Another Important Debate We Ought All To Be Having

A lot has already been accomplished in the year 2013. We have universally ratified the use of WAR in evaluating a player’s ability, conclusively established the exact correct players in the Hall of Fame, agreed upon the role of steroids in the game of baseball, as well as how to punish players who have used them and what in fact a steroid is, presaged the winners of this and the following World Series, and unlocked the horrible secrets of the inverted W and eliminated pitcher arm injuries forever. It’s an exciting time.

Now we can turn our attention to the heart of baseball’s matter: how to pluralize the RBI.

In his critically acclaimed book, Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language, award-winning researcher Steven Pinker discusses morphology, or the rules we follow when forming complex words, and attaching prefixes and suffixes to roots. Unless you’re a linguist or an elementary school teacher, you know most of these rules without knowing them: for example, that the suffix –ed sounds like idif the verb ends in t or d, like t if the verb ends in p, k, f, s, sh, ch, and th, and like d for all other verb endings. You already speak this way, because it sounds right, and it sounds right to everybody.

If only communication were so simple in baseball. But alas, when wRC+ and “hustle” pass each other like strangers in the night, how can we forge common bonds? How can we, when we don’t even know how to describe that very basic function of human existence, the run batted in?

As long as there is only one run batted in in a given subset, the coast is clear. But when a multiple arises, we are lost. What are they? Given that no sensible person would address them as “run batted ins,” should they be referred to as RBIs, or RBI? Are they hole in ones, or holes in one? Mother-in-laws or mothers-in-laws? Where do we put that damnable s?

These are the questions that mocked the great minds of our time, and brought men like Sartre and Stengel to their knees. After all: how can we begin to understand ourselves, to even forge the simple words that share our feelings, hopes, and struggles, if we cannot even agree on an encapsulation of Joe Carter?

I cannot solve this for you, dear readers. I am no prophet. I can only add my voice to mankind’s bestial wail, and hope that we are someday brought together by providence or saintliness into one line of thinking, one path forward. In 2000, Tony Batista either had 114 RBIs, or 114 RBI. But we must decide. If we are to be anything, we must.