The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-06-16
HOW ZIMMERMAN LOST
 FAITH IN HUMAN NATURE

ODDITIES of baseball create as much
 interest as the daily diamond dis putes. About the latest and newest stunt was developed at Chicago re- gently and found Heinie Zimmerman, citizen of the Bronx, New York, the victim, with Jack Smith and Albert Betzel Of St. Louis engineering the play that made Heinie swear never again to appear in the light of a good samaritan.
 During the course of the game, event
 ua1ly won by St. Louis, Betzel was at
 bat and Smith on second base Betzel
 made A vicious swing at the ball, miss
 ed connections, and his bat flew in
 the general direction of third base. As the crowd laughed, as crowds will,
 genial Zimmerman doffed his cap and
 smilingly went to retrieve the bat for Betzel, leaving third base unprotected
 Not fappreciattng the courtesy and af- liability of Zimmerman, Smith dashed to third base and landed right side up with care on the bag.
 Then Zimmerman emitted yell that could be heard in the loop district of Chicago, some five miles from Charles Weeghman's North Side club plant.
 '"The ball was dead,' screeched Zirn- merman he advanced toward the
 umpire. Make him go back, he
 screamed. That's no way to treat a
 guy trying to help you out,'' subsided
 Zimmerman as he tore the turf and
 sulked around the third bag.
 But Smith had scored at the expense
 of Zimmerman, and the umpire admit
 ted that nothing in the rules could make Smith return to second. He sug-
 gested that if it was necessary to ap
 pease Zimmerman Smith might steal
 back to second, but to this Miller Hug
 gins, manager of the St. Louis team, refused to acQuiesce. So Smith gain ed third base Smith really acted the part of the often referred to man who steals the
 pennies from blind man. Knowing that Zimmerman was trying to save Betze1 a few steps and at the same
 time hurry up the game, Smith might have shown a kind heart, especially when his theft of third was going to
 make Zimmerman appear as modern
 John Anderson. Those St. Louis play
 CTS must be cruel lot to so take ad- vantage of the great Zim.
 The play arouses several important questions that might interest John Heydler, considered the rule perfector Of the universe. In the first place, it seems the umpire should be instructed to call time immediately anything like that happens, as the accident sure | ty 1mpedes the progress of the game, because with the batter out of the box the pitcher is not allowed to deliver 1 the ball to the catcher. With the chances of a base runner advancing and Zimmerman bilked by those he | thought friends. from now on the rest | of the baseball world will be careful about returning thrown bats and vaIu- l able time will be lost while the player | retrieves his own bat.
 | It often happens that a batter takes | an unusually hard swing at the ball, l loses hold of his bat and the bat flies | into the outf1eld. Supposing cooler l heads than Zimmerman would ignore | the thrown bat and force the hitter to ] make long journey to the outf1eld to get possession of his stick" It would i take two or three minutes, and games | are decidedly so long now that such an amount of time cannot be wasted! Another interesting point comes up. Suppose after the batter threw away l his bat he did not step out of the bats mems lines. If time is not called the pitcher surely is not prevented deltv- ering the ball to the catcher. Under such circumstances the batter is help leSS- It seems time that baseball tech nicalfties such as the above are elirni- mated, and the best time to start the elimination is the present