goof antedate

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Tue, 23 Nov 2004 14:14:23 -0600, Mullins, Bill
<Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL> wrote:

>goof (n) slang  OED: 1. A silly, stupid, or  daft  person.  1916 Sat. Even.
>Post
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>"What the Umpires Will Do" _Baseball Magazine_, June, 1915, No. 2, p. 62.
>"an' what inell didja say that goof's name was what was tuh pitch?"

I don't have Dickson's dictionary handy, but I know that "goof" was
already used in baseball by that time (in Chicago at least) to refer to a
second-string player on a team's roster who only played during spring
training -- typically in intersquad games between the "regulars" (or
"premiers") and the "goofs".  Newspaperarchive.com has that sense of the
term back to 1912:

     Coshocton (Ohio) Tribune, March 15, 1912
     Kid Gleason's goofs defeated the regulars.

     Lincoln (Neb.) Evening News, March 20, 1912
     The White Sox premiers and Gleason's "Goofs" parted company
     today, the latter squad, commanded by Doc White, leaving this
     morning for San Antonio to begin practice on the diamond to
     be vacated today by Connie Mack's Athletics. ... The "Goofs"
     will probably remain at San Antonio the balance of the
     training season.

     (Decatur, Ill.) Daily Review, April 14, 1912
     GOOFS SPANKED IN FIRST GAME
     German's Regulars Win Opening Tilt, 8 to 2.

See also <http://www.springtrainingmagazine.com/history2.html>:

     The Cubs spent their weeks on the island playing mostly inter-
     squad games. The regulars versus the goofs, they were called.

Looks like the Cubs and White Sox were the teams who most often called
their B-squads "goofs", or perhaps they were the only teams to do so.
(Someone with access to the Tribune archive might find earlier cites.)

--Ben Zimmer