[Ads-l] Crooked number

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

The Dickson reference book might be a bit late. Here is a match in
1975. The term "crooked numbers" is not explained, but the context is
a baseball scoreboard, so the match is probably ok.

Date: October 17, 1975
Newspaper: The Atlanta Constitution
Newspaper Location: Atlanta, Georgia
Article: Crooked Numbers?
Source: Associated Press
Quote Page 9E, Column 1
Database: Newspapers.com

[Begin excerpt]
Crooked Numbers?

Talking about Boston's power, Manager Darrell Johnson certainly has an
unusual way of putting it: "They can sure tack some crooked numbers up
on that scoreboard."
[End excerpt]

Garson

On Mon, Jun 28, 2021 at 2:12 PM Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Paul Dickson, in _The Dickson Baseball Dictionary_ (3rd ed.) dates "crooked
> number" back to 1993, citing a _New Yorker_ piece by Roger Angell. Angell
> credits Tony La Russa (who was then managing the Oakland A's).
>
> https://books.google.com/books?id=ceeU7xSLw5kC&pg=PA226
>
> On Mon, Jun 28, 2021 at 2:07 PM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
> wrote:
>
> > Around for a while, but I don’t know how long a while either.  Often in
> > the form “put up a crooked number”, with “on the (score)board” understood.
> > Presumably 8 counts a crooked even though 0 doesn’t.
> >
> > LH
> >
> >
> > > On Jun 28, 2021, at 8:14 AM, victor steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > I'm sure this predates me by several decades but I'm increasingly
> > noticing
> > > "crooked number" in baseball slang. In particular, the full expression is
> > > "put a crooked number on the board", but abbreviated versions exist as
> > > well. Here, the crooked number is 4.
> > >
> > > https://nypost.com/2021/06/27/yankees-gerrit-cole-ambushed-by-red-sox/
> > > That crooked number was hard for us to overcome.
> > >
> >
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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