The High Five | High Five started in baseball

The High Five

It is widely believed the high five started in baseball in the late seventies. There may be some instances of the gesture being made in movies, but culture had not yet coined a phrase and was generally unrecognized by the people. At Dodger Stadium in 1977, Dusty Baker hit his 30th home run on the last day of the season. This home run made the Dodgers the first team in professional baseball history to have four hitters with at least thirty home runs. Glenn Burke was waiting at the on deck circle and greeted Dusty enthusiastically with his hand over his head. Dusty came toward him and just smacked his hand … “His hand was up in the air, and he was arching way back,” says Baker, “So I reached up and hit his hand. It seemed like the thing to do.”

However, there is a possible basketball story origin to the beginning of the high five from the University of Louisville Cardinals. Story goes at a basketball practice during the 1978–1979 season. Wiley Brown went to give a low five to his teammate Derek Smith, but suddenly Smith looked Brown in the eye and said, “No. Up high.” Brown thought, “Yeah, why are we staying down low? We jump so high,” raised his hand and the high five was supposedly born. High fives can be seen in highlight reels of the 1978–1979 Louisville team. In addition during a telecast of a 1980 game, announcer Al McGuire shouted: “Mr. Brown came to play! And they’re giving him the high-five handshake. High five!”