# Origin of the Fist Bump **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 8, 2013, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-fist-bump/668336 "2013-09-08T17:13:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2013, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-fist-bump/668336/1 "2013-09-08T17:13:13Z")
In the June 2013 Atlantic Jen Doll wrote: > [@](#): > > [T]he fist bump … can be traced to the germophobic 20th-century baseball player Stan Musial, who is said to have preferred it to the high five. This feels wrong. Musial played only through 1963. I don’t remember anybody using either the high five or the fist bump in the 50s or 60s. I traced the origin of the Musial comment to [90 things to love about The Man](http://www.stltoday.com/sports/baseball/professional/article_12a02ef7-b9d3-5cec-91f8-843d44412f13.html), a column by Bernie Mislasz on Nov. 21, 2010. > [@](#): > > 50 • Musial may have invented - or at least first popularized - the so-called “fist bump.” Stan came up with it as an option to shaking hands. Musial was convinced that he was catching too many colds by picking up germs while shaking thousands of hands each year, so he adopted the fist bump as a friendly alternative. No high fives there. Checking Wiki for fist bump and high fives finds nothing about either before the 1970s except for the Musial reference. Time has a reference to high and low fives orignating in the 1950s but I don’t know where they got that from. Any new or better research on this? ---
**Author:** ![bleach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bleach/32/3106_2.png) [@bleach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bleach)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2013, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-fist-bump/668336/2 "2013-09-09T17:01:06Z")
This is totally apocryphal; I heard it from a former minor league baseball player. He said that the origin of the fist bump was in reaction to a major league baseball player who regularly urinated on his hands (not Moises Alou since fist bumping pre-dates him). No one wanted to shake hands with him, and so other players fist bumped instead of shaking hands. I have no cite for this. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2013, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-fist-bump/668336/3 "2013-09-10T15:44:58Z")
I spent some time this morning looking at YouTube clips of Musial. In every instance except one he shakes hands with everyone. Sometimes he even uses both hands. In one clip Musial is in the dugout (receiving congratulations) and he appears to be what used to be called “slipping skin” – two people sliding open palms past each other. (For some reason that’s a move I associate with jazz musicians.) Either way, no fist bump. Granted a few YouTube clips isn’t much of a history to go by, but that’s all I can find. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2013, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-fist-bump/668336/4 "2013-09-10T17:14:15Z")
I think we can trace it back to [Lincoln.](http://0.tqn.com/d/politicalhumor/1/0/W/S/2/victory-bump-sac1105cd.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-fist-bump/668336/5 "2013-09-12T15:40:44Z")
kunilou, nice find. Nothing like pouring some real history on urban legends. There remains a possibility that Musial picked up the habit after his playing years. The baseball legends circuit didn’t get really big until the 1970s so - if there is any truth to it - he may have copied the movement from watching others who were already doing by that time. Either way, Musial is an unlikely originator. Ngrams and Google Books don’t give any good hits through the end of the century. (The earlier ones are of the “he made his fist bump against the desk” or “fist; bump” false hit variety.) A big open field for research there. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-fist-bump/668336/6 "2013-09-12T15:54:55Z")
Food prep people do it all the time; in fact, greetings are often done instead with elbow bumps, for the same reason. Perhaps it could be traced in that direction. Maybe even doctors, but I doubt it. All post 19th c., of course. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-fist-bump/668336/7 "2013-09-12T23:37:37Z")
The American Dialect Society Mailing List, of which I am a member, has done quite a bit on this back in 2008. But you have to serch for “dap” rather than “fist bump.” A few links which might help– [http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0806B&L=ADS-L&P=R1605&I=-3&d=No+Match%3BMatch%3BMatches](http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0806B&L=ADS-L&P=R1605&I=-3&d=No+Match%3BMatch%3BMatches) [http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0807A&L=ADS-L&D=0&I=-3&d=No+Match%3BMatch%3BMatches&P=16836](http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0807A&L=ADS-L&D=0&I=-3&d=No+Match%3BMatch%3BMatches&P=16836) ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2013, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-fist-bump/668336/8 "2013-09-13T02:17:14Z")
To summarize, those cites posit an evolution through a variety of black (or jazz) handshakes, from slipping the skin to the complicated series of movements called dap (the ones that were parodied every time a black character appeared on a television show) to the fist bump. The New York Times gives the best history in a November 25, 2001 article titled [A Bump and No Shake](http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/25/style/noticed-a-bump-and-no-shake.html). There are two more specific origins, one from basketball: > [@](#): > > ‘‘I don’t claim fatherhood, but I was one of the guys in the 70’s doing it,’’ admits Fred Carter, an eight-season N.B.A. veteran nicknamed Mad Dog and known for his rabid play. ‘‘Michael Jordan and Tiger probably think they invented it, but no one gives credit to the players of bygone eras.’’ > > Now an ESPN analyst, Mr. Carter remembers that original fist bump as having a special place in the N.B.A. ‘‘The high-five was for a team accomplishment, and the bump was more an individual thing,’’ said Mr. Carter, who remembered the great Earl Monroe as another early bumper. ‘‘You bumped when your testosterone hit a peak. It was a crescendo of success; and when we did it, it was manly.’’ and a preposterous one from cartoons: > [@](#): > > The Hanna-Barbera cartoon ‘‘The Superfriends,’’ which was first broadcast in 1973, featured the Wonder Twins, who in a famous cartoon moment would touch knuckles and cry, ‘‘Wonder Twin powers, activate!’’ Each twin would then morph into anything from a ram to a block of ice and go fight evil. Another fist bump would bring them back to human form. No mention of Musial or baseball there or anywhere that I see. Apparently the movement had a brief fling in the spotlight in the 1970s and then reappeared in the late 90s and lingered. Thanks for the cites, sam.