eephus pitch

or e·phus pitch

[ ee-fuhs pich ]

/ ˈi fəs ˌpɪtʃ /

noun Baseball.

a junk pitch of extremely low speed and with a characteristically high arc: He baffled many a hitter with his eephus pitch.

Words nearby eephus pitch

eelworm, eensy-weensy, eent, eeo, eeoc, eephus pitch, eer, eerie, eery, ef-, efa

Also Ee·phus pitch, E·phus pitch.

Origin of eephus pitch

First recorded in 1940–45; name attributed to Maurice Van Robays (1914–65), outfielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates, for a kind of junk pitch developed in the early 1940s by Truett “Rip” Sewell (1907–89), pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates; further origin uncertain. The proposed derivation from Hebrew efeṣ “nothing, zero” is considered unlikely