Gothamist: Mets Win Opener!

ridcully

Mon, 14 Jun 2004 04:35:50 -0500

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.

Ron Mwangaguhunga

Wed, 07 Apr 2004 16:12:45 -0500

The Mets will rise again! Wooo! It's a Met's year, peeps! Woo!

doshin

Wed, 07 Apr 2004 12:18:20 -0500

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!

GWong

Wed, 07 Apr 2004 10:42:15 -0500

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.

nkw

Wed, 07 Apr 2004 10:11:25 -0500

Way to go Gothamist for taking a stand against RBIs!

tien

Wed, 07 Apr 2004 10:02:20 -0500

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.

joe s

Wed, 07 Apr 2004 09:53:26 -0500

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.

e

Wed, 07 Apr 2004 09:28:24 -0500

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.

pjh

Wed, 07 Apr 2004 09:22:28 -0500

love the plural...that moutherf**cker had like 4 Ribees last night yo...

tien

Wed, 07 Apr 2004 09:11:53 -0500

but RBI is in fact an acronym.

Frankenstein

Wed, 07 Apr 2004 09:10:05 -0500

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.