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Does "have first crack" mean "have first attempt/have the honor of being the first to try out"?

 
 
Reply Fri 18 Dec, 2015 08:30 am

Context:

Wright brothers’ first airplane flight in 1903
When Orville and Wilbur Wright were ready to test their experimental heavier-than-air flying machine, they decided by coin toss who would have first crack at piloting the craft and who would remain on the ground. This photo of the first successful flight of the Wright Flyer shows Orville at the controls and Wilbur to the right of the airplane. On the windy morning of December 17, 1903, the two inventors got their Flyer off the ground four times altogether, with Wilbur piloting the longest flight of the day, lasting 59 seconds over a distance of 852 feet. And though the location is popularly thought to be Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, the test flights took place at Kill Devil Hills, about four miles south of Kitty Hawk.
The brothers had enlisted John T. Daniels, a member of the Kill Devil Hills Life-Saving Station, to document the historic achievement with their camera. Despite never having seen a camera before, Daniels managed to capture the flight with a lyrical beauty.
 
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maxdancona
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  3  
Reply Fri 18 Dec, 2015 08:31 am
@oristarA,
It just means first attempt at doing something cool. I thought it is a baseball metaphor (the crack of the bat is the sound made when the bat hits the ball), but the Google doesn't definitively support that theory.

oristarA
 
  1  
Reply Fri 18 Dec, 2015 08:36 am
@maxdancona,
Really cool.
0 Replies
 
Walter Hinteler
 
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Reply Fri 18 Dec, 2015 08:40 am
@maxdancona,
Etymology of “first crack”
0 Replies
 
McTag
 
  1  
Reply Fri 18 Dec, 2015 12:00 pm

Nothing to do with baseball then. I thought not.
0 Replies
 
dalehileman
 
  1  
Reply Fri 18 Dec, 2015 12:02 pm
@oristarA,
Yup
0 Replies
 
 

 
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