Texas Leaguer

Everything is bigger in Texas. Except fly balls.

If a player hits a “Texas leaguer” in a game, it means he hits a high, pop-up, fly ball that lands between an infielder and outfielder. Not to be confused with a blooper, the Texas leaguer is hit with a much steeper trajectory and would be an otherwise catchable ball, but it somehow manages to find a small patch of grass on the field that is unoccupied by the opposite nine.

Now to the fun part: where does the term “Texas Leaguer” come from? Unfortunately, more people lay claim to the origin of this phrase than the invention of the internet, so we’ll just have to do our best to pick the most viable options.

The first and most obvious answer would be that the term Texas leaguer came from the…Texas League. The Double-A baseball league was founded in 1888, which is around the time the term first came into use. New York Giants second baseman Larry Doyle stated his theory that a routine fly ball in Texas would be knocked down by the Gulf Stream winds that came in through the stadium during the minor league games. So, a fly ball that was usually caught by an outfielder suddenly turned into a pop-up single because of the effect the winds had on the ball.

Another theory states that a team in the Texas League made a habit of hitting the famous pop-ups as a strategy to win games in the early 1900s. Legend has it that Ollie Pickering, a star of the team, made it to the majors and started his career by hitting seven consecutive bloop singles in a row, leading to the soft pop-up being named after the league in which he previously played.

A similar rumor says that three players were traded up to the majors from the Texas League and won their first game with the help of several Texas leaguer, fly ball singles. The write-up following the game reported the hits as being “dinky Texas leaguers.”

All those conjectures seem to be sound in their logic, but now let’s try out one of the wackier theories.

During the Civil War, a game similar to baseball was played in the Sabine Pass area in Texas, and an old anecdote was passed on that a ball once landed over an outfielder’s head, leading to a sniper wound after he chased it down. Consequently, hits were only rewarded for balls that landed in between the infielders and outfielders. Unfortunately, there is little evidence available to support this theory, and no Civil War veterans returned my calls or e-mails to verify this claim.

Anybody have other ideas about where this term might have come from? How about future “hardball mysteries” you want to be solved? Leave a comment below or send me an e-mail at jonathan.gantt@nashvillesounds.com and let your knowledgeable voice be heard! After all, even Sherlock Holmes had help from Dr. Watson.