Philadelphia Philly Chase Utley going yard against the Detroit Tigers on 10 April 2007
31 May 2023
To go yard is baseball slang for hitting a home run. The yard is apparently a reference to the ballyard, or ballfield.
The phrase starts appearing in print in 1988. The earliest example I have found is from the Akron Beacon Journal of 1 June of that year:
Edwards believes Allanson can be a valuable run producer without trying to turn himself into a home-run hitter.
“If Andy makes consistent contact, he'll drive in runs with that short swing,” the manager said. “He's got gap power, which means he can drive the ball in the holes for doubles.
“As long as he doesn't get it in his head to ‘go yard,’ as he calls it, and use that long, looping swing, Andy will do the job just fine. He's made a lot of progress already since spring training.”
Sportswriter Dick Kaegel wrote a piece on baseball jargon later that season that included the term. The article was published in a number of papers on different dates, and the earliest I have found is from the Kansas City Times of 15 August 1988:
The game keeps changing and so does its language.
When today's players take somebody downtown, it's the wife to a movie. They call a home run a tater or a large fly or a dinger or a Johnson. […]
A batter with power can hit a ball out of the ballyard, yes.
More likely, though, he can go back, go massive or go yard. As in, ``Lotta guys on this team can go back.''
[…]
If a long drive doesn't quite go yard and bounces off the wall, it's a Michael Jackson. “Off the Wall” is a Michael Jackson album.
Many people mistakenly associate the origin of go yard with Orioles Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore, but that’s not the case. Construction of that ballyard did not even begin until 1989, and the first game wasn’t played there until 1992, well after go yard was established as a slang term.
Sources:
Dickson, Paul. The Dickson Baseball Dictionary, 3rd edition, W. W. Norton, 2009, 379.
Kaegel, Dick. “‘When the Game’s Tight, a Johnson or Al Capone Makes All the Difference.” Kansas City Times (Missouri), 15 August 1988, C-7/1. NewsBank Access World News Research Collection 2022 Edition.
Ocker, Sheldon. “Tribe’s Allanson Surprises with Production as a Hitter.” Akron Beacon Journal (Ohio), 1 June 1988, C5. NewsBank Access World News Research Collection 2022 Edition.
Photo credit: Unknown photographer, 2007. Wikimedia Commons. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.