I was studying some vocabulary about sports pages of the newspapers from a book. The book mentions that the sportswriters are masters of English language and states how well they attract readers to read on eagerly.
For example instead of saying "win by a big score" some may use "Purdue crushes winless Northwestern."
Sometimes the name of a team is used in an imaginative way. The headlines that follow are metaphors, or figurative uses of names which I get the gist but I'm not sure if I understand the meaning precisely.
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Bears Sack the Pack. (Bears won)
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Flat Bulls give Rockets a lift. (Flat Bulls won?)
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Hornets shake, bake Bulls. (Hornets won)
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Hoosiers fake, shake, break Illini. (Hoosiers won)
Question: Are the meaning of sentences true? Do the sentences specify how well did the teams won? Did they won by a big score or they barely got by or none?
Best Answer
Of the four examples you give, you are correct on three of them:
(EDIT) "Sack" is an officially recognized American football statistic in which the quarterback is tackled for a loss of yardage. And "the Pack" is a nickname for the Green Bay Packers who are long-standing rivals of the Chicago Bears.
The Bears won this game, maybe by a little, maybe by a lot; this headline doesn't really say, although if it's not obviously "a lot" then it's probably not remarkable.
"Flat" in this context means "lackluster." The Bulls played poorly, and this is why the Rockets won. Again, nothing says this was a spectacular win, so it probably wasn't remarkable.
"Shake 'n' bake" is a cooking product that you put in a bag along with meat, then shake it, remove it from the bag, bake it, and eat it. I would guess in this game that the Hornets were behind at first, but "shook" the Bulls by taking the lead, and then "baked" them by thoroughly beating them. The Hornets likely came from behind to win by a large margin.
This game was probably close and quite thrilling. I'd guess here that the Hoosiers were ahead, lost the lead, then regained it by the end of the game. The "break" would indicate breaking Illinois's defense (or morale), so they probably won by a very close margin in the last seconds of the game.
Without knowing which games these apply to, I don't think I could do more than speculate here, but sports headlines do make for some interesting reading. You will very frequently see alliteration, rhyming, puns, and wordplay involving the team names and locations. If you can learn to follow them, I think you might consider yourself a master of English language.