The lowdown on the high-five

Think you know the history of the high-five? Before you pat yourself on the back, be ready to have your premise slapped down.

There are lots of theories about its origin. There have been many arguments about it. There even was a hoax that was executed cleverly enough to gain a surprising amount of traction before people wised up.

But there has never been any definitive evidence about where, how and by whom it all got started.

The "low-five" — a gesture executed the same as a high-five except the participants slapped hands at knee level — surfaced among African-Americans in the 1920s. At least that's when it was documented in the 1927 movie "The Jazz Singer." Singer/bandleader Cab Calloway formalized the term when he included it in his "Hepster's Dictionary."

Exactly when the high-five started to gain altitude is open to interpretation. There's a scene in the 1960 French film "Breathless" that could be considered an example of a high-five — or it could just be two effusive people engaging in a high-spirited greeting. Other social historians think black soldiers initiated the move during World War II as a rogue version of the low-five, but there's no documentation to accompany that theory.

When it comes to authentification of a high-five, there are two frequently cited sources — both involving sports.

One involves a Los Angeles Dodgers baseball game in 1977. Dusty Baker hit a home run. As he reached home plate, the next batter, Glenn Burke, raised his arms in celebration. Realizing that he was holding a bat in one hand, Burke lowered that hand but left the other one raised, so Baker reached up and gave it a swat. In a newspaper account of the event, Baker explained his actions by saying, "It seemed like the thing to do."

And then there's the case of Lamont Sleets. In 2007, he became something of celebrity when he claimed that he created the high-five while playing basketball at Kentucky's Murray State University in the 1970s. He provided enough colorful details about the gesture's back story that several potential red flags — including that he was speaking on behalf of the National High Five Project in its attempt to create a National High Five Day and that the group's website also claimed that high-fiving helped prevent disease — were overlooked by Internet news feeds that weren't big on fact-checking.

Leeks really did play for the school in the 1970s, but, alas, it turned out that everything else was a hoax that he good-naturedly agreed to go along with. It was a good hoax, though, certainly one deserving a high-five.