OK who started saying at major league baseball games:
“HEY BATTA, BATTA, BATTA, BATTA, SUH-WING BATTA, KENNEDY, KENNEDY, KENNEDY, SUH-WING BATTA!!!”
I am aware that they said this in the movie Ferris Buellers Day Off but I have heard it at several major ball parks in the past. Any one know where this comes from?
I don’t know the origin, but I’m pretty sure the “Kennedy” part is actually “he can’t hit, he can’t hit” repeated so fast that the words run together.
I heard it on the playground and at tee-ball games long before I ever heard it at a major league park.
I don’t know the origin, but I’ve heard it used in a Bugs Bunny cartoon from the late 40s-early 50s, so it’s got to be at least 50 years old.
Zev Steinhardt
I believe what are referring to is called “infield chatter”. I have heard (though I have no reliable cite) that it was invented by Arlie “The Freshest Man on Earth” Latham, a major league player from the 1880’s to 1909. (He was also the oldest to play second baseman in MLB history at 49).
Read about him here: