High 5!

Happy National High 5 Day! The Drift crew is big fans of slapping hands. We’ll slap anyone’s hand at any time, for any reason. It’s a weird, yet classic way to let your friends know that you approve of their actions. In honor of this glorious holiday, we created 8 advanced level high fives that you should definitely add to your repertoire. Please feel free to break these out at any time.

Who decided that emphatically slapping two hands together is it a good thing? That depends on who you ask! No one is 100% positive on the origin of the high five, but I’ll take you through two of my favorites.

Theory A

It was 1977 in Los Angeles. The Dodgers were playing their last game of the regular season when Dusty Baker hit a home run off of the Astros. This marked Baker’s 30th home run of the season, which made the Dodgers the first Major League team to have four players all reach 30 home runs within a season. Glenn Burke, a young outfielder for the organization, was waiting on deck when he thrust his hand over his head to greet Baker at home plate. Baker recalls “His hand was way up in the air, and he was arching way back. So I reached up and hit his hand. It seemed like the thing to do.” Burke’s at bat went equally as well when he too cleared the fences. When Burke finished running the bases and reached the dugout, Baker greeted him in the same fashion, and the high five was born.

Theory B

The University of Louisville basketball team was having a practice during their 1978-79 season. Wiley Brown went to low five his teammate but Derek Smith said “No. Up High.” Smith said “I thought, yeah, why are we staying down low? We jump so high.” This new, higher relative of the low five, can be seen in several of the highlight reels from their 1978-79 season.

No matter your take on which theory is correct, the high 5 is special, and we hope that you slap as many hands as possible on the third Thursday of every April.

Author
Gavin Braman

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