I was listening to NPR this morning and I heard a British journalist speaking about an American being a suspect in the Mumbai attacks. He said that for the Indians this “Came out of left field…” I’m sure it did. For some reason I focused on hearing a Brit use an expression that I assume is American in origin. I wonder if he would even know what “left field” is. Maybe cricket has a left field also and the saying is logical to him. The more I thought about the saying “out of left field,” the more I decided it must originate from something other than baseball. When something comes from out of left field we are surprised or shocked. In baseball when a ball comes out of left field a ball has been hit into left field. No surprise. I went to the source of modern day knowledge, Wikipedia and didn’t get a very good answer as to why “out of left field” means something unexpected; however, they do link it to baseball. Interestingly, Wikipedia only traces the saying back to 1961. For me the idea that the saying was from my lifetime came from out of left field.
Kind of like a Boob attack. I always wondered about that until I learned it meant like a bolt out of the blue.