Ouch

I was awakened this morning at 3:00 a.m. by a Charley Horse in my left calf. 

Yes, it hurt, and yes, it is a Hell of a way to wake up in the middle of the night.  I was eventually able to get the muscle to relax enough for me to get back to sleep, but it got me to thinking about where we got the term.

A Charley Horse is a muscle spasm, usually in the calf or thigh.  It may be caused by exertion, or by a hormone or electrolyte imbalance – high or low blood pH – or low levels of potassium or calcium.  They often attack pregnant women, and are one of the symptoms of ALS.

There is some confusion over the actual origin of the term, but it seems pretty clear that it came from baseball.  The first published use of the term was in Sporting Life magazine in 1886.

In any case, Charley Horse is a purely American term.  It’s called lots of things elsewhere, several relating to other animals.  In Norway, it is a lårhøne - thigh hen, in parts of Italy it is a morso del ciuccio - donkey bite and in Guam it’s called a chaca - rat.

One story about the origin of the term says that back in the late 1800’s the Chattanooga, TN baseball team owned an old, lame horse named Charley.  Between warm-ups and the start of each game, it was Charley’s job to limp around the baseline dragging the dust brush.  If a player came up lame during the game, his teammates called him Charley, and somehow the term evolved from describing the injured player to the injury itself.  In another citation, the story is basically the same, except Charley moved up to the majors, and was owned by the Chicago White Sox.

Still another story says Charley Horses are named for Hall of Fame Pitcher Charlie “Old Hoss” Radbourne, who suffered one during a game in the 1880’s.  Could be true – he pitched an unbelievable 678 2/3 innings in 1884 with 60 wins and 12 losses.