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

[Garson O'Toole]

Here is another example of the larcenous "pepper game" in 1868:

Cite: 1868 January 29, Hartford Daily Courant, General News, Page 2,
Hartford, Connecticut. (ProQuest)

The "pepper game" was tried on the porter
of A. H. Solomon &  Co., in Broad street, New
York, Monday, while be was carrying a box con-
taining valuables from the Safe Deposit compa-
ny to the store or his employers. Although
blinded by pepper and knocked down the porter
kept firm held of the box. There were two as-
sailants and both escaped.

Garson

On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 11:43 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: "pepper game"; "play[ed] pepper"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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
>>
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