The Big Apple

[Clark Whelton]

----- Original Message -----

> --- Gerald Cohen <gcohen at UMR.EDU> wrote:
> >    There is no evidence that Aqueduct Racetrack was
> > ever referred to
> > as "The Big Apple."

I agree.  But did racing insiders refer to it as The Big A prior to the
1950s, or was my uncle's 1918 reference a nonce usage, as Barry Popik
suggests?

From: "James Smith" <jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2002 9:01 AM
Subject: Re: The Big Apple

> John J. Fitz Gerald's stable hand may have been
> referring to New York in general, or specifically to
> Aqueduct - how did Fitz Gerald know?  'The Big Apple'
> need not have been general lingo for Aqueduct; that
> one man - that one stable hand from whom Fitz Gerald
> got the phrase - may have been referring to Aqueduct
> specifically, to Aqueduct as representative of all the
> New York tracks, or to the race tracks as a group.
> Fitz Gerald made an assumption and simply used the
> phrase as it served him best, but there is little
> likelihood we'll ever know what the stable hand
> specifically meant.

This sums it up for me.