Query: "pull off the tent button" (1912)

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>   While reading through old baseball columns I've noticed some
>unusual expressions. One of them--"pull off the tent button"--is in
>the _Oregon Sunday Journal_ April 7, 1912, section 4, p. 10, col. 1.
>Article title: "Angels Knock Ben Henderson's Smile Off In Terrific 3
>to 2 Game":
>
>        "The Angels collected six safe hits off Henderson in the
>fourth and fifth innings.  This grapeshot stuff silenced the
>Champions [i.e., Portland, league champions in 1910, 1911] and
>snuffed all their ginger out.  It might have been worse, a whole lot
>worse.  The game was not nearly as close as the figures would
>indicated.  The way the Dillonites are lacing the ball around the
>park and pulling off the tent button shows the stuff they are made
>of."
>
>    Would anyone be familiar with this expression? And why would
>pulling off a tent button express outstanding performance.

I've never heard it. Here's my naive guess. A tent button fastens the flap
of a tent. Someone coming out of the tent first unbuttons the button. But
if he's really enthusiastic he rushes out without unbuttoning it ... just
rips off the button. So this would be a metaphor for eagerness or
[excessive] energy. Were tents used as 'dugouts' in baseball?

As for "snuffing out the ginger", I suppose this mixed-up metaphor shows
that the original sense of "ginger" = "pep" (supposedly ginger acted as a
stimulant when administered to a horse per rectum) was already forgotten in
1912.

-- Doug Wilson