Any time you’re at a ball field or watching a game on TV, you’ll hear the language of baseball and softball. The sibling sports overlap in their vocabulary with terms like “southpaw,” “payoff pitch,” and “frozen rope.” Others are sport-specific, like “circle” for softball, while baseball uses “bump.”
It takes an expert in the game’s culture and language to know what it all means. Portland Cascade’s Ali Newland has made that her job.
In addition to being a utility for Portland’s professional softball team, Newland is the Baseball-Softball Expert Consultant for the Oxford English Dictionary (OED).
Yes, that dictionary that you might have just imagined – blue leather cover that lines volume after volume on the shelves of a school or local library. The OED is constantly updating and reviewing the words included to adapt to the evolving English language. Lexicographers can’t be experts in everything, especially something as niche as American sports, so that’s where Newland comes in.
“They send me all of their baseball, softball-related definitions to me for review… for additions, for subtractions,” Newland explained. Some things she regularly considers and consults on are: Does this word relate to softball, baseball, or both? Is it still used? How can this definition be better or clearer?
Newland was connected across the pond through a softball friend of a friend who referred her to the OED. Her work started with 15 or so queries in 2025, and she is paid by definition. Earlier this year, she got a promotion. She’ll work on meeting a quarterly query quota as the OED pursues reviewing 400 words related to baseball and softball.
“It’s like the coolest side hustle ever,” she said.
Newland was a journalism major during her career at LSU. She was on the SEC Academic Honor Roll four times and an Academic All-American her senior year in 2024.
These are some words and definitions she’s recently contributed to.
- Meatball – an easily hit pitch. Newland added: because the pitch was thrown over the middle of the plate.
- Windmill – chiefly softball, a type of underarm delivery used, especially in fast pitch softball, in which the pitcher moves his or her arm around in a full vertical circle before releasing the ball, resulting in a and powerful delivery. She eliminated windmill because it is an outdated term no longer used.
- Cutter – a high-velocity pitch thrown like a fastball but featuring a sharp, tight break toward the pitcher’s glove side as it reaches home plate. Newland classified that cutter is specific to baseball and not a term used in softball.
Her favorite word she’s come across? Orchard, another term for outfield. Right where she’ll be playing for the Casade this season.
Savanna Collins is the Senior Reporter for the AUSL. You can follow her on Instagram @savvyco.