"Why do they [write] for their money? Why do they [work] for short pay? They ain't getting nowhere and they're losing their share. They must have gone crazy back there." — Michael Burton (paraphrased)
By MONTE DUTTON Friday night lights (Monte Dutton photos) Click here. I probably would not have watched the NASCAR Xfinity Series race from New Hampshire. I discovered the Sci Aps 200 was starting on rain tires, which had never been used on an oval. The rain was clearing out. The teams only ran treaded tires …
Continue reading County Signs: ‘Just racin’ (for a while) in the rain …’
By MONTE DUTTON Tanner Finley was untouchable for three innings. (Monte Dutton photos) Click here. It was great to get out. After the usual – writing, assembling, choosing photos, playing guitar, sipping coffee and half paying attention to what’s on the tube – I went off whistle-stopping late Thursday afternoon. First was watching the Junior …
Continue reading County Signs: Post 56 encounters sparse resistance
By MONTE DUTTON FCA Camp at PC (Monte Dutton photos) Click here. I saw several games at Rickwood Field when the Birmingham Barons played there. The Barons have since moved twice and now play in a sparkling downtown stadium. The San Francisco Giants are playing the Saint Louis Cardinals there on Thursday night. One reason …
By MONTE DUTTON Clinton Family YMCA executive director Harold Nichols surrounded by champions (YMCA photos) Click here. I’ve been thinking about this since I heard the news of Willie Howard Mays’ death on Tuesday night. I think three athletes have made me cry. On the way from Fenway Park back to New Hampshire on a …
Continue reading County Signs: Saying bye to the Say Hey Kid
By MONTE DUTTON (Monte Dutton photo) Click here. What an eventful weekend. Bryson DeChambeau won the United States Open in a tournament that was close from start to finish. The winner was really Pinehurst No. 2, which may be the greatest golf course in the world. DeChambeau tried to lose it, and Rory McIlroy succeeded. …
By MONTE DUTTON Presbyterian's Daniel Eagen (Monte Dutton photo) Click here. When the United States Open is played at Pinehurst No. 2, I have a small degree of familiarity. I played it. Or, rather, it played me. Several times. Back when it was Winston Cup, and Rockingham hosted two races a year, an annual junket …
By MONTE DUTTON (Monte Dutton photos) Click here. I washed my face in the morning dew / Bathed my soul in the sun / I washed my face in the morning sun / And kept on moving along Of course, Tom T. Hall wrote it. He didn’t have a morning of 7-on-7s at Clinton High …
By MONTE DUTTON (Caleb Gilbert photo) Click here. I’ve mentioned it before, but among baseball’s many virtues is the incidence of the unexpected. I’ve seen a zillion games and listened to a bajillion. That’s not even counting the softball. Technology multiplies. On Sunday night, I was surfing three college games, one major-league, the end of …
By MONTE DUTTON (Danny Barletta photo) Click here. Surfing the Super Regionals, I heard an announcer yell, “Wow!!! That ball went 110 miles off the bat!!!” I thought, Far out. (I’d just been playing a John Denver song.) In hysterics, of course, the announcer left out “per hour” after miles. I know that announcers do …
By MONTE DUTTON PC's Joel Dragoo (Monte Dutton photo) Click here. The best thing about pro baseball is the crack of the bat. I remember when all bats were wooden. We used them to fend off the dinosaurs. They gave away thousands of them at an annual Atlanta Braves game. I got a Felipe Alou. …
Nightrider's Lament 