Golden Sombrero (baseball slang)

[Laurence Horn]

At 12:12 PM -0400 7/23/06, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
>On 7/23/06, Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
>>Dickson's got it from 1989 (Don Baylor), but Factiva and
>>Newspaperarchive push it back to 1987 (Pete Rose).
>>
>>-----
>>Associated Press, June 16, 1984
>>"We had two guys who got the 'Golden Sombrero' tonight. You know what
>>the Golden Sombrero is don't you? It's the hat trick plus one. Our No.
>>1 and No. 8 hitters struck out four times each." -- Cincinnati Manager
>>Pete Rose. Houston's Mike Scott struck out 14 Reds, leading Houston to
>>a 4-0 victory Monday.
>>-----
>
>That should read June 16, 1987, of course. Here's the box score for
>the game in question:
>
>http://retrosheet.org/boxesetc/B06150HOU1987.htm
>
>--Ben Zimmer

These days, with strikeout totals up across the board for hitters,
the really impressive feat is the platinum sombrero (five times in a
game).  Checking on google, I find that there's even a term (one I've
never actually heard, since it doesn't come up too often for obvious
reasons) for striking out six times in a game, generally requiring
extra innings to achieve.  The etymology of the original is evidently
from a hat trick (presumably an ironic transfer from the positive use
we've discussed here relating to scoring in hockey and other sports)
only with a larger hat.

LH

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