Wording question

[icepixie]

Sporty types, I need your help. If I were going to visit a batting cage, or otherwise hit baseballs pitched via a machine (say...on that random baseball field in the middle of Babylon 5...), how would I word the following sentence to sound authentic: "I thought I'd go to the baseball field, hit a few balls"? Is there a more colorful way of saying "hit a few balls"? Would the words "flies" or "runs" make it in there somewhere? Does the fact that it's Garibaldi saying this make a difference?

*whistles innocently*

Comments

[elflore.livejournal.com]

I'd say using 'baseball field' would be a little clunky. He'd probably say either 'batting cage,' or he'd say something like 'the diamond.' Flies could work ("hit a few flies" or "pop a few flies"), but runs not so much--you've got to be hitting other players in or running the bases yourself to make runs. When you're hitting pitches from the machine, you're just hitting the ball, you're not scoring, if that makes sense.

There could even be a slightly futuristic tact to take here, if he described using the pitching machine as "having a go at the pitching 'bot" or some such.

[amphetamine-47.livejournal.com]

I agree. I was going to say "pop some flies" but it doesn't really make sense without an actual game :)

[icepixie]

Thanks!

[icepixie]

Oooh, pitching bot. I like it. "I thought I might go out to the diamond, pop a few flies from the pitching bot"?

[castalianspring.livejournal.com]

We've never called it anything other than "going to the batting cages", but that's probably regional.

[icepixie]

"Batting cage" was my first thought as well, but on the show, they have a pitching machine set out in a baseball diamond, so I figured that wouldn't be quite right.