Clinton, South Carolina, Thursday, May 2, 2019, 8:32 a.m.

Every dog has his day. Even the athletes with the most modest of skills – me, for instance, back in the distance when I tried to be one – have the occasional moment of glory.

The proudest of my memories involve the accomplishments of teams for which I played, but there was one day, late one hot June afternoon, on a softball field at what was once Thornwell Orphanage. In a battle of alleged Baptists, my First team was playing Davidson Street in a church league game. I was playing right field, never a place where an adroit outfielder was sent. Benny Bootle was batting for the Streeters. So vivid is the memory is that I can recall the feel of my white, thick-polyester-woven jersey with navy numbers and FIRST BAPTIST across the front, rubberized in navy. The heavy likelihood, then as now, is that I wore a Red Sox cap.

Benny and I were friends but rivals in sarcasm. Long before I cultivated a lifelong attraction to Furman University, I was a Tiger fan, and Benny was a Gamecock fan. It was not unusual, particularly during basketball season, for the phone to ring, and when I picked it up, I would hear the University of South Carolina fight song.

“It’s for you!” my mother called.

“Who is it?”

“A marching band,” she replied.

“Benny,” I said in a manner similar to the way Jerry Seinfeld would one day say, “Newman.”

We were “ragging” each other. It was long before I heard anyone refer to “trash talk,” but that’s what we were doing, and from long distance. The field was fashioned on land used in the fall by the orphanage, and those who were attending in ever greater numbers as a private school, for its football team to play. The diamond had no fences, but deep in right field, which I was patrolling, old wooden grandstands stood, supposedly impossible for mortals to reach with a softball propelled by a bat.

I dared Benny to hit it to me. He complied with what must have been the greatest blast a bat in his hands ever perpetrated on an oversized spheroid.

I took off running as fast as I could, which wasn’t very, compared to others. I felt intense pressure, given that I had just proclaimed Benny Bootle incapable of hitting a ball over me. I had my back to the plate, tracking that long, towering fly ball. My arms were pumping at my sides. I couldn’t spare them for the fly ball until it arrived. At the last millisecond, I stabbed at it. Miraculously, it landed in my glove, which I ought to have preserved in a glass case rather than later leaving it out in the rain.

Not only was it the greatest play I ever made. It was the only great play I ever made. Even with Benny lumbering around the bases, it would have been an inside-the-park home run, which was the only kind Thornwell yielded.

That was 47 years ago. A great athlete probably wouldn’t even remember it. I can feel the sweat popping out. If I hadn’t made that catch, I’d be hearing about it now, if only from Benny, whom I rarely see and is now known as Ben.

As luck would have it, I did hear about it two weeks ago while I was having a No. 26 at the Mexican joint. A man walked by the booth I occupied, and I recognized him but couldn’t remember his name. I was dreading that “You don’t remember me, do you?” that often causes me to ’fess up and make some disarming comment like, “I can’t place you. Must be getting old,” that happens to be true by sheer coincidence.

But he didn’t say that. He asked instead, “Are you Monte Dutton?”
“Yessir.” I have now reached the age where I most often say “Mister” or “sir” to the dwindling ranks of people I see who are older than I.

“You made the greatest catch I ever saw in a softball game.”

Of course, I knew the one to which he referred. It was the only great catch I ever made in any softball game, or baseball game, or quite possibly, any kind of game. Most of my great catches have occurred while editing features, columns, spot news, blogs and book manuscripts. No one ever saw me make them.

“Thank you, sir,” I said, “but it wasn’t that good.”

 

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The new novel, my eighth, is called Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

Lightning in a Bottle is now available in an audio version, narrated by Jay Harper.