Let's start at the very beginning. A can of corn, in baseball is a high fly ball, easily caught. The kind that any monkey off the street should be able to catch and therefore, a no-brainer for a professional ball player. But that isn't the question....I am wondering HOW did "can of corn" come to mean that? What is the correlation between baseball and canned vegetables?

So I did some research. Luckily, I was working at Hamline last night and was able to utilize their excellent reference collection, to little avail. In all of the sports dictionaries, histories, encyclopedias, and other reference guides, there was either no mention of the phrase or else just a basic definition. Google was no help. There were some answers thrown out there by yahoos who don't know what they are talking about, but nothing definitive.

In desperation, I turned to actual dictionaries. I started with the OED, but it doesn't have a listing or even a mention of the phrase. Then I came across the "Dictionary of American Slang," 1967. It gives the standard definition 1)In baseball, a high, slow fly ball. But then adds this interesting tidbit. 2) A man, a fellow, or a guy, especially one who has done something audacious. 1949: "Where would a hot can of corn like Dillinger hideout?" A. Hynd, "Public Enemies."

Hm, now I know the phrase isn't specific to baseball, which I didn't know before, but I am not really any closer to my answer. Finally, I stumbled across "The Dickson Baseball Dictionary," 1989. The book wasn't at Hamline, I had to run over to Macalester to look at it (yep, I worked really hard to spelunk this one). But I found a great entry.

It gives the same definition, but offers up this etymology: The phrase has long been assumed to have come from the old time grocery store where the grocer used a pole or a mechanical grabber to tip an item, such as a can of corn, off a high shelf and let it tumble into his hands or his apron, which was held out in front like a fire net. An alternate theory is suggested in Mike Whiteford's How to Talk Baseball, in which he quotes Pittsburgh Pirates announcer Bob Prince who said, "It's as easy as taking corn out of a can." Still another, suggested by Burt Dunne in the Folger's Dictionary of Baseball, is that the "can of corn" ball is hit with a "kerplunk" sound - presumably that of a can being hit with a stick. Peter Tamony developed a separate theory, which was published in the form of a letter appearing in Bucky Walter's "Mail Bag" of August 24, 1977, in the San Francisco Examiner. "'Can of corn' no doubt developed out of the complex usage surrounding 'cornball,' a confection made of pop corn and molasses, munched by the young for over a century. Popped corn flies wildly, of course, making a handy word association with a light popup to the outfield." Tamony, incidentally, determined that the term was in use in the early to mid-1920s, based on a series of interviews in 1953 with semi-professional players.

Okay, so there you have four possible answers. 1)Grocers used to knock cans of corn into their aprons, simulating the easy fielding of the ball. 2) "It's as easy as taking corn out of a can" 3)The fly ball being hit makes the same sound as hitting a can of corn 4)It comes from the term cornball and the similarity of popped corn flying about.

So, what do you think? Is it 1? 2? 3? 4? or none of the above. Perhaps there is a different explanation that no one has tracked down before. Personally, I am going with #2. That just sounds like something an announcer would say (have you ever paid attention to the stupid things they say to fill time? Try listening to Dick and Bert.) that someone else might pick up on and use to poke some fun or repeat because it sounded catchy. I could see the phrase developing because of this.

I doubt we'll ever know the true answer, but I am satisfied with the information that I found. Do you feel smarter?

Thanks for tuning in to today's installment of "Things you never knew you never knew."