[Ads-l] Antedating of "Sacrifice Fly" "Screwball" "Shutout" "Slugger"

[Shapiro, Fred]

sacrifice fly (OED 1970)

“York earned his run off his splendid three-base hit and Pike’s sacrifice fly …<https://www.newspapers.com/image/428245079/?terms=%22sacrifice%2Bfly%22>.<https://www.newspapers.com/image/428245079/?terms=%22sacrifice%2Bfly%22>“ Boston Globe, August 9, 1878, p2

screwball (OED, 2., 1933)

“[Walter “Duster”] Mails, lest you remember, is what is commonly known in baseball circles as a ‘screw-ball.’ He’s apt to go off on a tangent on little or no provocation—take weird ‘crazy hops’ of temperament that are as baffling to those with whom he comes in contact as his own twisters are to the batters who face him.<https://www.newspapers.com/image/608494280/?terms=%22screwball%22>” Jack James. Los Angeles Evening Express, July 2, 1926, p21

shutout (OED, 3., 1949)

“The Twinklers are very happy to-night over their shutout of the Grays in the ninth contest.” Cincinnati Enquirer, August 22, 1879, p8 (“Syracuse 6; Providence, 0”)

slugger (OED, n2, Baseball, 1883)

“The home club made eighteen hits with a total of twenty-five bases, while the heavy sluggers from Troy did not get a single hit off Keefe, a record seldom equalled.<https://www.newspapers.com/image/428521741/?terms=slugger%2Bbaseball>” Boston Globe, June 10, 1880, p4

NOTE: These antedatings were found by Ken Liss.

Fred Shapiro







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