"out of left field" (Why "left"?)

[Bruce Dykes]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Gerald Cohen" <gcohen at UMR.EDU>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Tuesday, February 27, 2001 15:54
Subject: "out of left field" (Why "left"?)


>     I have received the following query:
>
> >Can you tell me how the expression "out of left field' came into
> >existence and has the meaning it has? It is obviously of baseball
> >origin, but why not out of right field or out of center or something
> >else? Why is out of left field associated with the unusual or the
> >bizarre or the weird or the unexpected?
>
>      _The New Dickson Baseball Dictionary_ (by Paul Dickson; NY: Harcourt,
1999)
> says: "_left field_...Extended use:1. Things that are unusual,
> unexpected, or irrational are deemed to have come out, or from, left
> field. 'You'd think things are starting to look like they've got a
> pattern, and all of a sudden there's something that comes...from left
> field' (An investigator working on efforts to  determine the cause of
> the explosion of TWA Flight 800, quoted in _Baltimore Sun_, Aug. 17,
> 1996).
>
>      In other words, Dickson has nothing conclusive. Would anyone have
> any ideas?


As I learned it, I was told that baseballs get hit to left field
infrequently, so you stick your weakest fielder there.

So, you have:

a) a rare event
b) a place to stick unwanted people
and c) the odd instance of a ball being hit to left field, and your weakest
player getting the ball and successfully throwing it in for an out...

As to whether this is the actual reasoning, naturally I couldn't say, and
I'm confident Barry will pop up with a cite that antedates the phrase to an
era before baseball...8-)

bkd