The phrases and terms we use in our daily lives are like souvenirs of society’s past—we use them today, but they came to us from someplace completely different. By seeking their origins, one can shine a light on the events, traditions, and daily lives of our ancestors. The realm of sports is no different. In fact, sports may hold some of our most intriguing and insightful terms that illustrate how people used to live, and how they played the games we know and love today.
Baseball is one of those sports that is filled to the brim with odd phrases, metrics, traditions, and superstitions. I could write an entire post on the oddities of baseball (maybe I will someday). One of those strange phrases that you might hear uttered by a baseball commentator is can of corn. This refers to instances in which a ball is hit high in the air, but doesn’t travel very far, allowing a defensive player to calmly settle under the ball and catch it for an out. As far as I know, the player that made the catch does not receive any corn in the dugout as a reward for this action, so why do we say this?
As it turns out, this act of catching something that’s falling straight down is similar to what 19th century grocery store clerks did when removing items from their shelves. Canned goods such as corn were often stored on high shelves, so when customers asked for them, the clerk would use a stick to pull the can off the shelf and then catch it in their apron, not unlike a baseball outfielder. Commentators took to using the phrase can of corn during the game, to describe the ball falling neatly falling into the glove of a player.
I recently got my first ever (and probably last) turkey while bowling with friends, meaning I bowled three strikes in a row. This was more a stroke of luck than a feat of skill. Unfortunately, this also meant that I had to take a shot of Wild Turkey whiskey (according to my friends’ bowling tradition) but hey, rules are rules! Nonetheless this experience got me thinking, why are three consecutive strikes called a turkey?
The answer is delightfully simple. People used to win turkeys for bowling! Back in the 18th and 19th centuries, food was a common prize for bowling tournament victors. One such food prize was a whole turkey, as this was quite the commodity. When bowling facilities started to improve their lanes, pins, and balls, getting a strike became easier for avid bowlers, so people started handing out prizes for consecutive strikes. Hence the three-strike turkey was born! Should we bring this tradition back? Or should I just stick to the liquid version offered by my friends if I ever repeat my bowling achievement?
I played and followed soccer growing up, which means that I heard the term hat trick pretty frequently (though never to describe my own performance on the field). A player earns a hat trick when they score three goals in a single match. This term is not unique to soccer, however, as it is often used in the realm of hockey. But what does scoring goals have to do with hats? The scorer doesn’t wear a hat after their 3rd goal, there is no slight of hand magic involved…what’s the deal?
The answer lies in a different sport altogether. The sport in question? Cricket. Or as I, an American, like to call it: weird baseball (no offense to cricket, I find the sport fascinating). The term hat trick was first used after an 1858 cricket match, in which an English Bowler (like a pitcher in baseball) hit the wickets on three consecutive bowls. For those who are unfamiliar with cricket rules, that means that on three consecutive throws he hit the wooden sticks behind the batsman, leading to three consecutive outs. This was considered so impressive that a bunch of people chipped in to buy this bowler a hat to celebrate the achievement. This was the very first hat trick!
Football contains a handful of terms that sound quite peculiar to the uninitiated. Some of the phrases used when referees announce penalties are downright goofy when you think about the words in a non-football context—Illegal use of hands—what a funny notion.
One such term that piqued my interest is safety. In football, a safety occurs when an offensive player in possession of the ball is tackled in their own endzone (the section of the field that they are trying to protect and move the ball away from). When this happens, the defense is awarded two points and receives possession of the ball. Safety seems like a strange term for such a situation. When the offense is in their own endzone, it’s literally the least safe place for them to be holding the ball. When an offensive player gets the ball in his own endzone, you’ll often see him franticly trying to get the ball out as soon as possible!
The origins of this term go back to the football days in which players were not allowed to throw the ball forward. An offense’s only options were to run the ball or pass it laterally. Therefore, when an offense had the ball on their own goal line, the defense could get very aggressive, increasing the chances that the offense would lose the ball in their own endzone, resulting in a defensive touchdown. If the offense didn’t lose the ball, but was unable to progress down the field, they would have to punt (forfeit possession of the ball by kicking it to the other team) from their own endzone. This would give the other team the ball with excellent field position.
Instead of risking a fumble in their own endzone or giving the other team good field position, the offense could choose a safer alternative. By intentionally downing the ball in their own endzone, the offense would give the other team two points, but then would be allowed to punt the ball from the 25-yard line instead of their own endzone. This was a common strategy in the old, low-scoring era of football because it allowed teams to safely avoid costly fumbles—hence the term safety!
You all nailed it last week! That’s right, we could fill 250 million semi-trucks with the amount of plastic we’ve produced so far…yikes!
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