play pepper

[Jerome Foster]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Monday, April 11, 2011 7:17 AM
Subject: Re: play pepper


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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: play pepper
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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
>
> At 4/10/2011 11:32 PM, Dan Goncharoff wrote:
>>Pepper is normally a drill where a batter hits ground balls at fielders,
>>who
>>catch and throw the ball quickly back to the batter, who hits another
>>ground
>>ball, etc.
>>
>>I don't know how you play pepper with a wall -- perhaps you throw the ball
>>against the wall and field it, and throw and field, etc.
>>
>>DanG
>>
>>On Sun, Apr 10, 2011 at 11:07 PM, victor steinbok
>><aardvark66 at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
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>> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> > Poster:       victor steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
>> > Subject:      play pepper
>> >
>> >
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >
>> > In my sheltered existence, I've never heard the expression or been
>> > aware of the underlying ball drill. So, when I heard a comment during
>> > the Yankees-Red Sox broadcast (ESPN) that Adrian Gonzales will "play
>> > pepper with the Green Monster", my ears perked up. My understanding is
>> > that "playing pepper" is mostly associated with baseball and
>> > volleyball drills that involve continuously distributing the balls
>> > between players. I am assuming that there was some game that involved
>> > tossing a hot-pepper prop (or a pretend-hot-pepper), at some
>> > point--sort of a version of "hot potato", but what's the idea with
>> > Gonzales? Is the implication that he will bounce a lot of doubles off
>> > the wall?
>> >
>> > VS-)
>> >
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