"go for the downs"

[Dan Goncharoff]

I never heard the phrase before. GN shows some usages in the 70s. I
would be more likely to use "swing for the fences" or "trying to take
the pitcher downtown" to mean the same thing -- a hard swing. I don't
know if "downtown" is the source.

One thought -- for many years, the stadium for the Dodgers' main farm
team was Delorimier Downs in Montreal. Perhaps there was a
strategically placed sign?

DanG

On Thu, Aug 26, 2010 at 9:47 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "go for the downs"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 9:25 PM -0400 8/26/10, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>Not only is it not in HDAS, I've never heard of it before.
>>
>>How common can it be?  Did it once refer to actual place near a ballpark
>>called "The Downs"?
>>
>>I watched Yankees baseball on WPIX for ten years in the '50s and '60s, and
>>the Mets on WOR for years after that and never noticed its use.
>>
>>JL
>
> It's familiar to me, especially as "swing(ing) for the downs".
> (Maybe The Downs are where all the marbles can be found.)  It seems
> to me it's used mostly as a criticism; a player who ought to be just
> trying to get on base or hitting a single or a ball into the gap in
> going for/swinging for the downs is swinging from his heels and
> likely missing the ball or popping up.
>
> LH
>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>On Thu, Aug 26, 2010 at 9:17 PM, George Thompson
>><george.thompson at nyu.edu>wrote:
>>
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>>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>  Poster:       George Thompson <george.thompson at NYU.EDU>
>>>  Subject:      "go for the downs"
>>>
>>>
>>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>>  I recall my father using this expression, to describe a baseball batter who
>>>  has taken a very vigorous swing: "he was going for the downs with that
>>>  swing."  I have just heard Al Leiter say it, on a rerun of a Yankees
>>>  broadcast from earlier this month.
>>>
>>>  My impression is, that it only refers to a vigorous swing that misses the
>>>  ball, or at least, that fails to produce a home run.  I have never heard it
>>>  in statements like *He went for the downs in the 5th inning, or *Batters
>>>  have gone for the downs against him 17 times this season.
>>>
>>>  I don't see it in OED, nor in HDAS.
>>>
>>>  GAT
>>>
>>>  George A. Thompson
>>>  Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
>>>  Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.
>>>
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>>
>>
>>
>>--
>>"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>>
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