Uncle Charlie (The Curveball)

Pedro Cerrano: I cannot hit curveball. Straightball I hit it very much. Curveball, bats are afraid. I ask Jobu to come, take fear from bats. I offer him cigar, rum. He will come.

Eddie Harris: You know you might think about taking Jesus Christ as your savior instead of fooling around with all this stuff.

Pedro Cerrano: Jesus, I like him very much, but he no help with curveball.

Eddie Harris: You trying to say Jesus Christ can't hit a curveball?

This week’s entry comes from Matt in Nashville, who wants to know the origin of the term "Uncle Charlie.” I’ll do you one better, Matt. We will not only delve into the mysterious past of Uncle Charlie, we’ll also take a look at the origins of the curveball itself, and the dozens of monikers that are used to describe the famous pitch.

The curveball might just be the greatest invention in the history of baseball (although some players may argue that distinction belongs to the cup). It’s even a widely accepted theory that hitting a curveball is the hardest thing to do in sports.

Imagine standing at the plate with Nolan Ryan pitching and taking a 100 mph fastball down the middle. You step out of the box, pee your pants a little, then step back in prepared to swing for the fences. Except this time, you see the ball traveling up in the zone and possibly directly into your face, and you hit the dirt…only to find out that it was an 85 mph curveball that broke right back into the heart of the plate.

The curveball is why most of our childhood dreams of playing in the major leagues are squashed around the time middle school hits. As Pedro Cerrano famously said in the movie Major League, "I cannot hit curveball. Straightball I hit it very much. Curveball, bats are afraid."

So, who threw the first curveball? That distinction belongs to Arthur “Candy” Cummings. He first got the idea in 1863 while throwing clamshells with some friends when he was fourteen years old at a Brooklyn beach. As Candy and his friends threw the shells, they would fly with a wide, curving arc before landing in the ocean. “All of a sudden, it came to me that it would be a good joke on the boys if I could make a baseball curve the same way,” Cummings said. Despite standing only 5’9 and weighing in at a whopping 120 pounds, Candy became the most dominant pitcher of his era because of his mastery of the pitch. Still others point to Jim Creighton or Fred Goldsmith as the inventors of the pitch, but Cummings is widely accepted as the true inventor and was even voted into the Hall of Fame because of it.

Now that we know a little history behind the curveball, let’s check out some of the funnier nicknames for the pitch and where they came from:

Uncle Charlie – The term was commonly used in citizens band (C.B.) radio in the early 1970s to describe the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Unfortunately, there’s no real reasoning behind the term being used for a curveball besides the sounds of “Uncle” and “Charlie” suggesting a curve. Disappointing, I know. Different spin-offs of the term popped up periodically including Sir Charles and Lord Charles, which was used to describe Dwight Gooden’s superior curveball in the 1980s.

Yakker – Comes from “yawker,” which is a nickname for a flicker, a yellow-shafted bird that flies in a manner similar to a sweeping curveball.

The Deuce – Describes the number of fingers a catcher will usually put down to signal for a curveball.

Bugs Bunny Curveball – A reference to the Warner Brothers cartoons when a character would swing three times before the ball even got to the plate.

Public Enemy No.1 – The nickname that Dodgers’ broadcaster Vin Scully used to describe top prospect Clayton Kershaw’s curveball during a 2008 spring training game.

From Sandy Koufax to Bert Blyleven to Dwight Gooden, there’s nothing quite like watching a master of the curveball freeze a hitter in utter confusion. Still, some say that the curveball is just an optical illusion. Dizzy Dean had an answer for that.

“Go stand behind a tree 60 feet away and I’ll whomp you with an optical illusion!”

Take Two and Hit to Right

This week’s Hardball Mystery comes from Pat in Milwaukee. He writes: “Take two and hit to right. I can remember hearing this since I can remember baseball - although you don't hear it much anymore. But I never knew where it started.”

Alright Pat, let’s try to tackle this beast of baseball terminology.

Since we began uncovering the truths to these enigmas of hardball culture, we have mostly stuck to wacky, colorful expressions that we hear on a fairly regular basis. But with “take two and hit to right,” we are headed into uncharted territory.

“Take two and hit to right” is as much a life lesson as it is a baseball strategy, so it takes on a deeper meaning than, say, a golden sombrero. While some view it as a not-so-nice jab at a struggling hitter, others see it as an expression of encouragement.

A literal definition of the phrase calls for a batter to take two pitches then try to hit the ball to the right side of the diamond. Another explanation is to take two, big swings for the fences and then choke up and guard the plate. It could also refer to waiting for a good scenario to pull off a hit-and-run. Or even as a way to demoralize the pitcher.

