The Fundamentalist Movement

If I've learned anything from the returning Keith Hernandez these past few years that he has analyzed Mets games. it's that ballplayers like to come up with new names for old things, particularly if they save the players some syllables. Thus, it was no surprise to me when I started hearing Keith make occasional reference to "fundies"...as in fundamentals. Fundamentals: four syllables. Fundies: two syllables. Look how much effort a ballplayer saves in the shortening. Keith gives me the idea that a ballplayer is more than happy to cut out syllables as well as steps. So much of their life is repetition repeated ad infinitum, from February to, if you're lucky, November. It's only human nature to now and then want to find shortcuts. Unless you're intent on playing 'til November. The Mets, you may have noticed in 2009, were neither masters of the shortcut nor the fundamental. They couldn't, wouldn't and didn't execute the little th...