"in the clutch (baseball)--query

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Sat, 21 May 2005 14:10:31 -0400, Douglas G. Wilson <douglas at NB.NET> wrote:

>JL's suggestion seems a likely possibility. A glance at the on-line
>papers produces "came through in the clutch" in appropriate sense from
>1930, "clutch game" from 1935. "In the clutch of circumstance" (no
>"fell") was used sometimes meaning "in conditions of hardship" or so,
>and this was apparently the name of a movie in 1918. If the sports sense
>came directly from this expression, I would hope to find at least
>occasional early examples of a longer form in sports, e.g., "come
>through in the clutch of circumstance".

I'll research this more when I get the chance, but in the meantime I'll
just point to a thread on "clutch player" in the alt.usage.english
newsgroup in Feb. 2003.  In the thread, it was pointed out that a
precursor to "in the clutch" was "in the pinch(es)".  Here was my
contribution:

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http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.usage.english/msg/973ebf7f3f481ce3?hl=en

From: Ben Zimmer          Apr 11 2003, 10:13 pm

Bob Stahl wrote:

> Evan Kirshenbaum:
> > ...it is rather old.  The OED gives an 1868 example.
> > My own guess, however (and that's all it is) is that
> > it's the opponent's grasp that's being referred to,
> > as a hunting metaphor.  The game's not yet "in the
> > bag", but they "have the game in hand".  The OED
> > dates the sense of
> >     3. Tight grip or grasp; the act of clutching.
> > back to ca. 1661.

> Ring Lardner used the phrases "in the pinch" and "in the pinches" in a
> sense similar to "in the clutch" in his baseball stories "Horseshoes"
> (1914) and "Alibi Ike" (1915), which he prefaced with an
> acknowledgement of his "indebtedness to Chief Justice Taft for some of
> the slang employed".

It's possible to find earlier baseball usages of "in the pinch(es)" in
Proquest's Historical Newspaper database, for instance in a verse called
"When 'Wifey' Reads Dope" by the famous sportswriter Grantland Rice,
which appeared in the Washington Post on Aug 18, 1907:

  Then she read-- "With mighty bludgeons in their mitts, the demon Sox
  Hopped on Waddell in the pinches-- hammered him out of the box..."

Presumably this is also the source of "pinch hitter"-- a player who hits
"in the pinch(es)".  First citation in OED2 is 1912 (in the Literary
Digest-- Lardner again?), but Proquest takes it back much earlier:

        DECIDED BY ONE SCORE; Senators Win a Ten-inning Game from
        Orioles.; The Washington Post; Jul 8, 1899; pg. 8
        La Chance, who is one of McGraw's best "pinch" hitters this
        season, was permitted to walk, a clever move in strategy by
        Winnie and Kittridge.

        WINNING HIT IN; Bill Clarke to the Rescue with the Score Tied.
        The Washington Post, Washington, D.C.; Jul 15, 1902; pg. 8
        Since he returned to the game he has come to be recognized as
        the "pinch" hitter of the outfit.

        SENATORS; Tart Comment Upon the Team's Work of the Season.
        The Washington Post, Washington, D.C.; Sep 13, 1902; pg. 9
        At the bat Ely is known as a pinch hitter.  A pinch hitter is
        a batter who drives runs across the plate.

As these quotes indicate, "pinch hitter" originally meant something like
what "clutch hitter" means now:

        http://archives.emazing.com/archives/baseball/2000-02-22
        The first official pinch hitter in a game was Mickey Welch
        for the New York Giants. On August 10, 1889, Welch stepped to
        the plate and was announced as a "pinch" hitter. At that time
        "pinch" was a synonym for "clutch" and the game was on the
        line for the Giants. He struck out. The first hit by a pinch
        hitter did not occur until almost three complete seasons
        later. On May 14, 1892, Tom Daly stroked the first hit by a
        pinch hitter when he lofted a home run for the Brooklyn
        Dodgers.

So after "pinch hitter" came to mean any substitute batter, "clutch
hitter" took over its previous sense, i.e., a batter (not necessarily a
substitute) who can get a hit in the late innings of a close game.
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--Ben Zimmer