Date:  Thu, 22 Jan 1998 19:51:00 -0500
From:  Laurence Horn <laurence.horn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALE.EDU>
Subject: Re: Baseball "Bugs" (an entomology)

At 12:52 PM -0500 1/18/98, Alan Baragona wrote:
>This makes me wonder if the title of the classic 1940's vintage Bugs
>Bunny cartoon "Baseball Bugs" is a pun on the old term. Would the
>animators remember a slang term in vogue in 1906? Did the term survive
>into the 20's or later, by any chance?
>
>And how nice to see a newspaper reference to Harry Steinfeldt, the
>answer to one of the chestnuts of baseball trivia questions!
>
>Alan B.
>
I thought of that last point too. For the uninitated (or the partially
initiated), the trivia question would have been something like "Who was the
obscure third baseman who played in the famous Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance
Chicago Cubs infield immortalized by Franklin P. Adams in that poem about
bursting the Giants' gonfalon bubble?"  Poor Steinfeldt--he didn't fit the
meter and so never made into the Hall of Fame Barry visited, while Tinker,
Evers, and Chance were elected largely on the strength of their appearance
in the poem.

ob dialectology:
 How come nobody talks about gonfalon bubbles anymore?
And (on a somewhat irrelevant topic) where does the word "padiddle" (for a
one-headlight-only car) originate?

Larry