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Show Seeing Big League BASEBALL By BILLY EVANS Sportswriter, Big League Umpir and General Manager of the Cleveland Indians Why people tljrow pop bottles at ball games to show their disgust at the umpire's um-pire's decisions is beyond me. And while I'm on the pop bottle subject, let me say that of all the despicable and cowardly acts In any way associated asso-ciated with our national game, I regard re-gard the practice of bottle throwing as the worst. All the more despicable despica-ble because there Is no provocation for it whatever. All the more cowardly coward-ly because the thrower believes himself him-self unseen by his intended victim. Let the fan howl his head off at a decision de-cision lie doesn't like or at any player play-er he doesn't like. That's his privilege, priv-ilege, as long as -he doesn't carry It too far and add low Insult. But let that he enough. When I was hit by a bottle at SL Louis and badly Injured, I came near being avenged right then and there. The Indignation of the fairer-minded fairer-minded fans who don't approve of such tactics manifested Itself when they threatened the very life of the unfortunate culprit who had hit me. f' It was necessary to send In a riot call to get him safely out of the park. Yes, I learned who it was that threw the bottle. So maoy people In discussing the hnppening, ask me if I did. A few days after my accident I was lying in my hospital bed, my aching head in an Ice pack, when one of the sisters came to my bedside to Inquire how I was. It was my first rational moment since entering the hospital. It was Sister Josephine talking talk-ing to me gentle Sister Josephine, whose acts of mercy and tenderness, whose kindness to me, I shall never forget. And then she told me that some of the flowers In my room had been sent by a family that called to Inquire about me every day. It was the family of the boy who had thrown the bottle for It was a boy who had done It They were very solicitous about me and the boy wanted so badly to see me. But I was in no condition to see anyone. They wanted to know if I wouldn't consent to drop the case against the boy. "Tell them that the case is not in my hands. It is In the hands of Mr. Johnson and the American league," I bad Sister Josephine tell them. But each day a bunch of beautiful flowers would come, brought by the boy who had hit me. And each day he pleaded so the nurses told me to be allowed to see me so he might ask my forgiveness. And I was getting get-ting better nil the time, so one day I said to Sister Josephine, after she had told me that the boy was again waiting, wait-ing, "let him come In, then." And so they brought him to me. He came over to my bed and fell to his knees and sobbed his troubled heart out. I was moved to tears myself. "Nothing but a kid," I thought "Just an unthinking boy and now a mighty sorry boy." lie told me how terribly sorry he whs. Would I get well? Could I ever forgive him for the terrible thing he had done? And that was embarrassing to me In the extreme. But that was not all. Still the flowers flow-ers came and then, one day, the family's fam-ily's lawyer, prepared to come to an agreement on a "cash settlement" "I don't want any money," I told him. "You can't pay me for my weeks In the hospital, and money can't compensate com-pensate me for the fact that I was almost killed, but for the sake of the boy, I'll intercede with my boss, B. B. Johnson, president of the American league, and if he's willing to call It off, I am." And that's what I did. Mr. Johnson John-son didn't like It one bit, but there was no prosecution. ffl. 1030. Bell Syndicate.) |