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Who really said it

Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple

Unknown — an American newspaper wisecrack, decades older than both credits Unknown Anonymous · the ‘third base’ image in print by 1934
Disputed Free to reuse

The two names attached to it are both repeaters. Barry Switzer said the full sentence in a December 1986 interview, and Jim Hightower made it famous about George H. W. Bush at the Democratic convention in July 1988. But the ‘born on third base’ jab was running in American newspapers by 1934, and quote researcher Ralph Keyes found the modern form in print years before Switzer’s interview. Nobody has produced a first mouth.

Last verified 21 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

Put it on a slide

Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple” An anonymous American saying, in print by 1934. Said by Barry Switzer in 1986 and Jim Hightower in 1988 — coined by neither.

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Barry Switzer. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

Free to use, including in commercial and paid presentations — no permission or licence needed.

Image direction — grounded in this quote’s real context; paste into your image tool

In context

Evoking the world of Barry Switzer — American football coach, Oklahoma Sooners and Dallas Cowboys. Theme: "Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The source

Origin
Anonymous American newspaper humour
Earliest located
12 May 1934, Hammond (IN) Times
Switzer
Interview published 13–14 December 1986
Hightower
19 July 1988, Democratic convention

A genius is one who seems a wonder because he was born on third base. Hammond Times, 1934

The earliest instance located — the joke exists, but not yet the punchline. It takes another half-century for someone to add the part where the runner takes credit for the hit.

Barry Popik — the citation trail from 1934

How we traced it

  • Etymologist Barry Popik’s file on the saying starts in the Hammond (Indiana) Times of 12 May 1934 with the line above, and follows the image through the Ironwood (MI) Daily Globe in 1935 and the Paris (TX) News in 1940 — a stock American gag about inherited advantage the citation file ↗.
  • The full modern taunt — third base plus the imagined triple — is applied to an oil heir in Fortune, 30 May 1983, three years before Switzer. Ralph Keyes, in The Quote Verifier, reports finding it in print five years before the Switzer interview and concludes the author is unknown.
  • Barry Switzer’s version appears in a December 1986 profile — Tom Shatel’s ‘The Unknown Barry Switzer’ in the Chicago Tribune, 14 December 1986, and the same week in the Marietta (GA) Daily Journal. He is the first famous person on record saying the whole sentence, which is not the same as writing it Wikiquote’s sourcing ↗.
Public domain

The 1930s newspaper instances are anonymous and long out of copyright, so the underlying saying is free to use. Switzer’s and Hightower’s spoken versions are recent and their exact wordings sit inside copyrighted articles and broadcasts, but the idea and the common phrasing belong to nobody. Quote it as an American proverb, not as either man’s epigram. This is not legal advice.

Fact-check

The attribution problem

This is a rare case where the two rival credits are both real utterances by real people who really did say it — and both are still wrong, because the saying was already old when they got to it.

Barry Switzer — said it, didn't coin it repeater

His version is genuine and dated: a December 1986 profile. But the full saying is in Fortune in 1983, and Ralph Keyes reports an instance five years before the interview. First famous speaker, not first speaker.

Jim Hightower — the populariser later still

At the Democratic convention on 19 July 1988 he said of George H. W. Bush: ‘He is a man who was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple.’ That is the version most people are actually remembering — and it is two years after Switzer and half a century after 1934.

A football coach and a Texas populist conflation

Same decade, same joke, both blunt Southerners with a gift for a line. Hightower supplied the famous target, Switzer the famous phrasing, and the credit has ping-ponged between them ever since.

Anonymous newspaper humour 1934 onward

‘Born on third base’ runs as a stock gag about inherited advantage through the 1930s and 1940s American press. The distinctive turn — the runner claiming the hit — is bolted on later by someone nobody has identified.

Unknown. The image is in print by 1934 and the full taunt by 1983; Switzer (1986) and Hightower (1988) are the two loudest borrowers the citations ↗.

Context

Why it resonates

It is the most efficient description of unearned advantage in English, and it works because baseball supplies the moral arithmetic for free: everyone already knows a triple is something you do and third base is somewhere you can simply be standing.

It also lands without name-calling. You are not accusing anyone of lying — you are pointing out they genuinely believe the story, which is a far more irritating thing to be accused of.

Everyone already knows a triple is something you do, and third base is somewhere you can just be standing.

How a proverb gets a famous owner

Sayings like this rarely have authors. They circulate as newspaper filler, get sharpened by dozens of anonymous retellings, and only acquire a name when someone famous finally says one on the record.

Switzer is the classic magnet case: the biography fits the sentiment so neatly that people assume he must have minted it.

Hightower’s 1988 delivery is the reason most Americans know it at all — a national television audience and a presidential candidate as the target.

The 1983 Fortune use, about an oil heir, shows the line already doing the exact job it does today, three years before its first famous speaker.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Humility Success

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

'Born on third base and thinks he hit a triple' — citation filebarrypopik.com

Dated newspaper instances from 1934 forward, including the 1983 Fortune use and both famous 1980s deliveries.
Barry Switzer — Wikiquote, disputed sectionen.wikiquote.org

Records that the saying was in print before Switzer’s 1986 interview, citing Ralph Keyes’s The Quote Verifier.
Jim Hightoweren.wikipedia.org

Background on the Texas populist whose 1988 convention line about George H. W. Bush put the saying into national politics.

Popularly credited author

Why it gets pinned on Switzer

Barry Switzer

b. 1937 · American football coach, Oklahoma Sooners and Dallas Cowboys

Barry Switzer won three national titles at Oklahoma and a Super Bowl with the Dallas Cowboys — the second of which is the joke, since he inherited a team built by someone else and heard this line thrown back at him for years. He grew up poor in rural Arkansas, which is why the sentence sounds so plausibly his: he had every reason to say it, and in December 1986 he did. He simply was not the first.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Anonymous American saying; ‘born on third base’ in the Hammond (IN) Times, 12 May 1934. Full modern form in Fortune, 30 May 1983. Spoken by Barry Switzer, December 1986; by Jim Hightower, 19 July 1988.

MLA (9th ed.)

“Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple.” Anonymous American saying; earliest located 1934.

APA (7th ed.)

Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple. (1934). Anonymous American saying [earliest located instance].

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Born on third base and thinks he hit a triple’?” Last verified 21 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/some-people-are-born-on-third-base-and-go-through-life

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