play pepper

[Laurence Horn]

At 10:17 AM -0400 4/11/11, Joel S. Berson 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
>
Speaking of which, when I read that review, at
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/10/books/review/book-review-baseball-in-the-garden-of-eden-by-john-thorn.html,
I was vividly reminded of the similarities between doing serious
baseball history and doing serious etymology.  The concluding remarks
of the reviewer, on how unsatisfying all this careful and
well-documented debunking of myth and hypocrisy turns out to be, is a
verdict I can imagine sometimes leveled at our own travails.

LH

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