eephus pitch

or e·phus pitch

[ ee-fuhs pich ]

Phonetic (Standard)IPA

noun

, Baseball.

a junk pitch of extremely low speed and with a characteristically high arc:
He baffled many a hitter with his eephus pitch.

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Word History and Origins

Origin of eephus pitch¹

First recorded in 1940–45; name attributed to Maurice Van Robays (1914–65), outfielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates, for a kind of junk pitch developed in the early 1940s by Truett “Rip” Sewell (1907–89), pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates; further origin uncertain. The proposed derivation from Hebrew efeṣ “nothing, zero” is considered unlikely

EEOC e'er

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