gopher ball

[Fred Shapiro]

On Thu, 1 Jul 1999, Mike Calvert wrote:

> Is anyone familiar with the term "gopher ball" as slang for a home run
> in baseball?
>
> The sportswriter who used it in a story told me it's not an uncommon
> term and is used by TV announcers. The sports editor was also familiar
> with it.

This is a well-established baseball term.  E. J. Nichols, Historical
Dictionary of Baseball Terminology, defines _gopher_ as "A pitched ball
easy to hit; such balls "go fer" extra bases, the name being a phonetic
corruption."  Nichols's earliest citation is Baseball Magazine, Oct. 1932,
49:496.

Fred R. Shapiro                             Coeditor (with Jane Garry)
Associate Librarian for Public Services     TRIAL AND ERROR: AN OXFORD
  and Lecturer in Legal Research            ANTHOLOGY OF LEGAL STORIES
Yale Law School                             Oxford University Press, 1998
e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu               ISBN 0-19-509547-2