April 7, 2004
Mets Win Opener!
A little more than a year after making his debut with the Mets, Tom Glavine notched his first win over his former team, beating the Braves 7-2 (box score). Kazuo Matsui got the Mets started, hitting a homer with his first swing this season and had an electric debut, finishing the game 3-3, which included the home run, a double, and 3 RBI. Might the Mets turnaround be complete? Obviously, it's too soon to tell (they'll probably lose the next game), but there is energy in their bats. Last year, the Mets' season opener resulted in an ugly, ugly 15-2 loss, and what followed was an ugly, ugly season. Gothamist remembers being there and walking out after the 5 run 7th inning for the Cubs.
Down in Florida, the Yankees didn't do so well, losing 9-4 (box score). Mike Mussina picked up his second loss against the Devil Rays in two games, the last one in Japan. In their three games against the lowly F-Rays, the Yankees have dropped two - it's time to panic! Quick, trade for some more pitching! Alex Rodriguez hit a home run in the game, but it wasn't enough to defeat the Rays, who as a team make less than $19 million, while A-Rod will make $22 million this year.
Gothamist Baseball Vernacular 101: RBI is an abbreviation for runs batted in, or run batted in. Typically, you will see multiple RBI written as RBIs, but this is just wrong since the runs is already plural. Here on Gothamist, our entries will use RBI as both the singular and plural version.
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That depends on whether or not RBI is a collective noun or simply an acronym; if it is a collective noun, then RBIs is correct.
but RBI is in fact an acronym.
love the plural...that moutherf**cker had like 4 Ribees last night yo...
RBI can be either "runs..." or "run", since only one would be a "run batted in". So, if you see "RBIs", it's essentially the way you would read it outloud: "runs batted in", with the 's' at the end of the acronym instead of 'run'. If the 's' were mandatory in front of 'run', you could never pronounce only one RBI, because it would be "he had one runs batted in", which don't make no sense.
From painful personal experience (a student correcting me in front of a class), an RBI is an abbreviation not an acronym. Acronyms form a word based on initial letters of a name being abbreviated.
you're right joe, it's an abbreviation, not an acronym. either way, it's plural by nature.
from MLB's Baseball Basics:
RBI - Runs Batted In:
A batter is awarded an RBI on any run that scores as a direct result of a single, double, triple or home run; on a sacrifice fly or a sacrifice bunt on which a runner scores from third base; on a groundout (with less than two outs) on which a runner scores from third base; or on a hit-by-pitch or walk with the bases loaded.
Way to go Gothamist for taking a stand against RBIs!
Last year's opener against the Cubs was beyond awful. It was cold, windy, and the concession stands kept running out of coffee and hot chocolate. To top it all off, I had the unfortunate opportunity to leave a game early for the first time in my life as it fulfilled the only condition that would allow me to do so; the Mets fall behind by ten runs after the sixth inning.
Do we really need the baseball 101? I mean isn't it assumed that anyone who reads a baseball article will know what an RBI is? It's not like WHIP or GIDP.
And in other news, the Yanks are the same. Their two hired guns score a buncha runs, fall asleep and lose to a team they shoulda beat. And this is all coming from a Yank fan!
The Mets will rise again! Wooo! It's a Met's year, peeps! Woo!
If something can be interpreted as being either singular or plural, it's probably a good idea to actually distinguish between the two forms by adding the -s for the plural form. The plural of MRE (Meals Ready to Eat) is MREs, so let's go with RBIs instead of the poserville 5 RBI. Besides, I seem to recall that during the mid-1990's it was some wankers of a subsidiary of the evil, mouse-eared empire, specifically some of the putzes over at ESPN, who were so gung-ho for changing the usage from RBIs to RBI for players with multi-RBI games. And that should probably be reason enough to return to the non-fluorocarbon induced version, RBIs.