The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-03-29
TODAY'S SPORT PARADE
BY HENRY McLEMORE ..lAaxl HA..aa.. sAn e Nnssasoassn "A SS

Daytona Beach, Fla, Marcn zS-- (UP)-The head Is g. very irnpor- tant item to most men, furnishing as 1t does room and board for such vital krdclmacks aS the ears, eyes, nose and brain. But baseball play CTS treat their heads with a care- lessmess that almost leads you to be- lieve they suffer from @ delusion that the better chain stores carry them on their shelves, and that they can be replaced by saying to Q clerk: "I1l take that red haired one over there with the part in the mtd- dle."
 Baseball players must feel this way, else why don't they adopt measures to protect their heads? In a few weeks another baseball season will begin, and once again the play CTS will walk to the plate and risk their heads before the fire of fast ball pitchers The major league sea- son won't be month old before some player will have been "beaned" and run the chance of being per- manently injured.
 Talk, No Action
 Every time player Is injured by @ pitch there is a revival of inter- est in the development of some sort of helmet for the protection of the players. This interest usually lasts only as long as the popped player Is In the hands of the medtcos. AS soon as he Is released from the hos pital the boys forget all about 1t until another is "konked."
 The reason the players give for dtslikinG @ protective hesd guard of some sort IS the slliest on rec ord. They say the wearing of such @ device would reflect on their gameness and cause the fans to brand them as sdssies who don't dare to stand up there and defy smoke ball to do its worst.
 The customers never have felt that way about players of other games. I never heard a football player branded as @ panty-waist be- cause he wore @ helmet, shoulder pads, kidney pads, shinguards and the like. Jockeys wear pith skull caps under their silk caps to protect their noggins against contact with @ clay track, and they aren't looked down upon. The same goes for polo players, auto drivers and players of nearly all games where there is a chance of injury. For that matter, baseball players wear sliding pads, and tho area protected by these cushions Is not quite as vulnerable as the head. A baseball player might just as we'll say the catchers should prove their re-mannishness by stepping behind the plate minus protector or mask.
 One thing I'll never understand Is why the owners don't demand that their players wear helmets. If l were an owner and had my money wrapped up in 8 bunch of men I would not risk having my invest mentS ruined by @ crack on the skull. I'd drape my boys in armor over 300 and carry fancy price tags. plate, especially the ones who hit I might possibly be a bit careless with bow-legged Sf1ortStop who couldn't hit his hat size and whose arm was & trifie weak, but a Di- Maggie or a Teller or Williams or Foxx or a Walters would go out to bat wearing a nice double-breasted diving helmet.
 Anxiety
 I remember sitting on the bench with Joe Cronin of the Red Sox during spring training last year. The Sox were playing an exhibition game with the Cardinals and the Cards were pitching six-foot five country boy with a fast ball like 8 bullet and about as much control as you'd find in a drunken swallow.
 Ted Williams was at bat for the sox and Cronin suffered the agonies of the damned as the rustic Walter Johnson fired his smoke balls in the general direction of the plate. Two or three of the pitches missed Will Hams head by inches and Cronin knew that should one of them hit the gangling Ted, Boston's chances for a pennant would be gone for an- other five years.
 believe 1t is time for the play