Speaker 1: Those old Saints, phrases, idioms, you know those things your
family and friends would say. And it usually came from
out of nowhere, and only sometimes it actually made sense. Well,
they had to start somewhere, right, Who, what, where, why,
when and how? Some of those old Saints are not
only ancient, but still carry a powerful punch. Even today,
I happen to live by one of those old saints.
Winning is a choice. The goal of these episodes is
to help preserve not only a language, but lessons in life.
My name is Arrow. Get on the ball. It actually
came into action in the early part of the twentieth century,
and yes, it is connected to baseball as well as football.
Get on the ball it later gained in popularity and
took up shop in our conversations by way of the
military and American businesses. In baseball, when a pitcher was
told he's on the ball, it meant in control, alert
and throwing accurately. In the military, get on the ball
was how soldiers were told to amp up your performance, sir,
pay attention, get focused, and start performing better. When slang
becomes part of our culture, it begins to show up
in books Get on the ball. Authors that first used
it were Raymond Chandler in The Big Sleep, J D.
Salinger The Catcher in the Rye. The narrator Holden Coalfield
used the slang to describe people who are into the
required action. James Baldwin was also an early user of
get on the ball. He used the phrase to reflect
urgency and competence. American movies also helped push get on
the ball between nineteen forty and nineteen sixty. That led
to sitcoms from the nineteen fifties to the nineteen seventies,
and yes, even the legendary Hall of Famer James Brown
had a song called get on the Ball, recorded in
nineteen fifty nine. Get on the ball something our parents
would say. My name is Arrow.