According to Dickson’s New Baseball Dictionary, Raymond Curiale remembered the term for its negative connotations. “We would use the term for an inept batter,” Curiale said. “It was said in a derisive tone, being meant more as an insult rather than to be helpful.”

But not everyone sees it that way. Frank McCullough, a former managing editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, used the phrase to encourage his newspaper staff. When asked why he started using it, he replied, “I’ve been hearing it all my life. It’s one of those old baseball phrases. But I haven’t the slightest idea how it got started. Maybe I’d better quit saying it.”

McCullough didn’t know where it came from, but I’m almost 100 percent positive Hobe Hays does. That’s because he wrote a book entitled, Take Two and Hit to Right: The Golden Days on the Semi-Pro Diamond (pictured above). So, if we open the pages of this nostalgic tale we’ll surely find the answer to the query that confounds us, right? Not quite: “I don’t know. It seems like I’ve heard it all my life… Maybe that’s all it was, just something to mess with the mind.”

Although Mr. Hays was no help to us in our search for answers, he does have one thing right: “take two and hit to right” is messing with my mind. Because of that, I’m willing to offer up two (2) free tickets to a Nashville Sounds game this season to anyone who can give me documented proof of the origin of this phrase. (If you don’t live in Nashville, we’ll have to figure something else out. How does an autographed headshot of Jonathan Gantt sound? No? Okay, I’ll think of something else.)

You can e-mail your answers to jonathan.gantt@nashvillesounds.com. After I pour through the thousands of responses, I’ll pick a lucky winner, and they will forever live in Hardball Mysteries glory. Good luck and Godspeed. (I've always wanted to use the word "Godspeed" in a sentence. It makes everything seem way more important, doesn't it? Like, "Godspeed on your journey to go get me a cheeseburger." Although, I think it's safe to say I'm not using it in the right context.)

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.

Golden Sombrero

As we delve deeper into the dialect of our national pastime, we come across one of my favorite clubhouse catch phrases: the golden sombrero.

Why is it one of my favorites, you ask? (Thanks for asking) Because it’s just plain fun.

That is, if the player donning the oversized hat has a good sense of humor. Because if a player wears the “golden sombrero,” it means he struck out four times in a single game, and a good sense of humor is going to be very important in that scenario.

The term derives from hockey’s “hat trick,” where a player scores three goals in a single game. Apparently, some wisecrackin’ baseball joker decided to use the term to describe a player who struck out three times in a game, and the logical upgrade to four Ks in a single game would obviously be a golden version of the Mexican head-topper. Obviously.

In essence, the sombrero is just a bigger hat trick. And making it a "golden" sombrero…well, that’s just for comedic effect. And in that regard, the phrase is a complete success.

While managing the Cincinnati Reds, hall-of-fame reject Pete Rose was one of the first to use the term with the media, actually explaining it during a post-game interview in 1987. “We had two guys who got the 'Golden Sombrero' tonight,” Rose said. “You know what the Golden Sombrero is don't you? It's the hat trick plus one. Our No. 1 and No. 8 hitters struck out four times each."

Don Baylor is also linked to the origin as he uttered the phrase in an interview after a game, but he did not refer to the four strikeouts coming in a single game, so we cannot truly attribute the yellow-toned, sun-shader to him.

But the dubious distinctions of a strikeout hitter don’t end there. If you are unlucky enough to strikeout five times in a game, you’ll be crowned with the platinum sombrero, otherwise known as the “Olympic Rings.” That feat has been accomplished more than 40 times in the history of the major leagues with Dick Allen wracking up two himself.

No one has struck out six times (titanium sombrero) in a nine-inning game, but eight players have managed to whiff a half-dozen times during extra-inning affairs. Sam Horn did it for the Orioles in 1991, and his teammate Mike Flanagan said the six-strikeout game should consequently be referred to as a “Horn.” When asked about the term for a seven-strikeout game, Flanagan dubbed that a “Horn-a-Plenty.”

In the history of major league baseball, no one has ever struck out seven times in a game, but…

At the risk of being ostracized from the Sounds clubhouse, I feel compelled to relay the information that Brad Nelson has notched a “horn-a-plenty.” He achieved the mark in the Sounds epic 24-inning marathon against the New Orleans Zephyrs that spanned two days in May during the 2006 season. But come on, it was a 24-inning game. Give Reggie Jackson, Ryan Howard or Adam Dunn 24 innings, and I'm sure they'd manage to wrack up plenty of "horn-a-plenties."


Now, in celebration of the golden sombrero, let’s take a look at some of the greatest sombreros in the history of the magnificent, straw hat: