Fostorian swings for the fences with 'Baseballisms'

FOSTORIA — Everyone's been thrown a curveball in life.And that circumstance would have come out of left field.Interesting, isn't it, how baseball has often made itself somewhat commonplace in the English language?Fostoria native Leonard Skonecki certainly thinks so, and he's put those expressions, and others more particular to baseball itself, into book form with "Baseballisms," which has the subtitle "A Murderers' Row of Metaphors and Idioms".The book, produced through McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, of Jefferson, North Carolina, is now available online at www.amazon.com, www.barnesandnoble.com and www.mcfarlandbooks.com. More information is available at www.baseballisms.net.Skonecki is well-known in Fostoria as a historian and former writer for the Fostoria Focus, a weekly newspaper that was published from1994 until 2014. More behind the scenes, he's a big baseball fan.His interests in reading, writing and America's national pastime collided, exploded and formed "Baseballisms.""Years and years ago — and I mean decades ago — when I was in graduate school, we were working on a keysort system, a pre-computer, manual indexing system for keeping track of information," Skonecki said. "I've always loved baseball. ... And my parents always encouraged my sister and I to read. We always had books, and so, as I kept indulging my interest in baseball, I never got rid of any of the books. I have books in my baseball collection that have been there since I was 10, 12 years old. ... I have something like 400 baseball books."I thought, 'If I ever wanted to keep track of all of the things that I found interesting in the books, this keysort system would be a way to do this. Well, I never did that. I never followed up on that, but what I did do was dog-ear a lot of pages and make notes in margins because one of the things that's always struck me about baseball is that it's one of the most linguistically colorful aspects of American life. And it would be hard to find any one subject that has given as many expressions to the general language as baseball."Think of it: If you're turning down an invitation to something that may not even be a ballgame, you might ask for a "rain check."And, while a "can of corn" may be not common to everyday English, the expression for a lazy fly ball may pop up frequently among baseball fans and raise of question of its origin.In the case of his book, Skonecki has all the bases covered, having done a boatload of research.He got the idea for the book when he moved back to Fostoria in 1995 after having lived for nearly three decades in Toledo and Dayton. Then, too, he went to work for the Focus and for radio station WFOB, became membership officer for the local Sons of the American Legion and became a volunteer at Good Shepherd Home."I kept working on the book, but it wasn't until a few years ago, when I retired, ... I'd put a lot of work into this book and I thought, 'It's time to finish it or give it up.," he said. "So, I finished it."It was July of 2024 when I had enough of it finished and I sent a partial manuscript to McFarland.""Baseballisms" is more than 300 pages in length and it would have been longer had Skonecki and a McFarland editor not worked to whittle it down. Its readability, however, is enhanced by its format of having each chapter dedicated to a particular expression and information about it, such as its derivation, evolution and instances of usage."It's not a typical book that you would sit down and read from Page 1 until the end," Skonecki said. "... You can go through the table of contents and whatever strikes your fancy — it may not be read consecutively."In addition to the online outlets, the book may be purchased directly from Skonecki during book signings that he plans to schedule.