English

Alternative forms

• Tinker to Evans to Chance (An error as common as the correct form).

Proper noun

Tinker to Evers to Chance

1. A famous baseball infield double-play combination.

Noun

Tinker to Evers to Chance

1. (US, idiomatic) A task accomplished quickly by well-executed teamwork; those involved in the teamwork
   • 1957 September, “Can we defend our coasts against Russian subs?‎”, in Popular Science, volume 171, page 161:

     The sonarman picks up the enemy, shoots the position to the radar controller sitting near him, and the radar controller, in a Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance play, vectors a hovering helicopter to the spot.

   • 1974, Carl Bernstein; Bob Woodward, All the President's Men, page 256:

     It was like Tinker to Evers to Chance. Colson-Chance then flipped the good news to Hugh Scott, who read Mrs. Beard's denial on the Senate floor that same day.

   • 1990, Traffic world‎, page 37:

     When it comes to computers, though, systems integration is too often more reminiscent of the Keystone Kops than Tinker to Evers to Chance.

   • 1998, Allen B. Weisse, The staff and the serpent, page 61:

     Prothrombin-to-thrombin-to-fibrin had a Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance simplicity that was 100 percent American in some way.

   • 2001, Richard Powers, Plowing the Dark‎, page 204:

     Spiegel caught the names Schoenberg, Webern, and Berg, whom he gathered were a kind of upscale Tinker to Evers to Chance.

   • 2008, Nancy Kriplen, The eccentric billionaire: John D. MacArthur-- empire builder, reluctant, page 67:

     ... a financial Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance operation involving Bankers Life and Casualty, plus an old company called Hotel Men's Mutual Benefit Association, ....

See also

• hot potato