An 1907 essay on baseball slang supplies a mini-quiz built from extravagant, watery nicknames for a particular baseball pitch. Clues include damp fling, diluted dip, aqueous slant, wet wipe, and perspiration pellet, with more soggy variants such as brown spitter, country sinker, and eel ball. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of ““Damp Fling,” “Wet Wipe,” and “Eel Ball” in Baseball Slang”
Grant, how about a mini quiz?
Okay.
These are all names for the same thing.
Stop me when you’ve got the answer, okay?
Damp fling, diluted dip, aqueous slant, wet wipe, dewy thrust, perspiration pellet, saliva toss.
Any ideas?
No.
It’s a spitball.
A spitball?
Who uses those?
Well, baseball players.
Oh, that kind of spitball.
I was thinking of little wads of paper and a glass and a straw.
I wasn’t thinking of it on the mound.
Yeah, I suppose that could be a perspiration pellet.
Perspiration pellet, yeah.
But no, I was looking at an old collection of baseball slang from 1900,
and there were a lot of those in there.
Here’s some other examples.
Soggy delivery, brown spitter.
Country sinker and eel ball.
Eel ball.
Nice.
You would have got a wet eel under your hat, right?
Right.
