"pepper game"; "play[ed] pepper"

[Joel S. Berson]

At 4/11/2011 10:32 AM, victor steinbok wrote:
>I've been trying to put together a long post on this, particularly on
>the 1914 bit. But it's taking more time than I expected.

Prompted by Victor, and since I was already within 19th Century U.S.
Newspapers on a quest for Jesse, I took a look for "pepper game".

Here's something not on the baseball diamond -- and apparently not in
the OED3 either.

1a)  The editor assumes we know what it is --

The Grab Thief. There is another charge of larceny against the thief
who played the pepper game in the recent robbery in Ordway's jewelry
store. Shortly after the robbery he was on the Massachusetts
corporation, and telling a young man that his hat had blown into the
canal, he was loaned one, which he promised to return in a half-hour.
Both hat and thief are still among the missing.

Lowell Daily Citizen and News (Lowell, MA) Wednesday, March 01, 1871;
Issue 4549; col C.  [Actually, col. 4? And do I assume page 1 when no
page number is given?]  The above is the complete article.

1b)  In a later issue (ah, the good old days in Lowell) --

A "Grab Game," and its Results. A rough-looking individual, giving
his name as George Brown, called at the fruit store of Moses D.
Barker, on Merrimack street last evening, evidently with the
intention to steal. [Tale of the fruit store incident, culminating
with an attempt by Brown to steall Barker's wallet.] When taken to
the police station ... [a] ligh cap was found in his pocket, which
the officers thought he had provided in case of an emergency, when it
might be used as a disguise as did the fellow who played his "pepper
game" at Ordway's jewelry store, recently.

Lowell Daily Citizen and News (Lowell, MA) Saturday, May 27, 1871;
Issue 4623; col D col. 4].

2)  The explanation --

The Pepper Game. / A Cashier is Almost Blinded and the Till
Robbed.  [head and subhead]
A daring robbery was committed yesterday afternoon in the office of
the Chicago Car-wheel Company ... two men entered the office, where
Walter Todd, the cashier, was making up the pay-envelopes of the
employees. The taller one of the strangers asked Mr. Todd if a man
named White was at work for the company, and, as the cashier looked,
the fellow threw a handful of red-pepper into his face, nearly
blinding him. The thieves then grappled with him, and pushed him into
a closet, where they locked the door upon him. They then took the
money on the desk and in the drawer .. and left the premises.

The Daily Inter Ocean (Chicago, IL) Tuesday, February 07, 1882; pg.
5; Issue 282; col F [col. 6].
----------
I got no hits for "play[ed] pepper"; nor for "baseball" + "pepper".

Joel


>VS-)
>
>On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 10:17 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> >
> > Well, the OED3 has a definition -- but I wonder if it's ... um, a
> > little off base (too specific):
> > 7. Baseball. A training exercise or warm-up in which a batter hits a
> > ball pitched at close range by one of a number of other players, one
> > of whom fields the ball and quickly pitches again to the batter.
> > Orig. and chiefly attrib., esp. in pepper game.
> >
> > The earliest quotation is 1914, which refers to "the *old* pepper
> > game" (emphasis added).
> >
> > Variation?  The fielders throw to a receiver standing next to the
> > hitter, who relays the ball to the batter, who tosses it up and hits it.
> >
> > And if John Thorn's recently published (and reviewed in he NYT Book
> > Review) has a good index, we can check the definition and the date.
> >
> > Joel
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org