The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-04-06

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 to have far-reaching results in ath- i letics the country over, especially in
 army athletics where the question of
 time has been difficult one. Indeed,
 during the short winter days sport for
 the army has been a difficult accom-
 plishment because of the limited fa-
 cilities for indoor play. And with
 summer coming the problem did
 boom large until the new scheme of
 time was put into effect.
 Here was about the way the sport
 situation was in the camps in
 America in regard to summer. Owing
 to a vigorous and necessary military
 schedule which abated only on We'd
 nesday and Saturday afternoons of the
 week days, 1t looked difficult to even
 figure out a scheme which would give
 every ball team a chance to play at
 least once a week. Diamonds might
 be built on all the available space but there was not enough leisure time available to permit all the teams to
 get in their games. Afternoons, other
 than the two mentioned, offered little
 opportunity to play. But the new day light law has done away with all that. Games may now be scheduled
 practically every day of the week and baseball will, as a rule, come into it's
 own in the camps.
 Army baseball is the biggest base ball proposition America has ever seen. Pretty nearly every small camp in the United States can boast of
 more teams than we have in both ma | jor leagues. But when you get to the big cantonments then you find figures that are amazing. Teams run into the hundreds and most of them are | in leagues of some kind or other. The
 number of games played, the number of balls and bats to be used and the ] cost of all the needed equipment is staggering even when one makes a guess at the whole. Indeed, no one can do other than guess at it. It's | impossible to do otherwise.
 But baseball, as big as is it's scale in the camps and cantonments, is but a
 small factor in the general scheme of physical fitness and sport in the army. ! Take a camp of 30,000 men, all of
 whom are urged and encouraged in every way to get into sport. If any | OA1C So4A LII Q OuI P1dlA "11Cl ObS every one of those men can play in baseball games two or three times a 1 week he is capable of leading the boys l to Berlin. Nothing else to it! Fact 1 is the thing cannot be done and in order to get all the men into sports
 and athletes, as the army wishes, plans
 have to be made and carried out for games of a kind that require far less ground area than baseball and which get the great mass of soldiers into | them.
 These games must also be of the sort that require no equipment. Thus | they solve big problem in that they
 may be played at any time and by
 most any number. They are more or | less of a spontaneous nature, games patterned after those we played as l boys; games that fulfill the inherent desire for recreation; and games that
 are therefore big factor in keeping
 everyone happy. Schools recognized
 and promoted by the military authori- l ties, are often the means of getting | these games made a part of the sol- dier's knowledge and that they serve in keeping men both fit and happy is in no small degree a reason why they | have become so popular throughout | the army. Strange as it may seem there is a certain percentage of men
 in the draft army who never before played at all. These games are a
 big factor in the lives of these men. They also serve to quicken and speed up the army types of this sort.
 There has been no more universal
 and popular game in the army than
 swat tag. Last fall saw a regiment play 1t before a football crowd of | twenty-odd thousand and the fun of the players was so contagious that the crowd got more real amusement 1 and eniovment out of this informal