[Ads-l] Antedating of "Bleacher" (Seating Area in Sports Arena)

[Peter Reitan]

Slight antedating of "bleachers."

". . . The rain seemed pretty persistent in attending to business, and finally rain checks were issued.  The 'bleachers' were quickly emptied when the flood came down, the portion of the audience located there making a break for the grand stand."
The Indianapolis News, July 4, 1887, page 1. Newspapers.com

Note.  Some early examples of "bleachers" use the word to refer to the spectators sitting in the "bleaching boards," not the seating itself.  The word appears regularly in 1888 and afterward.

The plain, uncovered seating in baseball parks had been referred to as "bleaching boards" since at least 1877, although it does not appear with any frequency until after 1884.  Most of the early examples before 1884 are from Cincinnati.

Interestingly, the earliest example I've seen is in a Barry Popik-clipped excerpt apparently clipped for its early use of "bullpen" in baseball.

"The bull-pen at the Cincinnati Grounds, with its 'three-for-a-quarter' crowd, has lost its usefulness.  The bleaching-boards just north of the north pavilion now hold the cheap crowd which comes in at the end of the first inning on a discount."
The Cincinnati Enquirer, May 9, 1877, page 2.

However, that usage apparently refers to a cheap spectator seating/standing section in Cincinnati, and not the place where the pitchers warm up.  A Cincinnati article from a few days later refers to a cheap seating area in Louisville called the "hog-pen."

In reporting on a game played in Louisville, "The crowd at yesterday's game, according to the showing of gate receipts, was fifteen hundred in the grounds proper and two hundred in the 'hog-pen' down against left field fence."
Cincinnati Enquirer, May 12, 1877, page 7.

The same article also compares the Louisville seating arrangements to those in Cincinnati.  "Those who pay fifty cents only have to sit out in the sun, facing the west; whereas in Cincinnati every thing but the 'Bleaching Boards" are under roof."

As for bullpen, a Cincinnati newspaper, also from 1877, refers to a schoolyard game called "bull-pen" which, like dodgeball, involved avoiding getting hit by a ball.  In a report of a baseball game in which a number of infielders had to avoid being hit by hard-hit balls:

"To see the boys bobbing about in the second inning reminded one of a game of ball in vogue years ago among school-scholars, called bull-pen, in which the great point of the game was to avoid being hit by the ball."
Cincinnati Enquirer, August 3, 1877, page 8.



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From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
Sent: Sunday, March 23, 2025 2:57 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Antedating of "Bleacher" (Seating Area in Sports Arena)

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Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Poster:       "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
Subject:      Antedating of "Bleacher" (Seating Area in Sports Arena)
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bleacher (OED, 3., 1889)

=93Hoover thought it time to give Wilkes-Barre a chance to cheer, so he dro=
ve the ball through Crane=92s legs, stole second and third base in a manner=
 peculiarly Hooverian, and scored while =91Kid=92 Williams was trying to pi=
ck up the ball that had bounded out of his hands to one side. Excellent bas=
e running that brought down she [sic] house=97the =91bleachers=92 rather.=
=94 Scranton Republican, September 2, 1887, p4

NOTE:  This antedating was found by Richard Hershberger.

Fred Shapiro

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