"jazz" (1912)--Its limited use

[Gerald Cohen]

At 11:04 PM -0400 8/12/03, Dave Wilton wrote:
>A lack of other cites of "jazz ball" would not necessarily be conclusive.
>Instead of being a direct antecedent of Gleeson's uses the next year, the
>1912 citation indicates the term was in the vocabulary of West Coast
>sportswriters and baseball players in the 1912-13 timeframe.


  At present there's no evidence that "jazz ball" as spoken by
Henderson was generally in the vocabulary of West Cost sportswriters
and baseball players in the 1912-1913 time frame. It wasn't even
mentioned in any of the San Francisco Bulletin baseball articles I've
read through (1913: mid-Feb. through June--in detail; Sept. - mid
Oct., all articles skimmed with a determined search for "jazz")--and
this despite the constant searching of the sports writers for
anything interesting/novel to report on, especially during spring
training season.

    Maybe Henderson's "jazz ball" was mentioned often in the Portland
(or other) newspapers of 1912.  But that remains to be demonstrated.
In spring training and the early baseball season there was often
creative wordsmithing of an ephemeral nature, e.g.: "lallapazzazza,"
"comme il "spazaza", "sswanzz", "Bazzazzaville", "Skoozicks
Mageezicks"--all from the San Francisco Bulletin.

    In other words, until demonstrated otherwise, "jazz ball" (which
seems not to have actually been a new pitch) should be regarded as
belonging to these ephemeral items of limited use.

Gerald Cohen