"Tom Brown" as an 1896 baseball term

[Cohen, Gerald Leonard]

Thanks for the suggestion. But what went on in _Tom Brown's Schooldays_ that would be relevant to an unsuccessfully batted ball?

Gerald Cohen

> ----------
> From:         American Dialect Society on behalf of Laurence Horn
> Sent:         Thursday, June 23, 2005 3:20 PM
> To:   ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject:           Re: "Tom Brown" as an 1896 baseball term
>
        <snip>
> Could there be an allusion here to the Tom Brown of _Tom Brown's Schooldays_, despite the Victorian England provenance of that book, which would certainly have been well known in the U.S. as well as Britain at that time?  Just a thought.
>
> Larry
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>