The term “around the horn”, which refers to a double play started by the third baseman, or throwing the ball around the infield after a strikeout, has its origins in sailing. It refers to the long voyage from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. Before the creation of the Panama Canal, ships had to travel south past the tip of South America, Cape Horn, to get from one ocean to the other. So the long journey from one ocean to the other, like the journey from third base to first, had to go “around the horn.”
