29 May 2020
A charley horse is a sudden cramp in the leg, a common affliction among athletes. The term arose in baseball in the late nineteenth century, we know that much for certain, but as to who Charley was or why he had a horse, or if the phrase refers to a horse named Charley, no one has any good idea. The origin of the term in that regard is a mystery.
The earliest use of the term found to date is in a letter from Jim Hart, manager of the Louisville Colonels baseball team, published in that city’s Courier-Journal on 21 March 1886:
Ely is still suffering from a sore arm, and Reccius has what is known by ball players as “Charley Horse,” which is a lameness in the thigh, caused by straining the cord.
Another early appearance is in the same newspaper a few months later, on 14 July 1886:
Several years ago, says the Chicago Tribune, Joe Quest, now of the Athletics, gave the name of “Charlie horse” to a peculiar contraction and hardening of the muscles and tendons of the thigh, to which base ball players are especially liable from the sudden starting and stopping in chasing balls, as well as the frequent slides in base running. Pfeffer, Anson and Kelly are so badly troubled with “Charley horse” there are times they can scarcely walk. Gore had it so bad he had to lay off a few days, and is not entirely free from it now. Williamson, too, has had a touch of it.
(I have yet to find the Chicago Tribune story referenced here. Most likely it is from a few days earlier, and the Courier-Journal story may be a word-for-word reprint. Reprinting such stories verbatim was a common practice among newspapers of the day.)
Quest appears in many of early explanations for the term’s appearance, but whether or not he coined it is unknown. The only thing we can say with confidence is that he frequently used the term.
There are a number of old explanations for the term floating about, but either they have no evidence to support them, or they come too late to the be the origin of the term. The oldest of these dates to 1887, shortly after the term first appeared in print. From the Boston Herald, 12 July 1887:
For the benefit of many inquiring readers who have never had the considerable complaint, it may be said that “Charley horse” is a complaint caused by the straining of the cords in a ball player’s leg. The name is said to owe its origin to the fact that a player afflicted with it, when attempting to run, does so much after the fashion of a boy astride of a wooden horse, sometimes called a “Charley horse.”
Children’s hobby horses of the era were indeed often called Charlie horse or Charley horse, so it is a plausible explanation, but it is speculation with no solid evidence behind it. One might think that since the explanation appears shortly after the term’s appearance in print, but this does not add to its veracity—such early explanations are very often wrong. But the appearance of this explanation so soon after the first known appearance indicates that the term is probably older, as the general public was already becoming familiar with it.
H. L. Mencken, in his American Language, traced the term to Charlie “Duke” Esper who played for a number of teams in the 1890s. But as we have seen, the term predates Esper’s professional baseball career, so he cannot be the source of the term.
Another is that it comes from an old, lame horse named Charley that dragged and smoothed the infield for either the Chattanooga or Sioux City team (take your pick). The Chattanooga story is chronologically possible, but has no evidence to support it, and professional baseball wasn’t played in Sioux City until after the term had appeared, so that one is out.
Yet another explanation is that players on either the Chicago White Stockings or the Baltimore Orioles (again, take your pick) bet on a racehorse named Charley who came in last. Later that day, one of their players pulled a leg muscle, and he was dubbed “Charley Horse.” The Chicago version is said to have happened in 1886, so this story is probably too late, given the attestations from players in that same year that the term had been in use for some time. (Usually, and especially for slang, oral use of a term predates its appearance in the written record by some period, typically a few years.) As for the Baltimore version, that story is associated with John McGraw, who didn’t play until the 1890s.
The fact that versions of some of these tales pop up in multiple cities indicates that they were exchanged and retold multiple times. So, it seems likely that such stories arose because players in the 1890s were using the already existing term charley horse to rib and make fun of players (or horses) that were lame and that in the retelling of these baseball yarns and jokes the stories became the origin of the term in their minds.
Sources:
“BASE BALL: A Letter from Manager Hart.” Louisville Courier-Journal, 21 March 1886, 10.
Dickson, Paul. The Dickson Baseball Dictionary, third edition, 2009, s.v. charley horse.
“From the Outfield,” Boston Herald, 12 July 1887, 5.
Popik, Barry. “Charley Horse (Charlie Horse).” The Big Apple, 22 February 2016. https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/charley_horse_charlie_horse/
Shulman, David. “Whence ‘Charley Horse.’” American Speech, 24.2, April 1949, 100–04.
“STILL SLUGGING. The Heavy Batting Record of the Louisville Club.” Louisville Courier-Journal, 14 July 1886, 6.