fan the ozone (1890), ozoned (1903)

[Laurence Horn]

At 6:07 AM -0400 5/20/05, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
>* _fan_ (or _whiff_, _stroke_, etc.) _the ozone_ 'strike out (swinging)'
>
>1890 _Boston Globe_ 4 Apr. 4/6 At his first time to bat in the fifth,
>Doyle, the new pitcher, fanned the ozone.
>
>1891 _Boston Globe_ 1 Jul. 5/3 (heading) Fanning the ozone. Boston could
>do no hitting and lost the game.
>
>...
>
>* _ozone_, v. 'strike out (swinging)'
>
>1903 _Washington Post_ 12 Apr. III8/2 "Ozoned" is this year's term for a
>strikeout. The men who are the victims have other names for it.
>

Interesting.  There are early enough to make it conceivable that
intransitive "fan" ('strike out (swinging)') may have originated as
an absolute use of this figure, although perhaps not.  Here's the
OED--

8. N. Amer. Of a pitcher in baseball: to cause (a batter) to strike out.

1909 in WEBSTER.
1912 C. MATHEWSON Pitching in a Pinch v. 101 He fanned the next two men.

b. intr. Of a batter: to strike out.
1886 Outing (U.S.) July 477/2 The man who..'fans out' or 'pops one up'.

--and HDAS has 1888 (but no text given) for trans. "fan", along with
1901 for "Pitcher Hughes...fanned eleven."

Note that in the latter use, called third strikes would be included
in the total of players a pitcher fanned; the continuation "...and
got three more looking" would be impossible, I'd wager.  The "fan
out" in the 1886 cite is an archaism which now sounds like a blend of
"strike out" and "fan".

Larry