Your opening examples definitely seem to be more acceptable in America, compared to Britain where they're still quite offensive - similarly, I remember reading a story about some Nintendo game that had to be hastily updated in the PAL terrorities when they learned that calling the player "super-spastic" for doing badly meant something far worse than what they had intended.

I'm sure I'd heard the baseballisms before I moved to America and had a vague idea of what they meant, but Britain certainly cares far less about the sport than it knows about the associated phrases.