great game.
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If you can understand it.
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Baseball's really popular in the United States.
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Everyone loves a trip to the ballpark. Ballpark. It's part of our first idiom.
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How much will you need to fix the roof. I don't know. There's materials, paint, labor.
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Well, just give me a ballpark figure. Maybe five thousand dollars. What?
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A ballpark figure. It's an estimate. So many people attend a big game that it's hard to
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count them accurately. So a ballpark figure is a rough estimate of
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a big number. Yes, basball crowds are large. The thing is
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everyone grows up playing baseball here. There are lots of little leagues. Leagues
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- we have them in football too. Soccer. Leagues are groups of teams that play one
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another. Yeah. Kids play in little leagues and professional players play in the big leagues.
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Big leagues! Another idiom. Oh boy, have we got a problem. We'd better
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hire a lawyer. We'd better hire a big league lawyer.
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So what's a big league lawyer? A very important one. They operate at the top level.
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They know how to play hard ball. Hard ball? You can play baseball with a hard or a soft
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ball. Hard balls are dangerous so kids learn to
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play with softballs. It's a lot of money. Everyone wants to win
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this contract. The competition will be tough. Yep, they'll be playing hard ball.
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So if someone plays hard ball? It means they're strong, experienced and willing to take risks.
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So to play hard ball is to play tough. Maybe aggressively. Baseball can be a dangerous game.
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Now here's another idiom with the word 'league'.
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Everybody say hey! What are you watching? Oh I love this video that Jason made.
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Me too. He's fantastic in it. Yeah, he's in a league of his own.
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If you're in a league of your own you're exceptional. Yeah, you're too good even for the top team.
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Now statistics are important in baseball, aren't they. Yes, we have batting averages.
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If a batter has a perfect record for hitting the ball, they get a batting average of a
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thousand. I've been reviewing everyone's sales figures.
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Vicki, your results are excellent. Thank you. You've been our top salesperson every month
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this year. You're batting a thousand. Batting a thousand.
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Now Jay. It's been a difficult year for me. I can see that. You're in a slump.
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So batting a thousand. That's the maximum possible. You can't do better than that.
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And if a batter is in a slump? Their statistics have been very bad.
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OK. It's time to stop but we hope these idioms will help you bat a thousand.
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And come back soon and we'll have another baseball idioms video.
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What are you eating? Oh. Crackerjacks. People eat them at ball games. Would you like some?
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Oh yes please. Here we go. They're like in the song. Buy me some peanuts and crackerjacks.
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You know we should teach them the song in the next video. Yeah. It's like popcorn. Yep.
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