[Ads-l] "whammy" (slight antedating, 1926)

Tue Oct 8 20:04:13 UTC 2024

Pascal Tréguer has a nice analysis of "whammy" and "double whammy" at

https://wordhistories.net/2019/02/13/double-whammy-origin/

Besting the OED, he places "whammy" to 1927, specifically to
Pittsburgh. Importantly, this use appears in the context of baseball
(as do later appearances).

But it turns out that "whammy" was a word with no fixed spelling at this time.

A year earlier, Pittsburgh sportswriters were using "wammy" [1],
associating it specifically with Earl "Oil" Smith, Arkansas native and
cantankerous catcher for the Pirates [2]. The irascible Smith had a
reputation for purposely irritating batters and his first use of the
w[h]ammy may have taken place in the 1925 World Series against the
Senators' Goose Goslin [3].

Curiously, a 1927 piece on player superstitions credited Smith with
the coining of "[W/w]amby" (more on that spelling later) and sort of
unhelpfully described it as "the motion of the hand by which coaches
along the sidelines disconcert the batters and has come to include in
its dire implication any sort of bad luck" [4]. Articles published in
1945 and 1951 fleshed out Smith's application of his whammy sign,
noting its use against Goslin [5].

By the end of the 1928 baseball season, "wammy," with no mention of
Earl Smith, had arrived at a Brooklyn newspaper office [6].
Thereafter, both "wammy" and "whammy" flourished in sportswriters'
columns in the northeast and beyond.

We don't know why it was called "w[h]ammy." The guess is that it has
to do with "wham," in the sense of "[a] heavy blow; the sound of a
heavy blow," which OED places to ca. 1923. I think this makes some
sense, but, oddly, "wammy" persisted well into the 20th century. Where
does the h-less "wammy" (and the contemporaneous, though rare "wami"
[7]) come from?

It's possible that Pittsburgh sportswriters had heard the presumably
new word used in the mid-'20s and asked a player or two about its
spelling. Perhaps it was meant to be "whammy," but was mistakenly
given as "wammy."

Sportswriters had used "whamming" (it's hard to search for "wham") in
baseball contexts at least as early as 1907 [8]; even "kerwham!" had
appeared by 1913 [9]. Further, "ker-whammie" crops up in a
non-baseball context as early as 1922 [10]. Already familiar with
"wham" with regard to hitting, then, some columnists may have rightly
or wrongly made the adjustment from "wammy" to "whammy" in the late
'20s. But a search of newspaper databases reveals that others didn't;
for example, "put the wammy on" appeared in The Los Angeles Times as
recently as 2012 [11].

As I've mentioned, a 1927 piece mentions Earl Smith's "wamby" and
"Wamby" [4]. I believe that "wamby" here was meant to be "wammy,"
which had already been linked to Smith a year earlier [1].

My reasoning is that "Wamby" was by that time a common nickname for
Bill Wambsganss [12], second baseman for the Indians (1914-1923), Red
Sox (1924-1925) and the Philadelphia Athletics (1926), so I'm guessing
that the out-of-state wire-service reporter or her editor had
mistakenly substituted "[W/w]amby" for "wammy" in this article [4]. On
the other hand, I should point out that Wambsganns had sometimes been
referred to as "Wammy" and "Wam[b]sy" early in his career [13]. Yet,
although Smith and Wambsganns played against one another, I can't find
any evidence that the word and action attributed to the former had
anything to do with the latter.

In the end, we don't know how Smith himself would've spelled the word,
but the h-less "wammy" appears (as of now) to have predominated for a
year before "whammy" emerged.

The puzzle is, of course, whether Smith was truly responsible for the
"w[h]ammy" or whether he, other players, or sportswriters had picked
it up elsewhere.

-- Bonnie

--------------------------------

[1] Antedating of "w[h]ammy" and its specific application to Smith.

