By MONTE DUTTON

This might be weird. I feel as if baseball is over.

I haven’t watched so little major-league baseball on TV in more than 25 years. I kept hearing about how great the College World Series was, so I finally watched a couple games, or tried. The former was 24-4, Florida, and the latter 18-4, LSU. I almost stayed awake. I got some guitar reps in. I pondered life.

Baseball has not forsaken me, nor I it.

The local scene has stolen the Boston Red Sox’ thunder, what little there is.

The state championship Clinton Red Devils (26-3) and the Upstate finalist Laurens Raiders (18-11-1) kept me gleefully occupied. No amount of unexpected occurrences could dampen my spirits, which are at their most “shaken, not stirred” when the boys of summer are at play.

I remarked to state Coach of the Year Sean McCarthy that his Clinton team “nickeled and dimed ‘em to death,” and he said sometimes they had to penny ‘em.

The Raiders’ recurring pattern is to improve steadily as the campaign progresses. They opened the playoffs as the eighth seed in an eight-team bracket. They finally fell to Catawba Ridge, 4-0 and 4-2, in the Upstate 4A finals. Tori Patterson has high hopes for next year.

The Red Devils, however, were the ones who never lost after March 29 and won eight straight in the 3A playoffs. Clinton didn’t stand pat, either. The Devils entered the postseason seeded 1^st and proved the evaluators wise.

Which brings me to Thursday, when the Clinton Post 56 Junior American Legion team, mostly a way to keep Red Devils occupied, ended a 3-6 season with a stimulating 5-4 verdict over Newberry.

It’s gear up for football time.

I’m not dreading this. Watching Clinton play baseball was the most fun activity about which I’ve written since, oh, uh, basketball at Furman, and, before that, uh, way back to football at Furman, and, slightly before that, football at Clinton.

All were experiences that left humor, irony, coincidence, metaphors, similes, too much alliteration by yours truly, and all of that is less then 10 percent of the determination, dedication, skill and downright heroism by those who actually do the work and don’t just live through their works and deeds.

All of these extraordinary experiences occurred in the span of a little less than a year. I’ve had half-decades that were less memorable.

In the bottom of the fifth inning, Rhett Gilliam singled in Camden Finley, and that wound up being the difference in Thursday’s game. Jaydon Glenn was the Clinton player with two hits. Tanner Kyko, Zack Lawson and Talan Campbell split the pitching, with Lawson getting a win and Campbell a save. Bryce Young and Dee Suber each stole two bases. Newberry’s Blake Stribble both lost and had the game’s only extra-base hits, a double and a triple, among his three.

No more runs, hits and errors. Not inside the county by youngsters trusted to walk the streets alone.

Soon the pads will be popping again. I enjoy hanging out at practices, wondering where my next slug of water is, about as much as games, particularly before games begin.

I’ve written a baseball novel, The Latter Days, that can be purchased inexpensively at MonteDutton.net, along with other books I’ve written over the years. Insofar as local sports is concerned, you can contribute to the coverage here by contributing either as a patron or by sending a check to DHK Sports, P.O. Box 768, Clinton, S.C. 29325.