Citations:red ball

English citations of red ball

1991, David Simon, Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, →ISBN, →OL:
A police-involved shooting is by definition a red ball and, by definition, a red ball requires every warm body.
2002 March 20, Peter K Manning, “Framing the Rational in Field Work”, in Tim May, editor, Qualitative Research in Action, SAGE Publications, →ISBN, page 89:
High-status victims, if they received media attention, are also the subject to additional police time and attention. These are ‘red ball’ or ‘big cases’.
2005, Eileen Dreyer, Sinners and Saints, St. Martin's Press, →ISBN, →OL:
The only exception to that edict was the Eighth, the French Quarter district, since any homicide at the core of the tourist area was such a potential red ball.
2006, Gay Talese, A Writer's Life, New York: Knopf:
It was what the police called a “red ball” case. It was a “he said/she said" domestic donnybrook that the media would feed upon, that would swamp the police department with paperwork, that would demand courtroom testimony in the presence of competing attorneys, and that would surely threaten the careers of any law-enforcement officer who overlooked or misinterpreted even a tiny detail.
2012 September 30, The Crimson Ticket (The Mentalist), season 5, episode 1:
Norris: Wow. Four cops. Must be a red ball, huh?
Agent Mancini: A red ball?
Norris: Well, that's what you guys call an urgent case, right?

1905 August 18, “The Frisco System of Handling Time Freight”, in The Railroad Gazette, volume 39, number 7, page 158:
Perishable freight, carloads of package freight or merchandise, oils, etc., are designated as Red Ball freight.
1910 August, Chalmers L. Pancoast, “Red Ball System of Handling Freight”, in Santa Fe Employes' Magazine, volume 4, number 9, page 28:
A special red ball card, which is a familar sight to every employe—the large red ball on the white card—is attached to every car of red ball freight, one on each side, by the agent at the red ball billing station. A special red ball envelope accompanies each car to its destination.
1939 November, “Keeping the Iron Horse on Time”, in Popular Mechanics‎^[1], volume 72, number 5, →ISSN, page 157A:
The crack passenger trains average fifty-four miles an hour over that stretch, the "red ball" freights average twenty-seven, and the way freights eighteen miles an hour.
2012 February 27, “The Rambler”, in Jerry Silverman, editor, Train Songs, Mel Bay Publications:
Then I heard the whistle blowin' / And I knew it was a Red Ball train, / And I left that gal beside the railroad, / And I never saw the gal again.