baseball terms
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American League
Spell out on first reference in copy. On second reference and in headlines, AL is acceptable. AL East, AL Central, and AL West are allowable in all instances.
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ground ball
Two words. Hyphenate when used as an adjective before a noun: ground-ball outs.
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double play
Two words. Hyphenate when used as an adjective: double-play ground ball
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shutout (n., adj.), shut out (v.)
Hyphenated version “shut-out” is always incorrect.
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sacrifice bunt, sacrifice fly
No hyphen. In most contexts, sac bunt and sac fly are acceptable.
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pinch hitter
Two words, unhyphenated, when used as a noun: Matt Stairs entered the game as a pinch hitter.; Carlos Baerga’s pinch hit push Cleveland ahead. Two words, unhyphenated, when used as a verb: Will Clark pinch hit for Darren Lewis in the seventh inning. Two words, hyphenated, when used as an adjective: Lou Merloni delivered a
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outfielder, outfield
One word.
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Minor League Baseball
The acronym MiLB is acceptable in all references to Minor League Baseball. Do not capitalize related terms that do not include the full title: minor leagues, minor leaguer, the minors The various levels of the minor leagues are spelled out and hyphenated: Triple-ADouble-ASingle-ARookie In MiLB-centered contexts (such as game stories), use the team name, e.g.