Uncle Charlie

[uhng-kuhl chahr-lee]

noun

Baseball Slang.

1. curveball.

   When this guy delivers his Uncle Charlie, there’s not a left-handed hitter in the league who can get on base.

Word History and Origins

Origin of Uncle Charlie¹

First recorded in 1930–35; origin uncertain

Example Sentences

A 2021 film version of The Tender Bar produced by Mr Clooney cast Affleck as the aforementioned Uncle Charlie.

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Mr Moehringer's own 2005 autobiography on the subject, The Tender Bar, discussed his childhood in Long Island being raised by a single mother, and finding a father figure in his Uncle Charlie and a pack of barflies at the local watering hole.

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“He was throwing a nice changeup off that. Obviously he’s got the Uncle Charlie. It was classic Waino out there.”

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To play the role of Uncle Charlie, Affleck drew not only on his difficult relationship with his father, an aspiring playwright who drank too much and worked for a time as a bartender while Affleck was growing up, but also on his own wellspring of life experience.

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Uncle Charlie dispenses his street smart wisdom — "the male sciences" he calls it — to teach JR how to be a man.

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