banjo hitter

noun

baseball

: a batter who lacks power : a weak hitter

The public address system announces each batter with thundering resonance, whether it be Babe Ruth or a banjo hitter just called up from Vancouver.

—Martin F. Nolan, Boston Globe, 12 Aug. 1998

banjo-hitting adjective

… I was a scrawny, banjo-hitting second-baseman.

—King Kaufman, Salon.com, 7 Jan. 2009

Word History

Etymology

banjo hit "a weakly hit ball" (from a fanciful comparison of the pinging sound made by a weak hit to the sound of a banjo) + -er entry 2

First Known Use

1935, in the meaning defined above

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