"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 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 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. …
By MONTE DUTTON (Monte Dutton photos) Click here. Wofford, from the Southern Conference, and High Point, of the Big South, each won baseball games in the NCAA regionals. Neither won another, but it’s damn good for a low major. The schools that play FCS football prefer to call themselves in other sports as “mid-major,” which …
By MONTE DUTTON Peyton Spangler closes a parley on the junior-varsity mound. (Monte Dutton photos) Click here. As has been widely rumored and thinly dismissed, Sean McCarthy is no longer head baseball coach at Clinton High School. As has been widely anticipated, Peyton Spangler is head baseball coach of the Red Devils. He is known …
By MONTE DUTTON A Wilder Stadium Friday night (Monte Dutton photo) Click here. Sports ain’t real, man. It’s better than real life. Most of my life has been devoted to it. I’ve relished that it’s not real. It’s microcosmic, perhaps in too many ways. I fear it’s becoming macrocosmic. True Grit isn’t a real depiction …
Continue reading County Signs: The sporting life and the real one
Sandro Guzman answers questions from WLBG's Mike Hughes (Monte Dutton photos). Click here. Sandro Guzman has only wrestled competitively for two years. He came in when Clinton High School started a team. That’s not where it stops. The Red Devil senior signed a letter of intent on Tuesday to grapple with the Blue Hose of …
Continue reading County Signs: Clinton wrestler commits to PC
By MONTE DUTTON Laurens catcher Bennett Edwards during the national anthem (Monte Dutton photos) Click here. Baseball had quite a run in Laurens County, and it’s weird to write that before it’s June, but I’ve got to acclimate myself to the rest of it because mostly I’ve been paying attention to the Blue Hose, Raiders …
