Bugs Bunny changeup n. in baseball, a slow pitch disguised as a fast ball which seems to stop in front of the plate. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
High school students in Alabama share some favorite slang terms. If someone tells you to touch grass, they’re telling you to get a reality check — but the last thing you’d actually want to touch is dog water! Also, the history of the word hangover...
Responding to our conversation about the word chat, meaning “the gravelly residue of mines,” Isabella from Marquette, Michigan, reports that where she lives, in the state’s Upper Peninsula, such runoff is commonly called slag. She uses some made-up...
From ADS-L, Oct 15, 2005:
‘Surely the “Bug Bunny change-up” is so-called because of the scene in the classic “Baseball Bugs” (1946) where Bugs is able to ring up multiple strikes on the same ultraslow pitch? (“One-two-three-strikes-yer-out!”)
—Ben Zimmer
Just saw it for the first time. Rick Ankiel of the Cards hit a homer of Phillies pitcher Cole Hamels last night and had this to say:
“Sometimes they’re tougher for me when they’re at an angle,” Ankiel said of his battles against lefthanded pitchers. “He wasn’t so much at an angle but that changeup was really tough, a Bugs Bunny change-up.”
Being a baseball junkie, I had to look it up :o)