Secrets of My Legacy

Why is the Cleveland baseball team called the Indians?

Controversy generally surrounds the choice of Native American names for sports teams, but not in Cleveland. That city’s baseball team is named in honour of one of their star players from the 1890s. He was Alex Sophalexis, a Penobscot Indian so respected that in 1914, one year after his death, Cleveland took the name “Indians” to commemorate Alex and what he had meant to their team.

Why is the L.A. baseball team called the Dodgers?

Before moving to Los Angeles, the Dodgers were based in Brooklyn, New York. The team had originated in the nineteenth century when, because of the dangers of horse-drawn trolleys and carriages, the pedestrians of Brooklyn called themselves “trolley dodgers.” Because most of their working-class fans had to dodge traffic on their walk to the games, the Brooklyn baseball team named themselves the “Dodgers” in their honour. When the team moved to L.A. in the 1950s, they took the name with them.

Why does the letter K signify a strikeout on a baseball scoresheet?

Early in baseball history, a man named Henry Chadwick designed the system we still use for keeping score. Because his system already had an overabundance of Ss scattered throughout his scoresheet — safe, slide, shortstop, sacrifice, second base, etc. — he decided to use the last letter of struck, as in, “he struck out,” rather than the first. And that’s why K signifies a strikeout in baseball.

Why do we call someone who is left-handed a “southpaw”?

When the first baseball diamonds were laid out there were no night games. To keep the afternoon or setting sun out of the batters’ eyes, home plate was positioned so that the hitter was facing east, which meant the pitcher was facing west. Most pitchers threw with their right arm, but the rare and dreaded left-hander’s pitching arm was on the more unfamiliar south side, and he was referred to, with respect, as a southpaw.

Why is an erratic person called a “screwball”?

In baseball, when a pitcher throws a curveball, it breaks to a right-handers left and a left-handers right. Early in the twentieth century, the great Christy Mathewson came up with a pitch that broke in the opposite direction and completely baffled opposing batters, who called it a “screwball.” It became a word used to describe anything eccentric or totally surprising — including some humans.

Why in sports does the home team wear white while the visitors wear darker colours?

Early television was in black and white and the definitions weren’t nearly as precise as they are today. When the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation was testing for live hockey broadcasts in 1952, they found that if both teams wore their traditional colours, it was impossible to tell them apart. They solved the problem by having the home team wear white, while the visitors stayed in their darker uniforms.

Why is a football field called a “gridiron”?

The word football first described a game involving two teams and an inflated animal bladder in 1486. The game evolved several times before North Americans introduced new rules, such as three chances to advance the ball five yards, that led to white lines being painted on the field. From the stands, these lines gave the field the appearance of broiled meat from the metal grating of a griddle or “gridiron,” and so that’s what they called it.