Jinx (1907, 1909, 1910)

[Dave Wilton]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf
> Of Laurence Horn
> Sent: Friday, January 23, 2004 7:24 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: Jinx (1907, 1909, 1910)
>
>
> At 7:52 PM -0500 1/23/04, Douglas G. Wilson wrote:
> >
> >_Wichita Daily Times_ (Wichita Falls TX), 16 March 1910: p. 6, col. 3:
> >
> ><<The Cincinnati Red Sox will play a series of thirteen games before the
> >season opens. The thirteen stunts is a fine, fat way to clap the jinks on
> >yourself before the big gong is hit.>>
> >
> >----------
> >
> >-- Doug Wilson
>
> the Cincinnati Red Sox?  (I know the Reds went back to being the
> Redlegs for a while during the height of the McCarthy era, but were
> they ever the Red Sox?  Or is this just a typo?  Maybe someone had
> just hit the big gong a bit too hard.)

Yes, the first Cincinnati team was the "Red Stockings" (aka "Red Legs") in
1869. The modern National League team dates to 1890. The name was soon
clipped to "Reds." During the Cold War, some suggested the Reds change their
name, but they never officially did. Diehard fans claimed that they had the
name first and it was the Russians who should change.

The original Cincinnati team disbanded in 1871. Many of the players then
came to Boston and formed a new "Red Stockings" team. That team was gone by
the 1880s. The the American League formed a Boston team in 1901, which
played under various names until they took the name of the older Boston team
in 1906.

--Dave Wilton
  dave at wilton.net
  http://www.wilton.net