My husband and I were just watching the Phillies-Mets game on TV when the Phillies' relief pitcher threw a fastball and struck the batter out.
The announcer said something like "It just goes to show, all ya gotta do is throw some cheese into the shadows, and you'll get him."
"Throw some cheese?" I said to my husband. "What does that mean?" I love baseball, but I haven't been a true fan for very many years. He translated for me, "Heat. Smoke. Cheese. They all mean fastball."
I get "heat" and "smoke," but how in the world did the word "cheese" come to mean "fastball?"
I haven't done any research on it, but thought possibly some of you rabid baseball fans out there might just know. I also thought our UK friends might enjoy hearing about this truly weird American idiom.
Wordmatic
Posts: 1390 | Location: Near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
That's the one but my publisher is Random House. The entry is under "cheese" and number 7. p. 187. I don't know how that corresponds to the Oxford edition. Don't ask for any slang beyond "O' until about 2035.
Ha! I didn't get it that it was a real book! Now I'll turn to my own bookshelf. This may be a pretty obscure term afterall! Anyway, it sounds ridiculous, so it should be obscure! I would think that a thrown cheese would move pretty slowly, especially a brie, or a cottage or a Limburger--anything soft or runny would just go "plop."
WM
Posts: 1390 | Location: Near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
I found this on an online baseball glossary, WebBall.com.
quote:
Cheese Also 'good cheese' or 'hard cheese'. Refers to a good fastball. We have been given a number of explanations as to origin. Contributor Whit Mcleod mentions Dave Draveckey's book "Called Up", pg. 107, which credits Dennis Eckersley with inventing the term. Here's a longer explanation from contributor Joe Hernandez: Although the term "cheese" is relatively new to baseball it does have an older origin. According to the London Guide (1818), it defined ""cheese" as standing for "the best thing of its kind." In many 19th century slang dictionaries you will find it to mean anything first rate in quality. Folks would say "that's the cheese" to express that the item is of good quality. It is believed to be traced to the word "chiz", which in Hindustani and Anglo-Indian means "thing", rather than the food. Also from Joe: A more contemporary term for cheese is cheddar. Lenny Dykstra is quoted in Newsday, 3/1/1988 stating, "Doc Gooden blew some big-league cheddar". In "Pure Baseball", Keith Hernandez discussed "the high, rising cheddar". Remember that according to Bill Lee ( The Wrong Stuff), 1984) Dennis Eckerley called himself the "Cheese Master" and talked about "cheese for your kitchen" to mean "a fastball up an in". In the St. Petersburg Times (3/5/1987), Wally Backman in describing a fastball by Nolan Ryan, wrote "threw some good hard cheese up there". In Spanish we also use the term high cheese as in "alto queso" to describe a fast ball high and in. Other terms use are "good cheese" to describe a blurring fastball. As a kid, growing up in Brooklyn, we use to talk about throwing the fastball to "his cheese" (his forehead) to mean high and in.
Apparently that's Oxford's sales site. I doubt if this is online.
Here's the one I own: link It's a lot cheaper now than when I bought it. I also have the second volume (H-O) which I didn't search for online. The third should be out now with the fourth due next year. Wikipedia says RH decided not to publish the last two volumes and Oxford has taken over the task.
LATER: I've accessed the OUP site three times and cannot find any price list for Volume III, which they say has been released, or for IV, which is supposedly scheduled for release.
If you are at all interested in slang, I suggest you check my link to Amazon for used editions of HDAS. The original price (Vol I) was $55 (1037 pages) and, if those for sale are in good or better condition, and less than that price, anyone with a slang bent will find it a worthwhile investment.This message has been edited. Last edited by: <Proofreader>,
I always thought "cheese" in baseball parlance was a difficult-to-hit pitch that was designed to bait the batter into swinging. That would include rising high fastballs (high cheese), but it might also include curveballs that are supposed to break well off the plate. Cheese in this case would be similar to the prototypical bait in a mousetrap. If a batter connected with one he might exclaim, "Get that cheese outta here!" Of course this might have been a regional interpretation/misinterpretation.This message has been edited. Last edited by: Myth Jellies,
Myth Jellies Cerebroplegia--the cure is within our grasp
The HDAS pp. 386-389 lists cheese in its many slang aspects besides baseball. You can be the big cheese (big shot or boss) or cheesy which is "bad." If you cut the cheese, you've broken wind. But a cheese-cutter is a stiff-billed cap. And half the world likes to shake and bake one kind of cheese-cake while the other half just bakes another kind.
It is amazing how even a few years ago I'd go to dictionaries and my word books; now I use the Internet most of the time. I suspect I miss some of the nuances because of that. When I go to the library and read the real OED, it seems to be a lot more comprehensive than the online site, though I am not sure about that. I am sure, though, that the online AHD is much less comprehensive than our AHD.
Tinman, that was a great quote from WebBall.com. Dennis Eckersley, the possible inventer of the term, used to be with the Cubs!
I've accessed the OUP site three times and cannot find any price list for Volume III, which they say has been released, or for IV, which is supposedly scheduled for release.
An e-mail to Oxford University Press came back with "put off indefinitely." So Volumes III & IV aare up in the air.
Eckersley probably used "cheese" while playing for the Red Sox.
