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Associated Press reports from Pennsylvania on the mine accident:<p> Within hours of the accident, state mine officials said that underground maps of Pennsylvania coal country were notoriously sketchy. The adjacent mine, the Saxman, was abandoned in the 1950s and had filled up with rain and storm runoff over the decades. <p>***OK.***<p>A retired miner, Joseph Jashienski, said the map being used by the miners was wrong because of improper mining techniques used in the Saxman the day before it was abandoned. <p>***OK***<p>Jashienski, 89, said the Saxman Coal and Coke Co. gathered all the coal it could that day by using a machine to carve out a large space in the shape of a baseball diamond. <p>***Huh?***<p>He said the now-deceased mine superintendent who made the map left that detail out. <p>***So?***<p>"He didn't want anybody to know he made a ballfield the last day of work," said Jashienski, who declined to identify the manager. "If you put on the map that you made a ballfield, the state inspector is going to wonder what you are doing."<p>***As might we, 52 years later. Not a clue here what Mr. Jashienski is talking about, but our AP editors apparently think it's clear.***<p> <p>Scott Roberts, the head of the mineral resource management division of the state Department of Environmental Protection, said he wasn't aware of Jashienski's claim but said it sounded valid. <p>***SOUNDED valid? Based on what?***<p>"Those type of things happen," Roberts said.<p>***WHAT type of things?***<p> "I wouldn't dispute what he said a bit. If he mined in it, he's firsthand information." <p>***Roberts apparently was so certain of this, our reporter declined to question him further.***
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