One of the most famous baseball comedy acts to ever take place was the following humorous exchange between Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. The words alone cannot do it justice, but it is still quite funny to read. The general premise behind the exchange has Costello, a peanut vendor named Sebastion Dinwiddle, talking to Abbott who is Dexter Broadhurt, the manager of the mythical St. Louis Wolves.

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Costello: When we get to St. Louis, will you tell me the guys' names on the team, so when I go to see them in that St. Louis ballpark, I'll be able to know those fellas? Abbott: Well, now, is that all right, folks? All right Now look, then you'll go and peddle your popcorn and don't interrupt the act anymore? But you know, strange as it may seem, they give ball players now-a-days very peculiar names. Costello: Not as funny as my name, Sebastian Dinwiddle.
Who’s on First? Abbott and Costello’s signature routine
The premise of the sketch is that Abbott is identifying the players on a baseball team for Costello , but their names and nicknames can be interpreted as non-responsive answers to Costello's questions. For example, the first baseman is named "Who"; thus, the utterance "Who's on first" is ambiguous between the question "Which person is the first baseman? In the movie Cracked Nuts , comedians Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey examine a map of a mythical kingdom with dialogue like this: "What is next to Which. By the early s, a "Baseball Routine" had become a standard bit for burlesque comics across the United States. Abbott's wife recalled him performing the routine with another comedian before teaming with Costello. Bud Abbott stated that it was taken from an older routine called "Who's The Boss? It was a big hit in the fall of , when they performed the routine in a touring vaudeville revue called Hollywood Bandwagon. In February , Abbott and Costello joined the cast of The Kate Smith Hour radio program, and the sketch was first performed for a national radio audience on March 24 of that year. This version, with extensive wordplay based on the fact that most of the fictional baseball team's players had "strange nicknames" that seemed to be questions, became known as "Who's on First? By , Abbott and Costello had the routine copyrighted.
Lou Costello : When you pay off the first baseman every month, who gets the money? Bud Abbott : He does, every dollar. Sometimes his wife comes down and collects it.