Goofs, Yannigans, Juveniles (was Re: goof antedate)

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Wed, 24 Nov 2004 02:14:13 -0500, Benjamin Zimmer
<bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU> wrote:

>On Tue, 23 Nov 2004 14:14:23 -0600, Mullins, Bill
><Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL> wrote:
>
>>goof (n) slang  OED: 1. A silly, stupid, or  daft  person.  1916 Sat.
>>Even. Post
>>
>>"What the Umpires Will Do" _Baseball Magazine_, June, 1915, No. 2, p. 62.
>>"an' what inell didja say that goof's name was what was tuh pitch?"
>
>I don't have Dickson's dictionary handy, but I know that "goof" was
>already used in baseball by that time (in Chicago at least) to refer to a
>second-string player on a team's roster who only played during spring
>training -- typically in intersquad games between the "regulars" (or
>"premiers") and the "goofs".  Newspaperarchive.com has that sense of the
>term back to 1912:
>
>     Coshocton (Ohio) Tribune, March 15, 1912
>     Kid Gleason's goofs defeated the regulars.
>
>     Lincoln (Neb.) Evening News, March 20, 1912
>     The White Sox premiers and Gleason's "Goofs" parted company
>     today, the latter squad, commanded by Doc White, leaving this
>     morning for San Antonio to begin practice on the diamond to
>     be vacated today by Connie Mack's Athletics. ... The "Goofs"
>     will probably remain at San Antonio the balance of the
>     training season.
>
>     (Decatur, Ill.) Daily Review, April 14, 1912
>     GOOFS SPANKED IN FIRST GAME
>     German's Regulars Win Opening Tilt, 8 to 2.
>
>See also <http://www.springtrainingmagazine.com/history2.html>:
>
>     The Cubs spent their weeks on the island playing mostly inter-
>     squad games. The regulars versus the goofs, they were called.
>
>Looks like the Cubs and White Sox were the teams who most often called
>their B-squads "goofs", or perhaps they were the only teams to do so.
>(Someone with access to the Tribune archive might find earlier cites.)

Following up... George Thompson finds nothing relevant in the Tribune
archive before that fateful spring of 1912:

    WHITE SOX SQUAD IN TWO SECTIONS; Callahan to Send Second Team to
    San Antonio Today for Practice. MATTICK GOES TO FIRSTS. Premiers
    and Goofs Exhausted After Most Strenuous Drill in the South.
    SAM WELLER. Chicago Daily Tribune: Mar 20, 1912. p. 11

I would guess that someone in the White Sox organization (perhaps coach
Kid Gleason) came up with the "Goofs" sobriquet for spring training in
1912.  Then at some later point the crosstown Cubs borrowed "Goofs" for
their own B-squad.  As the link above suggests, the Cubs were still using
"Goofs" when they moved their spring training to Catalina Island in the
'20s.  Here's another reference, found via Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0974242403/?v=search-inside&keywords=goofs

    _The Cubs on Catalina: A Scrapbookful of Memories About a
    30-Year Love Affair Between One of Baseball's Classic Teams
    & California's Most Fanciful Isle_, by Jim Vitti.
    Settefrati Press (2003)

    The guys had some fun with their intrasquad games.  Just about
    every year, the half-squads got new names.  Some matchups over
    the years:
    Regulars vs. Sand Dabs
    Regulars vs. Goofs
    Doublemints vs. Spearmints
    Catalinas vs. Avalons (Burns covered these in the Tribune as
    Joseph V. McCarthy's Avalons vs. J. Vincent McCarthy's Catalinas)
    Claghorns vs. Wildcats
    Regulars vs. Rebels
    Regulars vs. Daisies
    Regulars vs. Yannigans
    McCullough's Night Owls vs. Scheffing's Grumpies
    Whites vs. Grays
    Roy Johnsons vs. Spud Davises

One of the B-squad nicknames listed is "Yannigans", which I see has been
discussed at length here by Barry Popik and Gerry Cohen back in Dec. '02,
with cites from Barry back to 1895.  Indeed, when "Goofs" starts appearing
in the sports pages in 1912, it's as an alternative to "Yan(n)igans",
e.g.:

    In the Phillies' New Training Camp
    Edward L. Grant, Baseball Magazine, May, 1909, No. 1, p. 13-14.
    Every afternoon all the guests are out to see our practice or
    the game between the Regulars and Yanigans. And they root hard—
    not for the Regulars, however, for they are an out-and-out
    Yanigan crowd, and rejoice at any humiliation they can
    administer the opponents.

One other B-squad name I noticed in Baseball Magazine is "Juveniles":

    Phillies vs. Athletics
    William A. Phelon, Baseball Magazine, May, 1912, No. 1, p. 1-6.
    A game was on between the Regulars of the team and the Juveniles—
    the ambitious youngsters of the aggregation...

The "Juveniles" nickname lends some credence to the idea that
"Yan(n)igans" started off as a variant of "young 'uns" (mentioned in a
Jan. '03 post by Doug Wilson).

--Ben Zimmer