By MONTE DUTTON

I fooled around and fell in love.

With the NBA.

I barely watched pro basketball as long as the colleges were playing. My brief watches left me thinking the players were just going through the motions.

A schedule of 82 games is tedious. It changes in the playoffs. I recommend watching just the playoffs. They’re about a third as long as the regular season since normally only the Charlotte Hornets don’t qualify. I exaggerate, but has there ever been a city with two more atrocious teams than the Hornets and the Carolina Panthers?

Here’s why the NBA gets a bum rap. The shot clock is shorter, which means there isn’t as much time for the ball movement and spacing I love so much in the college game.

If you’d like to appreciate the NBA, do not, repeat, do not, watch even a few seconds of its All-Star Game, which has devolved into all dunks and three-pointers enhanced by a ban on defense.

That’s not the way it is in the playoffs. It’s serious bidness.

Watching only the playoffs requires study. At first glance, it seems as if every great player is named Jalen (in its many forms), Anthony or Nikola. There are others, but the Lebrons, the Kevins and the Stephs are gone already.

Man, those guys can shoot. If you think they can’t play defense, then you try to score on them.

A ridiculous thought for most of us.

In the early 1980s, I played in a preliminary exhibition matching media members and Meadowlark Lemon & the Bucketeers at Greenwood Civic Center. I hit consecutive shots from outside. One of the tall guys inside sidled up beside me in the lane and said, “You better quit making us look bad.”

I did not get another shot off.

Of course, I’ve got to watch Darlington. It’s my favorite track. When they flip-flopped the straights but not the press box, I started calling it The Track Too Tough to Cover, so I guess if I was going to pick one track to see a race live now, it would be Martinsville, my second favorite track.

There’s more benefit to being at Martinsville live. TV does not adequately convey the speed. On TV, sometimes it looks like a race in the Christmas Parade, but the speed seems unbelievable for big cars on a little track if you’re there.

I do wish I could walk through the tunnel and around the first turn to the Raceway Grill for a hamburger steak on qualifying day. I miss meeting friends for the Shrimp & Grits at the Redbone Alley in Florence.

I wonder if those places are even still there.

Sometimes friends call and tell me I ought to go back and cover Darlington because they know how much I love it, but, when my job was eliminated, I said I’d only return if there was a paycheck to earn from it, and I’m a man of my word.

Darlington was where my old man took me when I was a chap, and my old man isn’t around anymore.

My first Darlington adventure was when I was 12 years old, when I saw Cale Yarborough ride the guardrail in the Wood Brothers Mercury and Buddy Baker win in Cotton Owens’ burnt-orange Dodge Daytona with a flat-black roof.

The worst tourist destinations have the best race tracks, but for real NASCAR fans,

Darlington and Martinsville are tourist destinations.

Right off the bat, literally, Laurens gave Jordan Hudson more runs than he was ever going to need on Saturday evening.

The stocky lefthander was in complete charge as the Raiders advanced to the Upstate finals of the Class 4A baseball playoffs with a 5-1 victory over Catawba Ridge (26-5), the Fort Mill school that eliminated Laurens (24-6) a season ago.

Hudson turned in a complete game, allowing only two hits and three walks, his performance marred only by a third-inning solo homer by the Copperheads’ Aiden Cattarin. Hudson struck out 12.

After Hudson mowed down Catawba Ridge on two grounders and a strikeout in the top of the first inning, the Laurens offense went to work.

Raiders center fielder Zay Pulley fouled off Caden Glauber’s first two pitches, then launched a double. Second baseman Hunter Nabors bunted Pulley to third. Catcher Bennett Edwards lashed Glauber’s first offering for a triple to right.

After taking a strike, designated hitter Asher Goss homered to dead center field. A bit rattled, Glauber walked the next two batters before ending the inning with the first of his seven strikeouts.

Raiders, 4-nil.

Glauber (L) and Bryce Meil each pitched three innings and Laurens only totaled six hits. Two apiece by Pulley, Edwards and Goss. Four of them counted for more than a base. Goss doubled and homered. Pulley doubled. Edwards tripled. Goss and Edwards each drove in two. Pulley, Nabors, Edwards, Goss and Coleman Coker scored the runs.

The Raiders left runners on second and third when Glauber struck out the side after Goss doubled and Coker walked.

In the fourth, however, Laurens added an unearned run in the fourth inning when Nabors reached on an error and scored on Edwards’ double.

Thanks to Hudson, who ended game with three straight K’s, Catawba Ridge offered little to write about. Cattarin’s homer and Peyton Dhein’s single were the only hits.

The Raiders also swiped five bases, one apiece by Ben Willis, Nabors, Pulley and Zee Williams.

Next up for Laurens? Easley (25-4) visits Ed Prescott Field on Monday at 6:30 p.m. in the opening game of the best-of-three Upstate finals. The Raiders reached this point a season ago, when Catawba Ridge defeated them two straight and went on to the 4A championship.

Ring the church bells in all the Presbyteries.

Having mastered the deep blue sea, Presbyterian finally won a baseball game against the devil on Saturday afternoon, conquering The Citadel, 9-6, at Elton Pollock Field.

The evening before, the Bulldogs had ended a nine-game losing streak with a 12-7, come-from-behind win.

Presbyterian (26-24) is 15-6 in its native conference and, now, 1-5 against teams from the Southern Conference, of which The Citadel (18-30), Wofford and Western Carolina are members. The Bulldogs are 1-17 in the SoCon and 6-6 against the Big South.

The Blue Hose are playing the Citadel in Charleston on Sunday at noon.

On a weekend in which Presbyterian is playing a non-conference series, most other Big South schools are playing one another. The Blue Hose, as of Saturday night, maintain their half-game lead over High Point (14-6) and game edge over USC Upstate (15-8). USC Spartanburg has moved into a tie with Charleston Southern at 10-10 for fourth place, which determines eligibility for the Big South tournament, May 23-25 in High Point, N.C.

Center fielder Joel Dragoo belted his 16^th homer and catcher Jackson Hugus his fifth as the teams swapped the lead in the early going. With the Bulldogs leading 4-2, Presbyterian scored three times in the fifth inning, two in the sixth and two in the seventh.

Both teams collected 10 hits. Jay Wetherington and Dragoo each had two. Wetherington, Brody Fahr and Noah Lebron laced doubles. Fahr, Dragoo and Hugus each drove in two.

Tristan McGregor (6-3) picked up the win in relief of Charlie McDaniel. Yechiel Saint earned his first save with two shutout innings.

Luke Kissenberth (0-2), the third of five Citadel hurlers, took the loss.

Shortstop Sawyer Reeves homered, and Travis Elliott tripled for the Bulldogs. Reeves, Elliott and Wells Elliott each had two hits.

Take a look at the box here.

Decision time is approaching. What’s next? Do I keep doing it the way I am now? Do I amend this site? Do I continue to concentrate on local sports coverage, or do I change my priorities?

I’m thinking. I’m thinking.

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