The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-12-23
BASEBALL SLANG IS HERE TO STAY so
 WRITER'S DECLARE

VI e~oAS
 tween sporting writers, university pro- fessors, ministers of the Gospel, moth- CTS clubs and other institutions ana individuals whose foremost aim in life is the uplift of mankind, spiritually and mentally
 Columns have been penned by learn ed men condemning the common use of what is generally termed slang; additional columns have been written condoning it. A universal agreement on the subject has apparently long since become hopelessly out of the question and more than 98 per cent. of the newspapers of the country. con- tinue to serve out to readers reports of the American national pastime and other stories pertaining thereto which fairly bristle with the popular code of baseball writers.
 A movement was inaugurated during 1908 by one of the foremost of the northern universities to ascertain the justification for resorting to slang phrases, or wholesale slaughtering of the Kings English, in reporting baseball. This investigation was not prompted by any special prejudice against the use of slang in writing baseball, but was due rather to a de- sire to arrive at some standardiZa- tion of reporting the game which would not offend and grate upon the finer sensi bilities of those who had condemned the use of slang, yet were sufficiently interested in the game to peruse the daily press for results.
 After an exhaustive investigation this university announced that there was nothing discovered in the base ball vernacular which persons fre quenting the, stands and bleachers during the season did not understand fully and that the popular demand for the use of baseball slang in publish ed reports was unquestionably so great as to preclude it's elimination.
 And so from that day to this the public has not been called upon to read any further condemnation of baseball reports as written by the o1erwh elming majority of sporting writers throughout the good old U. s. A.
 Some of the most familiar terms used in baseball reports have been handed down from generation to gen. eration, and used so generally as to be practically indispensable, yet the origin of such terms is to many writ CTS absolutely unknown.
 The most commonly used of such phrases is one which almost invar- iably puts in an appearance at least once in every baseball story and has special significance for Texas baseball fans. Reference is made to the I'M. haps not a twelve-year-o1d schoolboy in the United States who has ever at- tended baseball games who does not recognize the meaning implied by that trite phrase.
 < :tTIe understands immediately that some batsman has connected with the offering of a pitcher and insdoing so has popped enp little short fly ball1 which falls too far back to be cap tured by the infield and too far in to be handled by the outfielders. To ask any sporting writer of the major league circuits if he understod the play would constitute nothing short of a downright insult, yet it is more than probable that not one of every ten of these experts on the game could give an accurate explanation of the origin of the phrase or even satis- fly himself as tofts real fitness. For the benefit of any such writers, like wise interested baseball fans, the ex- planation is herein set forth:
 After the close of the Texas league season of 1888, Bill Joyce, Emmett Rogers and Arthur Sunday, a trio of Houston club swingers who had wrought havoc and devastation to the hopes, of every pitcher in the circuit, were sold to the Toledo club of the American Association. It was little wonder that the three Houstonians took good care of their baseball repu- tations after going up to the "big show" because they were of the old type of aggressive ball players so scarce in this day and time as to have become practically extinct.
 They went up with their regulations as terrific sluggers preceding them, and their arrival in Toledo was ac- claimed, by the newspapers of that city under generously large and black headlines.
 The Texas recruits were heralded as trio of terrible tapping gladiatoEs, and the pitchers of the other clubs of
  or less apprehensive as to just what the youngsters would do against big time Shurlers. They felt them out rather. cautiously, and the advisa bill ity of such a course was soon appar- ent. e-... .a-.>
 None of the three hit the ball like the great Honus Wagner or the classy Larry Lajoie4 4for the renowned Frank Baker of later years. They were not hitters of that sort. But they did get on the bases, and they did it by hit ting safely. Their blows, however, were not of the fence -husting,' screaming liner variety They were the sort of tidy little bingles labelled lone base only,'' such as are now known as Texas leaguers
 It was in a game at Syracuse. shortly after. the Texas combina tion joined Toledo, that Pitcher O'Brien. after Sunday, Joyce and Rogers drop ped safe hits over the infield, roared forth:
 "All them durn c1umps can do is to hit out them little old dinky Texas leaguers.'' ..
 A general laugh went up from the bench,i and the remark soon reached the press box. The reporters hopped on it with vengeance, and the phrase has lived and thEived from that day to this Joyce, Rogers and Sunday continued in service for many years and were known among their baseball acQuaintanceS as the OriginatC .S of