Word.ws English Dictionary

called balls and strikes

called balls and strikes is the simple past and past participle of call balls and strikes.

Meaning of call balls and strikes

Verb

call balls and strikes (third-person singular simple present calls balls and strikes, present participle calling balls and strikes, simple past and past participle called balls and strikes)

  1. (US) To act as a home plate umpire.
    • The San Rafael Pacifics and Vallejo Admirals, two independent (not major league-affiliated) minor league teams, recently played two games using a computer system, rather than the home plate umpire, to call balls and strikes.2015 August 10, Alex Shultz, “Rise of the machines? Baseball weighs use of automated strike zone”, in LA Times
  2. (US, broadly) To act impartially.
    • Mayor-elect Lori Lightfoot said Thursday she wants and expects Inspector General Joe Ferguson to “call balls and strikes” during her administration and sees no reason their friendship would conflict with his role as a city watchdog.2019 May 13, Fran Spielman, “Watchdog should stay, call ‘balls and strikes’ despite our friendship: Lightfoot”, in Chicago Sun-Times

Questions about called balls and strikes

What is called balls and strikes the simple past and past participle of?
Called balls and strikes is the simple past and past participle of call balls and strikes.

Words near called balls and strikes in the dictionary

  1. called ahead
  2. called an audible
  3. called around
  4. called away
  5. called back
  6. called balls and strikes
  7. called collect
  8. called down
  9. called for
  10. called forth
  11. called in

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: called balls and strikes (page history and authors); call balls and strikes (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “called balls and strikes.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/called_balls_and_strikes. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.