Chatter Down 10 Percent

NEW YORK—The usage of common baseball chatter, including phrases like “Heybattabatta” and “Swingbattabatta,” is down among teams at all levels by 10 percent, according to a report released by the Elias Sports Bureau Wednesday. “It’s difficult to determine why Americans would not want to slightly alter their voices and yell, ’Whaddayasaynowkid’,” said ESB analyst Edward Coffey, noting that Little League Baseball, traditionally considered the most important development area for chatter, recorded only 8.9 million instances of banter, patter, and other team-centric commentary this May, well down from last year’s 12.7 million. “It could be the economy or the general state of the world, as chatter was down almost 30 percent during the recession of the early ’90s. Then again, in the Great Depression we saw an outpouring of hundreds of novel forms of chatter. It’s entirely possible chatter is entering a whole new era.” In related news, chatter specifically for David Ortiz has dropped 90 percent.