A Can of Corn in Baseball

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Bart from Winslow, Indiana.

Well, what’s on your mind, Bart?

Well, I’ve been umpiring baseball a long time, and I’ve always heard a can of corn for routine fly ball and had no idea what corn and baseball had together.

Can of corn for routine fly ball. What level of sport do you umpire in?

I’ve umpired anywhere from eight-year-olds up through college level.

30 years, you said? That’s a long haul.

It’s the best thing you can do to get paid.

Really?

Yeah, day in the grass.

So a can of corn in baseball, you said it’s an ordinary pop fly?

Yeah, just an ordinary routine fly ball to the outfield.

But one that’s easy to catch, right?

Correct.

Okay, gotcha.

There are a bunch of theories on this.

This is a widespread term.

It’s kind of gone in and out of fashion over the years.

It’s funny when you look back through the sporting news or baseball writers over the decades since the term first appeared in the 1920s or maybe even earlier.

Somebody is always declaring, you know, can of corn is outdated slang and nobody should use it.

And yet it still keeps sticking around.

They said it in the 40s, they said it in the 50s, they said it in the 70s, and people are still using it.

One of the most common theories about why it’s called a can of corn is because it’s this big, heavy, obvious thing that’s really easy to catch.

Like if I were to toss you a can of corn, no matter how good my arm is, I can’t get a lot of speed on it, and you’re going to probably catch it, right?

It’s just going to be really easy to catch.

It’s just an obvious, easy-to-see thing.

Another idea is that supposedly it comes from the way that canned goods would be stacked in the old days in grocery stores, you know, with these tall shelves behind the shopkeeper where you wouldn’t pick up your own groceries, but the shopkeeper would use this hooked pole to kind of nudge the cans down from the high shelves.

And then they would catch them either by hand or in a big shop apron.

And so the can of corn baseball kind of looks like that canned good coming down to the shopkeeper.

And then there are other theories, but those are the ones that have the best information behind them.

All right.

Make sense?

Well, I’m glad to know that.

Yeah, I had no idea.

I was talking around like whether it was, you know, when canned goods came out and you didn’t have to work so hard to get your corn or not, you know.

I kind of had that idea.

Well, that’s a thought.

You don’t have to shuck the thing or cook it.

You just grab the can of corn.

Oh, that’s funny.

Well, that reminds me, another theory is that, and I kind of like this one too, because you know that particular sound that when the bat hits the ball just right and you just know it’s going to be a pop fly even before you see it go up, that kerplunk sound?

Some people think that sounds like a can of corn being hit.

So some people think that’s why it’s called a can of corn.

Okay.

Bart, let me ask you while I got you on the line.

Have you ever heard that also called a rainmaker?

No, I haven’t.

Okay, because that was an old-fashioned term for it, and I just didn’t know if it still had any currency.

The idea with the pop pie being called a rainmaker is it went up so high that it brushed the clouds and caused the rain to come down.

Yeah, I’ve heard that, but not on the routine fly ball.

Those are usually the ones that are just really hit really, really high.

Well, nowadays I think more people just say, hey, you’re going to bring the rain with that one.

You know, I heard that.

Oh, gotcha.

There’s so much great baseball language.

Bart, you’re going to have to call us again with some more, okay?

Yes, please.

Can we get you to do that?

I sure will.

Okay, well, thank you so much.

All right, keep it clean out there, Bart.

All right.

Take care.

Thank you. Bye.

You know, speaking of sounds, I’m pretty sure that when aluminum bats started to become popular, I remember the columnist George Will really hating aluminum bats and saying, if the sound of aluminum bats was an object, it would be a can of lima beans or something like that.

He did not like aluminum bats.

And he’s a big baseball fan, of course.

But it was something like that.

Like an aluminum bat is the sound of lima beans.

I always felt that the wood versus aluminum argument in baseball-like sports was very similar to the vinyl versus CD argument in music.

Oh, that’s really interesting.

Yeah.

Yeah, there’s nothing like that feeling and that sound when it just cracks, you know, right in the right spot.

Well, we’ve got a lot of people playing sports.

Even during the pandemic, people will find a way to get out there.

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