Catchword: tools of ignorance

Filed under: United States, Baseball, Sports & Recreation, Slang

Part of speech: n.

Quotation: Bresnahan’s shin guards were the final pieces of the “tools of ignorance,” that great descriptive phrase for the catcher’s equipment. There are conflicting stories about who came up with that wonderful moniker: Some sources credit Herold “Muddy” Ruel, a Senators catcher who caught for Walter Johnson and later became a lawyer. The more likely—and earlier—story, from the “Diamond Jargon” column in the August 1939 issue of Baseball Magazine accepts Yankee catcher Bill Dickey as the true author. Dickey supposedly coined the term while donning his gear and brooding over why anyone would want to be a catcher in July heat. I like the Dickey story because it was published sixteen years before the Ruel claim.

Author:
Vince Staten

Article, document, publication, web site:
Why Is The Foul Pole Fair?

Date of publication:
Apr. 1, 2003

Page number:
266

This cite belongs to a full entry for tools of ignorance.