My colleague Lauren Theisen told me earlier this season that there should be a saying when Aaron Judge and Juan Soto hit a home run in the same game, which has happened 12 times this year. I appreciate the impulse; baseball doesn’t become a myth without a cool nickname. What would the Bash Brothers or Murderers’ Row be without their names? Just a couple of guys hitting home runs. But the Judge-Soto duo’s demand for a nickname is lacking – to the looming chagrin of Yankees fans – given Soto’s willingness to become a bona fide free agent.
That doesn’t mean we’re no longer doing our duty when it comes to home run nomenclature, though. The heart of the Yankees threw down the gauntlet on Sunday when Soto, Judge and Giancarlo Stanton hit three straight home runs in the seventh inning of a one-run game to help defeat the Rockies 10-3.
It was Judge’s second home run of the afternoon, his 51st, which would put him on pace to hit 63 home runs, breaking his own AL record from two years ago. And as Soto took his place in right field for the next inning, fans behind him chanted, “Please sign Soto.” (“You need to talk to Cashman,” Soto said afterward.) But that’s not important now. What’s important is that three things can’t happen back to back.
A simple “back to back” is fine. It conjures up the image of two hitters who look big and strong, literally standing with their backs to each other. Would you want to pitch to these guys? Absolutely not.
But then add a third back and it all falls apart. If the middle man’s back is to the first man, it can’t be to the third man! In this house, we respect the sanctity of our metaphors.
Attempts have been made to justify the odd impossibility of this idiom. According to one folk etymology, it comes from the days of horse-drawn carriage travel and a fast rider – a pony express type – would immediately mount his next horse after dismounting from the previous one, thus literally riding back to back. This works for as many consecutive horses as you can imagine. The problem is that the idiom doesn’t really come from this.
The Oxford English DictionaryjThe first example of the use of the phrase “back-to-back” as an adjective dates back to 1845 and refers to a method of building houses in which the apartments face each other and their backs almost touch. Behind has always implied a front.
Gradually the phrase expanded to include less literal examples of two things happening in quick succession. American sportswriters, always keen to spice up their writing, adopted it, but interestingly not until after World War II, meaning that Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig would never have been referred to as playing consecutive games by their writers of the time. OEDThe first sports-related mention comes from the New York Times in 1952 and describes two Yankees players hitting two consecutive doubles.
It was only natural that consecutive home runs immediately followed by a third would evolve into consecutive sock dozers. Natural, but wrong! I challenge you to draw a diagram of where the middle man’s back is in this scenario! Are we to assume that Aaron Judge is a mythical being with two backs?
I hear you meow. Barry, maybe it’s like the photo in this blog where three guys’ backs are kind of touching? No! That is far-fetched. And you better believe it if four Guys, Homer, they call it “Back to Back to Back to Back,” which physically cannot be reproduced without major surgery. Barry, it’s Monday morning and I don’t want to think about it right now. You know what, that’s a good point. Barry, maybe the backs are aligned so you can just line up as many as you want? I’m so sick of your shit.
I don’t even want to start on John Sterling’s Lovecraftian injunction, with its anatomical implications, to “back to back and belly to belly.”
Anyway, we need a new phrase for three consecutive home runs. Let me hear your suggestions; I’m a pedant, not an idea generator.
