Because Chinese immigrants were forced to
work for little pay at the turn of the century, their name came to mean
"cheap" in American slang and formed the basis for a number of derogatory
expressions. Chinese home run is the only one of these that still has much
use today. It describes a cheap home run where the ball just makes it over
the fence. No one is sure who coined the phrase. It either arose in some
ballpark on the West Coast and was brought East by the cartoonist "Tad"
Dorgan (who is also responsible for the terms "yes man" and "hot dog"), or
it originated in a baseball park with a fence a relatively short distance
from home, possible the 239-foot right field fence of New York's old Polo
Grounds.