"The catbird seat" is an idiomatic phrase used to describe an enviable position, often in terms of having the upper hand or greater advantage in any type of dealing among parties. It derives from the secluded perch on which the gray catbird makes mocking calls.
According to Douglas Harper's Online Etymological Dictionary , the phrase refers to the gray catbird and was used in the 19th century in the American South. [1]
An early use of the term can be found in the Columbia Daily Tribune in the April 21, 1900 edition. [2]
According to the Oxford English Dictionary , [3] the first documented use occurred in a 1942 humorous short story by James Thurber titled "The Catbird Seat", [4] which features a character, Mrs. Barrows, who likes to use the phrase. Another character, Joey Hart, explains that Mrs. Barrows must have picked up the expression from the baseball broadcaster Red Barber, and that "sitting in the catbird seat" meant "'sitting pretty', like a batter with three balls and no strikes on him."
According to "Colonel" Bob Edwards's book Fridays with Red, Barber claimed that Thurber got this and many other expressions from him, and that Barber had first heard the term used by Frank Koch during a poker game in Cincinnati, during the Great Depression. [5] Barber also put forth this version of events in his 1968 autobiography, Rhubarb in the Catbird Seat. [6]