Dear Faldage: before I made that post, I re-read all the previous posts, and just now searched all forums, and found no mention of tsuwm's posting about southpaws. I can't see any logic to OED talking about a southpaw boxer. Finley Peter Dunne started as a sportwriter at age 16. which would have been before 1900. The layout of the ballfield involved provides logic to the term. I like logic, and this is one more reason for me to say bad-word the OED/