• Take a rain check? This well-known expression actually derives from the early days of American sport. If your game was postponed or delayed because of bad weather you'd get a ticket — or rain check — which would give you a free seat next time your team were in action.

• The bleachers are the cheapest seats in the ballpark and are directly opposite the home plate. Unlike the seats immediately behind the diamond, the bleachers are a long way from the action and are often uncovered — leaving the occupants and their faded seats open to the elements, and a potential bleaching when things get hot. But on the upside you might get the chance to catch a homer…

• Fancy a tater? There are countless names and nicknames for a home run. So next time Mark McGwire slugs it to the bleachers, pick any one of the following to demonstrate your baseballing know-how: blast, dinger, dong, four-bagger, four-base knock, moon shot, tape-measure blast, tater — and, of course, the good old-fashioned homer.

• Unthinkable as it would be to a fan at Lord's or Old Trafford, in baseball you actually get the chance to keep the ball if it's hit into the crowd. And a lot of fans take their mitts along just on the off chance they can bag a homer. Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa's record-breaking hits of the 1999 season were auctioned off for millions of dollars and provoked a series of acrimonious disputes over which fan had actually caught the ball. But that isn't always the way. Some franchises have a tradition of returning the balls if the homer was hit by a visiting batter — so that the home fans throw the ball back onto the field as a mark of respect to their team.