can of corn

Meaning

Noun

• An easily caught fly ball.

Origin

• The phrase, first used in 1896, makes reference to a long-ago practice where a grocer would use a stick to tip a can of vegetables off a high shelf, then catch it in his hands or outstretched apron. Corn was the best-selling vegetable and so was heavily stocked on the lowest shelves, making it the easiest of the can "catches" for the grocer. (See )