"go for the downs"

[Jonathan Lighter]

Not only is it not in HDAS, I've never heard of it before.

How common can it be?  Did it once refer to actual place near a ballpark
called "The Downs"?

I watched Yankees baseball on WPIX for ten years in the '50s and '60s, and
the Mets on WOR for years after that and never noticed its use.

JL




On Thu, Aug 26, 2010 at 9:17 PM, George Thompson <george.thompson at nyu.edu>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       George Thompson <george.thompson at NYU.EDU>
> Subject:      "go for the downs"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I recall my father using this expression, to describe a baseball batter who
> has taken a very vigorous swing: "he was going for the downs with that
> swing."  I have just heard Al Leiter say it, on a rerun of a Yankees
> broadcast from earlier this month.
>
> My impression is, that it only refers to a vigorous swing that misses the
> ball, or at least, that fails to produce a home run.  I have never heard it
> in statements like *He went for the downs in the 5th inning, or *Batters
> have gone for the downs against him 17 times this season.
>
> I don't see it in OED, nor in HDAS.
>
> GAT
>
> George A. Thompson
> Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
> Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.
>
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