Another Early S.F. Baseball Usage of "Jazz"

[Cohen, Gerald Leonard]

    Interesting posts by Fred, as always. His latest two will call for further checking to see just what was going on, primarily because the 1914 use of "jazz" to denote "blowing a game" is totally unexpected.  Everything we know about the 1913ff.  baseball use of "jazz" is that it expressed something favorable (vim, vigor, fighting spirit).
      On a secondary note, who was Solari? Who exactly are the Solari Boyes Spring(s?) Jazz boys?  And did they perhaps blow a game shortly before May 10, 1914, leading to their name being taken as the quintessential example of such failure, thereby producing the ususual "jazz" = blow (a game)?
      I'll try to get ahold of the relevant microfilms.

Gerald Cohen


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Mesage from Fred Shapiro, Thu 9/25/2008 7:33 AM
Subject: Antedating of "Jazz" as Verb

The recent digitization of the San Francisco Chronicle by ProQuest does not seem to provide an antedating of the word "jazz."  However, it does antedate my previous discovery of the earliest occurrence of "jazz" as a verb, in a context that is cryptic but that connects with other early West Coast baseball usages of "jazz" that have been discovered and are newly incorporated into the OED:

jazz, v. (OED 1915)

1914 _S.F. Chronicle_ 7 May 10 (ProQuest Historical Newspapers)  (headline)  Venice Tigers Step Further Out in Front as Seals Lose  C. S. Smith Almost Jazzes Game Cinched by Venice.

The body of the article describes reliever C. S. Smith almost blowing a baseball game against the Oakland Oaks.  I don't see the word "jazz" used in the body of the article, but the body is poorly OCR'd (the headline is very clear) and I will study it more carefully when I have the time.  I guess the usage of "jazz" here seems on its face to mean "blows, messes up."

Fred Shapiro


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From: Message from Fred Shapiro, Thu 9/25/2008 7:40 AM
Subject:  Another Early S.F. Baseball Usage of "Jazz"

Here is another early San Francisco baseball usage of "jazz," although it sheds no new etymological light:


1914 _S. F. Chronicle_ 7 Mar. 4 (ProQuest Historical Newspapers)  The Yannigans are to oppose the Solari's Boyes Spring Jazz boys Sunday at Parramore Park, and they showed today that they didn't hold this fast bush organization too lightly, for they worked hard for Foreman Fanning, and put in extra time in the field.


Fred Shapiro

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