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Charles Louis Zimmer (November 23, 1860 – August 22, 1949) was a professional baseball player whose playing career spanned from 1884 to 1906. He played for 19 seasons as a catcher in Major League Baseball, including 13 seasons for the Cleveland Blues/Spiders (1887–1899), three seasons for the Pittsburgh Pirates (1900–1902), and one season as the player/manager of the Philadelphia Phillies (1903). Zimmer is regarded by some as "the finest defensive catcher of his day."〔 He set Major League catching records for assists (188 in 1890), double plays (16 in 1895), runners caught stealing (183 in 1893), games at catcher (125 in 1890), and career fielding percentage (.943 as of 1896). As one of the game's first every-day catchers, ''The Sporting News'' in 1949 called Zimmer "baseball's original 'iron man'." Offensively, Zimmer had a career batting average of .269, but hit above .300 four times, including a career high .340 batting average in 1895. Zimmer was also the first president of the Players' Protective Association and a successful entrepreneur during his playing days, including operation of a wholesale and retail cigar business that he promoted while on the road. His most famous business venture, however, was "Zimmer's Baseball Game," a mechanical baseball parlor game that he invented in 1891 and became popular in the early to middle 1890s. ==Early years== Zimmer was born in Marietta, Ohio, in 1860. As a young man, he worked as an apprentice in a cabinetmaker's shop. He began his professional baseball career at age 23 in 1884 playing in the Ohio State League for teams from Ironton and Portsmouth, Ohio.〔 He appeared in eight games in the Major Leagues for the Detroit Wolverines in 1884. After being released by the Tigers, Zimmer did not play professional baseball in 1885.〔 He played for Poughkeepsie of the Hudson River League in 1886, compiling a .409 batting average, and for the Rochester Maroons of the International Association in 1887, batting .331.〔 Zimmer acquired the nickname "Chief" during the 1886 season while playing as the captain of the Poughkeepsie team. Zimmer was not of American Indian descent and explained the genesis for the nickname as follows: "Since we were fleet of foot, we were called the Indians. As I was the head man of the Indians, somebody began to call me 'Chief.' It stuck."〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Chief Zimmer」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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