"go for the downs"

[Paul Frank]

Here's something from Boys' Life, 1984 (via Google Books):

<http://books.google.com/books?id=j2YEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA25&ots=DhHjv5Yd2Y&dq=%22went%20for%20the%20downs%22&pg=PA25#v=onepage&q=%22went%20for%20the%20downs%22&f=false>

Paul

Paul Frank
Translator
German, French, Italian > English
paulfrank at post.harvard.edu
paul.frank at bfs.admin.ch



On Fri, Aug 27, 2010 at 3:25 AM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject: Â  Â  Â Re: "go for the downs"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Not only is it not in HDAS, I've never heard of it before.
>
> How common can it be? Â 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:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster: Â  Â  Â  George Thompson <george.thompson at NYU.EDU>
>> Subject: Â  Â  Â "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." Â 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. Â 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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>

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