A Place in the Hole

I've been waiting a long time for a well written obituary on a truly way out character. When Robert McG. Thomas was alive you could count on some appearing almost regularly. But Mr. Thomas himself is no longer with us, and he is missed.

But there are others, when they're allowed to be. And in today's WSJ, Stephen Miller's telling of the life of Richard Zimmerman, Dugout Dick, is what we've been missing.

Mr. Miller is completely capable of filling the Thomas shoes, but one gets the feeling the WSJ keeps a bit of a hold on him. When he worked at The Sun, Mr. Miller wrote some beauts, but probably none close to the one he wrote for in a 'zine for his own amusement about Jeffrey Dahmer basically being the son even a mother would be afraid to admit was hers.

Dugout Dick was not a denizen of the baseball world, but rather a modern day caveman. And when you live in a cave you need a nickname, like Dugout Dick. He just passed away at 94, and lived in a cave complex he created in Idaho. Even had tenants, when they paid the rent.

Dugout's obituary is such a departure from what has been turning up in the Journal that one suspects that Mr. Miller slipped his editor some hallucinogenic powder that sent the poor soul to the emergency room a few hours before deadline, or, the boss was just plain on vacation. Whatever, as they say, a gem emerged.

Mr. Zimmerman is described as a striking figure, who was topped off by a red miner's helmet. And a good thing, because it probably contributed to his longevity. Dugout was quoted in 2002 (when he would have been 86) as saying, "you bump your head a lot when you live in a cave." Thank goodness for self-adherence to OSHA regulations.

Mr. Miller clearly had fun and likely only regrets they limited him to the space they did in today's paper.

But there will probably be a little more about Dugout before the news cycle expires. Perhaps we will see an Op-Ed piece soon. As he grew frail, a friend of his got him in a nursing home. This of course means that even before the recently passed legislation, the caveman had health care coverage. This might come as a surprise to some people who inhabit The White House, pop up on Fox and CNN, but Dugout proved it was true.

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