By MONTE DUTTON Out at the plate (Monte Dutton photos) Click here. I did something I haven’t done since COVID. (Knock on wood.) I went to a movie. I munched popcorn in a cool arena with an enormous screen and thunderous sound. My previous movie, in the late fall of 2019, was Ford v. Ferrari. …
Tag: humor
County Signs: To everything, there is a season
By MONTE DUTTON (Monte Dutton photos) Click here. American Legion baseball is a slight step back. It doesn’t have the tension of high-school ball in the spring. It’s the summer. It’s supposed to be fun. It is. I’ve made quite the transition. For years, when I was away watching fast cars, I occasionally proclaimed that …
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County Signs: Devil Junior Legion beats heat
By MONTE DUTTON Owen Glenn singles to left (Monte Dutton photos) Click here. It was hot. Before the Clinton Post 56 Junior American Legion baseball game on Wednesday – I was standing next to the table at the gate, watching Sean McCarthy take admission – it was possible, if I stood completely still, not to …
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County Signs: Heroes grow absent
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 …
County Signs: Rory goes missing
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. …
Furmanology: The need for speed(ing tickets)
By MONTE DUTTON (Monte Dutton photo) Click here. The United States Open is being played in Moore County, N.C., which is a golf principality. Just to the south is Richmond County, which is a onetime NASCAR duchy. Every time I wrote about a race at Rockingham, I stayed at the Holiday Inn in Southern Pines, …
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County Signs: The Open where I played
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 …
County Signs: Pitch and catch for now
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 …
Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and money
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 …
Furmanology: Baseball from a distance
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 …
Nightrider's Lament 