Right-hander Mike Krukow spent 14 seasons with the Cubs, Phillies and Giants between 1976 and 1989, accumulating a vast array of baseball slang that sounded like a foreign language to fans when the pitcher started working as a Giants broadcaster in 1990. According to Daniel Brown, a writer with the San Jose Mercury News who documented Krukow's contribution to the lexicon of baseball in a July 18 feature, the Giants told him to tone it down when he first began working in the booth 16 years ago. Now his vocabulary is a big hit in the Bay Area, and fans of all ages approach him on the street about their favorite phrases. One of this writer's favorites is cement mixer, a slider that spins but doesn't break. Krukow credits former Giants pitcher Joel Johnstone for that gem. How about stank-eye, that stare a hitter directs at a pitcher after being the recipient of a brushback pitch? "Will Clark had a good stank-eye," Krukow told Brown. "Reggie Smith had a great stank-eye -- he had a Ph.D. in stank-eye. Then, toward the end of his career, he had more stank-eye than ability." Krukow also uses paralysis fastball, the heater off the outside corner that freezes a hitter, usually with two strikes. Low fly describes a fast-moving baserunner. "You watch Rickey Henderson and the way he used to run," Krukow explained, "and he used to get really low. I was never fast enough, so I ran upright. If you low-fly when you're going slow, you fall down." A brain-dead heaver is a pitcher who simply throws at full velocity and shows no finesse. One time Krukow called former closer Jay Howell a brain-dead heaver, causing a representative of a Bay Area anti-defamation league to contact the Giants because she believed Krukow had called someone a brain-dead Hebrew on the air. Brown covers many more Krukow-isms in his feature, but let's close with meat. Its original meaning was a rookie, fresh meat, and it became a common greeting. When Krukow arrived in the majors, veteran catcher George Mitterwald introduced him to the term. "He called me Meat all year." It often was a friendly greeting then, as in "How's it going, Meat," but it's taken on a less charitable meaning with Krukow. The broadcaster has been known to chastise a free-swinger flailing at a bad pitch with, "Nice swing, Meat."