Buzz
Although the term southpaw technically refers to any left-handed individual, it's most commonly used in baseball, where being left-handed can have a significant effect on a player's performance (either enhancing or hindering their game).
The general belief is that the term emerged within baseball—backed by a compelling origin story: In the 19th century, baseball fields were designed so that batters would face east, away from the setting sun, while pitchers faced west. This positioning caused left-handed pitchers to throw with their dominant arm on the south side of the mound. (Though this doesn't explain where paw comes from, a word meaning hand that has been used since at least the 15th century.)
However, there are two issues with this explanation. As History.com notes, many professional baseball parks did not follow this directional setup. One could argue that the term 'southpaw' might have originated at a stadium that did, such as Chicago’s West Side Park, and then spread throughout the sport.
This brings us to the second issue with the myth surrounding southpaw's origin. The earliest recorded use of the term wasn't in baseball; it was in a June 1813 edition of a satirical Philadelphia newspaper called The Tickler, where it mentions both a 'right paw' and a 'south paw.' For context, baseball didn’t officially begin until 1846.
Southpaw appeared again in Philadelphia in a political cartoon from 1848, mocking the presidential race. Democratic candidate Lewis Cass delivers a left-handed punch to Zachary Taylor, while Millard Fillmore, with a black eye, lies on the ground, muttering, 'Curse the Old hoss, what a south paw he has given me!'
A political cartoon thought to have been created by E. F. Durang. (Zachary Taylor, for the record, won the election.) | Abel & Durang, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division // No Known Restrictions on PublicationThe first known mention of a baseball southpaw appeared a decade later, in an 1858 article from the New York Atlas, which described a batter who 'let fly a good ball into right field.' According to language expert Ben Zimmer of The Wall Street Journal, the term southpaw didn’t truly become popular in baseball until the 1880s. Before then, it was more commonly used to refer to a left-handed boxer or punch—similar to the jabs in the cartoon by Cass.
In conclusion, it seems unlikely that southpaw was originally used to describe left-handed baseball pitchers, or even left-handed baseball players in general. There's a slightly more plausible chance that the term originated in a boxing ring, where the aggressive nature of the sport might explain how the term paw became associated with it.
But without the context of baseball diamonds, how did south become connected to left? Major League Baseball’s official historian, John Thorn, believes it ties back to the once-widespread notion that left-handedness was a sign of evil. As Thorn explained to Zimmer, 'North is the direction for heaven, south the direction for hell. North and right are on the side of the angels, south and left are on the side of the devils.' If this theory holds true, we’re fortunate that people chose to go with southpaw instead of devilpaw.
