Someone Had to Invent the High Five — Here’s the Disputed Story of How It Happened

You’ve done it a 1000 times without ever reasoning astir wherever it came from. After a location run, a bully gathering aliases conscionable greeting a 3-year-old — you raise your manus and hold for nan slap. The precocious 5 feels for illustration it’s been astir forever.

It hasn’t. The motion really has a traceable — and hotly disputed — root story.

The precocious 5 is 1 of sports’ astir iconic gestures, but its nonstop root is still debated. The formed of characters fighting complete in installments for a elemental manus slap is unexpectedly rich | — spanning a Dodgers outfielder, a assemblage hoops subordinate and moreover a 2019 section of “American Dad.”

Multiple competing stories person emerged complete clip — immoderate documented, others later disputed aliases moreover fabricated.

The 1977 Dodgers Moment Most People Know

The astir wide accepted root story, according to Britannica, traces nan precocious 5 to Oct. 2, 1977. That’s nan time Los Angeles Dodgers near fielder Dusty Baker deed his 30th location tally of nan season. As Baker rounded nan bases and crossed location plate, his teammate Glenn Burke was waiting for him — manus raised precocious successful nan air.

Baker didn’t overthink it.

“His manus was up successful nan air, and he was arching measurement back,” Baker told ESPN successful 2020. “So I reached up and deed his hand. It seemed for illustration nan point to do.”

And conscionable for illustration that — possibly — nan precocious 5 was born.

Here’s nan catch: nan relationship was not televised. There’s nary video grounds to settee nan statement erstwhile and for all. But it’s nan root communicative that stuck, and Burke is wide credited pinch helping popularize nan motion successful master sports.

The Competing Origin Theories

Here’s wherever it gets messy. Despite nan celebrated MLB story, historians and taste references constituent to earlier aliases replacement origins.

Some accounts propose nan precocious 5 whitethorn person existed arsenic a motion among U.S. subject unit stationed successful Japan aft World War II. Others statement ocular similarities successful earlier media, including a segment successful Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960 movie “Breathless” wherever characters look to execute a akin gesture.

Another mentation ties nan motion to African American Vernacular English, specifically nan building “gimme five,” suggesting nan beingness mobility evolved from existing taste expressions. In this reading, nan raised manus was an improvement of thing already successful believe — not an out-of-nowhere invention.

The Basketball Version pinch nan Perfect Quote

In hoops lore, nan University of Louisville has its ain rival declare — and it comes pinch nan benignant of quotable infinitesimal that practically begs to beryllium retold.

At a University of Louisville hoops believe during nan 1978-79 season, guardant Wiley Brown went to springiness a plain aged debased 5 to his teammate Derek Smith. Out of nowhere, Smith looked Brown successful nan oculus and said, “No. Up high.”

The Cardinals were known arsenic nan Doctors of Dunk. They played supra nan rim. Everything astir their crippled was vertical. So erstwhile Smith raised his hand, it clicked for Brown: He understood really nan debased 5 went against nan essential, vertical characteristic of their team.

“I thought, yeah, why are we staying down low? We jump truthful high,” Brown told ESPN. Brown insists it’s Smith who invented nan precocious 5 and Smith who dispersed it astir nan country.

So Who Really Invented nan High Five?

The honorable answer: cipher knows for sure. The Baker-Burke communicative from 1977 is nan type astir group cite. The Brown-Smith speech astatine Louisville has its ain passionate defenders. And nan theories astir subject origins and taste improvement propose nan motion mightiness not person had a azygous inventor astatine all.

Today, while nan nonstop root remains contested, nan precocious 5 endures arsenic a cosmopolitan awesome of ceremony — wide utilized successful sports, popular civilization and mundane life. The truth that cipher tin definitively beryllium who started it only makes nan full communicative better.

Now you’ve sewage nan retellable details: Baker’s casual “It seemed for illustration nan point to do.” Smith’s blunt “No. Up high.” And a amazingly heavy statement down nan world’s simplest motion of celebration.