In honor of the starting of the baseball season (Go Tigers!!), I give you the interchangeable baseball and church life lingo.

Sacrifice Fly: A bug in the communion juice

Double play: Both guitar players are strumming during what was supposed to be a solo

Squeeze Play: Nine people sitting in an eight-person pew

Grand Slam: The pew (from the above definition) breaks

Triple Crown: The three kings in the Christmas Pageant

Closer: The last song of the worship hour

Change Up: When the band has practiced a “closer” but the pastor announces a different song is to be sung to end the service.

Home Run: A teenager’s mode of transportation to his/her domicile following a forgetful parent’s leaving church without said teenager.

Walk Off: If the teenager from the above definition is not fleet of foot.

Full count: The head usher’s attendance tally on Easter Sunday

Hit and Run: What happens just prior to a toddler’s parent being paged to come to the nursery

Pinch hitter: When the toddler in the above definition has more than one bad habit.

Home Plate: The dish a parishioner brings to a pot luck

Long Relief: The hour and a half sermon by the guest preacher

Caught Looking: What happens to the senior high boys checking out the incoming class of freshmen girls into the youth group by the youth pastor

Pick Off: What the facility crew has to do with chewing gum stuck under the pews

Tagging Up: The nursery worker’s task of placing the security/information sticker on a toddler’s back.

In the hole: Where the preacher finds him/herself when using an unapproved sermon illustration of his/her spouse

Dugout: How the preacher from the above definition exits “the hole” using flattery and extra chores around the parsonage.

Wild Pitch: A Gideon’s plea to pass out bibles at the local zoo

Fielder’s Choice: If former Detroit Tiger players Cecil or Prince had to decide between regular or gluten free communion wafers

Slide:  What old time missionaries would bring to show a picture of their work in a far-off country before Power Point

Shutout: The experience of not getting into the church before the security team locks the doors

On deck: The happening at the Senior Game Day when someone is accidentally sits on the Skipbo cards.

Warning Track (sic):A brochure telling the reader the dangers of eternity without God.

Strike Zone: The area around the preacher’s flailing arms during a heated illustration.

Spit ball: What leaves the preacher’s mouth during the above definition’s heated illustration.

Stopper: What the security team does when a deranged lady is trying to rush the platform

Cut Off Man: The sound man’s nickname following his muting the worship leader’s microphone during an extra-long chorus introduction

Foul Tip: When a jokester parishioner gives a naive pastor an off-color sermon illustration

Whiff: The brief, pleasant aroma during the eulogy when the funeral dinner crew are making cinnamon rolls

Dinger: A parking lot infraction when the church bus slightly brushes the pastor’s wife’s car

Save: What Jesus does