Earl Smith, who numbers the leading business men of Hot Springs among
those who come under the magic spell of his famous wammy sign, was
delegated to get into long-distance communication with the proper
parties at the old Arkansas resort and learn just how the wind was
blowing in the Ozarks. [Edward F. Balinger, "Buccos Shift to Hot
Springs," The Pittsburgh Post, 3 April 1926, p. 1 of Sports Section;
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-pittsburgh-post-wammy-sign-4326/156596289/.
Note that this was published before the '26 baseball season had
begun.]

The fans gave Earl Smith frequent razzes when he yelled into the ears
of the home batters, but the fiery Pirate catcher calmly kept up his
little side line and he tried to worry Manager Hornsby by giving him
the famous wammy sign at sundry moments. [Edward F. Balinger,
"Champtown Chatter," The Pittsburgh Post, 14 April 1926, p. 14;
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-pittsburgh-post-wammy-sign-41426/156596324/.]

Travis Jackson jumped up to pick up the stick, and instead of throwing
it back to Earl he tossed it to one side as the crowd roared. But Earl
had lots of revenge in putting his "Wammy" on the New York hitters.
[Chilly Doyle, "Chillysauce, Pittsburgh Gazette Tribune, 21 June 1926,
p. 1 of Sports Section;
https://www.newspapers.com/article/pittsburgh-post-gazette-wammy-62126/156596390/.
Of note is that by May of 1927 Doyle had switched to "whammy" with
respect to another player:
https://www.newspapers.com/article/pittsburgh-post-gazette-whammy-ball-5/156595056/.]

However, it was noticeable that Smith's conduct improved almost
immediately. Even his silly "wammy" stunt was dropped. [Regis M.
Welsh, "Heydler Likely to Deal Severely With Smith in View of Past
Record," The Pittsburgh Post, 19 June 1927, Section 3, p. 2;
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-pittsburgh-post-wammy-stunt-619/156596448/.]

[Smith] fooled a lot of people for a long time with his "wammy" but
when he failed to hit occasionally into right field he was just
filling out a catcher's suit. [Regis M. Welsh, "Sports of All Sorts,"
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 11 July 1928, p. 19;
https://www.newspapers.com/article/pittsburgh-post-gazette-wammy-71128/156596517/.]

---------------------------------------

[2] Earl Smith bio, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/earl-smith/.

[3] Goslin and Smith in the 1925 World Series,
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-washington-post-goose-goslin-earl/156716824/.

[4] Smith and "[W/w]amby" (1927),
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-morning-call-wamby-sic-coined/156604672/.

[5] Smith and "whammy" (1945 and 1951 columns),
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-pittsburgh-press-earl-smith-and-wha/156603120/,
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-pittsburgh-press-pirates-reunion-2/10395453/.

[6] Brooklyn Robins pitcher Dazzy Vance used the expression in 1928,
https://www.newspapers.com/article/times-union-wammy-10128-linked-to/156596706/.

[7] A photo of Smith in The St. Louis (Missouri) Globe-Democrat
Magazine, 23 September 1928, is accompanied by the caption, "Earl
Smith, the catcher who dislikes to have others 'put the Wami' on him
by shaking their gloves behind his back, but does the same thing to
enemy batters,"
https://www.newspapers.com/article/st-louis-globe-democrat-smith-put-th/156663835/.

[8] "Whamming," for example,
https://www.newspapers.com/article/oakland-tribune-whamming-baseball-conte/156662334/.

[9] "Kerwham," https://www.newspapers.com/article/san-francisco-bulletin-kerwham-basebal/156645160/.

[10] "Ker-whammie,"
https://www.newspapers.com/article/star-herald-ker-whammie-as-a-punch-or-h/156597221/.

[11] "Put the wammy on" (2012),
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-los-angeles-times-put-the-wammy-47/156728565/.

[12] Bill Wambsganss bio,
https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/bill-wambsganss/. Fans of "Succession"
might be interested that he shows up here, however peripherally.

[13] "Wammy" and "Wamsy," for example,
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-gazette-wammy-or-wamsy-wambsganss/156672777/,
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-gazette-wammy-wambsganss-cartoon/156674912/,
https://www.newspapers.com/article/daily-review-atlas-wammy-wambsganss/156672564/.

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