money
adj.— «A good ball player is one thing. A money player is something else. There are both money ball clubs and money ball players.…A star performer may carry a high batting average opposite his name. He may have but a few mistakes recorded in his fielding figures. His workmanship, both on the offense and defense, may be spectacular and brilliant, but if he cracks in the critical pinch plays he doesn’t qualify for a money ball player.…When a play comes up to them on which rests the outcome of a battle they’ll deliver the goods. If a hit is needed to score the winning run they’ll crack it out nine times out of ten. If a bit of super-fielding will save a game they rise to the occasion.» —“The Money Players! You Tell ‘Em” by Dean Snyder Iowa City Daily Press (Iowa) Sept. 27, 1920. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...
The words tough, through, and dough all end in O-U-G-H. So why don’t they rhyme? A lively new book addresses the many quirks of English by explaining the history of words and phrases. And: have you ever been in a situation where a group makes...