And in (additional) honor of the Giants' World Series win...

Wed Nov 3 22:12:20 UTC 2010

HDAS (compiled in the horse-and-buggy days before cyberdatabases) has cites
back to the '30s but no convincing explanatory etymology. Though Larry's
sense of a weakly hit or lucky homer is dominant, the phrase has
been variously interpreted.

JL

On Wed, Nov 3, 2010 at 5:15 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:

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> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: And in (additional) honor of the Giants' World Series
> win...
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 1927 _Charleroi [Pa.] Mail_ (June 23) 7: The Phillies went into a deadlock
> on Cy's Chinese homer only to see the Buccos hammer over four runs a little
> later.
>
> 1943 _Burlington [N.C.] Daily Times-News_  (Sept. 10) 8: No fewer than
> 21[?]
> National League players hit their first home runs at the Polo
> Grounds...That's why they call them Chinese home runs...The Giants can't
> win
> even in a Chinese park.  [Suspension points in original.]
>
> 1948 _Lowell [Mass.] Sun_ (Oct. 2) 5: Ballplayers played ball in those
> days.
> Now they pop a Chinese home run into an overhanging balcony and the crowd
> thinks it's wonderful.
>
> 1951 _Altoona Mirror_ (Oct. 6) 1: As the scene shifted from the massive
> Yankee stadium to the Polo grounds - scene of the "Chinese" home run, [sic]
> the fans seemed to be only warming up to what  so far has been the most
> anti-climatic [sic] world series [sic] ever played.
>
> JL
>
> On Wed, Nov 3, 2010 at 4:47 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu
> >wrote:
>
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> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> > Subject:      And in (additional) honor of the Giants' World Series
> win...
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > The last time the Giants won the Series it was 1954, when they were
> > playing in the Polo Grounds a few blocks from where I lived in upper
> > Manhattan.  Notwithstanding this proximity, I was--as a rabid fan of
> > the  Brooklyn Dodgers--not pleased with the Giants' success and was
> > rooting in vain for the Cleveland Indians in that Series.  The
> > turning point of that Series may well have been the game-saving catch
> > in Game 1 of the deep drive by the Indians' Vic Wertz by Willie Mays,
> > possibly the most celebrated defensive play in the history of
> > baseball.  But what I remember equally well is the game-winning
> > pinch-hit home run hit by Dusty Rhodes in the 10th inning of the game
> > Game 1 following the famous catch (a.k.a. "The Catch")
> >
> > Curiously to me, the only listing for "Chinese home run" in
> > Urbandictionary is the following, which I'm totally unfamiliar with:
> >
> > When a batter fouls a ball back behind the screen or net into the stands.
> > "Johnson remains at the plate after hitting a Chinese Home Run on a 2-2
> > count."
> >
> > Other web entries do provide the relevant sense, and indeed Dickson's
> > "New Baseball Dictionary" (p. 114) not only includes this sense but
> > indexes this very same epochal event as the first use of the phrase,
> > although I seem to recall (dimly, since I was 9 years old at the
> > time) that the announcers seemed to presuppose watchers would be
> > familiar with the term.  The reference seems either exclusive to or
> > largely limited to use to describe home runs to the very short
> > right-field corner, and to signal the "cheapness" of the home run,
> > which Dickson notes was also described, probably by Cleveland fans,
> > as "a 260-foot pop fly.  So what I was wondering if the etymology is
> > just from the stereotype assumption of Chinese cheap labor > (Chinese
> > = cheap) > (cheap home run = Chinese home run) or if there's some
> > other motivation.  It's also interesting that the first use, both in
> > Dickson and some other sites, is attributed to our friend T. A.
> > ("TAD") Dorgan, who is of course on some of these sites still
> > identified as the originator of "hot dog".  I'm wondering whether the
> > attribution is more reliable in the case of "Chinese home run/homer"
> > than in the case of the dubious dachshund.
> >
> > LH
> >
> > (P.S.  While the term is predictably no longer in use, the Dickson
> > entry reminds me that the Chinese home run was successfully
> > transported from the Polo Grounds to the L. A. Coliseum, where the
> > Dodgers played in the late 1950s before their own Chavez Ravine
> > ballpark was built; the Coliseum was, and is, a football stadium
> > whose temporary conversion to baseball made cheap home runs possible,
> > only to left rather than right field.  Wally Moon, a journeyman
> > left-handed-hitting outfielder then playing for the Dodgers, made a
> > living by poking balls into those nearby stands (the opposite field
> > for him) that became known as "Moon Shots"--one of those lexical
> > items that was useful for a while, and then predictably died.  The
> > same is evidently true of "Chinese home run", but for a different
> > reason.
> >
> > At 6:53 AM -0700 11/3/10, geoffrey nunberg wrote:
> > >"He [Renteria] told Andres [Torres] he was going to hit one and he
> > >did it," outfielder Aaron Rowand said. "He Babe Ruth-ed it, I guess."
> > >
> > >
> >
> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/11/01/SP7S1G5BQ6.DTL&tsp=1#ixzz14E7MsJxI
> > >
> >
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