Yo la tengo

This pleasant and informative post on BoingBoing bears correcting. It quotes another blog on the origins of some famous rock band names -- to wit:

YO LA TENGO translates to "I have it" from Spanish -- said to be the phrase called out by Hispanic baseball players when fielding a pop fly ball. Singer/guitar player Ira Kaplan got the expression from a book he was reading about baseball called The Five Seasons.

I'm sorry, but the original book referred to deserves much more respect than that.

First of all, the title is Five Seasons, not The Five Seasons; the author is the New Yorker's Roger Angell. The book is a collection of his columns on baseball from 1972 through 1976, and it does, indeed, contain a hilarious anecdote about an American baseball player learning how to say "I got it!" in Spanish. The book, filled with clear, vivid writing, will turn sports-indifferent readers into real baseball fans.